Category: Give Yourself Permission To Live Your Best Life

I have been thinking a lot about my growth as a person over the last ten years. Three years ago, I may have said that I had gone backwards in a negative way; however, where I sit today – I feel that I would have been pre-mature in my evaluation had I given up on myself back then.

You see…..there is a parable about a bow and arrow. In order to properly shoot a bow and arrow, you have to first aim, then pull the arrow back, then let go and trust that when you “let go”, you had properly aimed and the arrow was pointed in the correct trajectory.

In 2013, I had a horrible realization. My life had gone badly off course and I needed to re-aim my trajectory or I was in for a really bad problem. So thus began a long journey of re-aiming and re-calibrating. Unfortunately, certain people in my life, that I thought I trusted, were not on board with this transformation that I needed to take in order to be happy with myself. Therefore -the re-aim went a JUUST a tad off course. The first thing I did in my “re-aiming”? I left a consulting job that was slowly pulling me apart at the seams and making me into a person that I did not like.. That re-aim was useful.

I didn’t let go of the arrow just yet after that first re-aim and I realized, after just 10 months, that the first attempt at a new job would not cut it. I hunkered down and found myself a new job, in a new industry. Which I am still in and I now LOVE.

However, the pull back was rough – I endured the realization that things were not how I thought and people were not truthful in ways that cut to the core of my soul. I was afraid that I was going to go way off course and that I didn’t know where I was going to end up. Therefore, I became hyper-alert. Hyper-aware. I found out that in Darwinism, the hyper-alert stayed alive because they needed that trait to get away from predators. This hyper-alertness is good, for a short period. However, when it extends into long periods of time, in which my situation turned into, it becomes debilitation and terrifying.

All this time, I thought that I had let go of the arrow and I had gone WAAAAAAY of course – however, I had not. My inner sprit had protected me and it kept me pulling back…..kept me aiming…..and it didn’t let me let go. It helped me to stay present and intent and alive and a good mom., despite how it looked to the outside world. And it kept me just where I needed to be when I was dealing with the worst of it. I will now tell you that the path I took to where I am now was full of bumps and bruises. However, that path was the pull back I needed in my trajectory.

The pull back that I needed to finally see what was truly wrong in my life: My internal drama. The voice in my head that tells me that I am not enough. It lies.

I am now in a program to improve my emotional intelligence. When I first started this program, my intention was to improve my management skills….to get others to want to follow my lead and to get on board with my ideas. What followed, I didn’t want to admit. I DIDN”T LIKE MYSELF, so WHY would anyone want to follow me if I didn’t even like the person that I was? This was a hard realization to come to, but it was necessary. Because I can now work through the limiting thoughts that are in my head. I thought that the drama was outside myself. That others were creating this drama. However, that just was not true. I was teaching others to treat me by the way that I treated myself. And that treatment, toward myself, was not good.

I am starting a long journey of transformation. And it starts with a vision of the person that I want to be. That vision is my trajectory. And I am aiming high for a life that a deserved all along, I just didn’t realize it.

To be continued……………

There is a Brene’ Brown quote that has been floating around lately. People have been posting it without thought. The end of the quote states “….if your child was ripped from your arms, I would fight for you”.

Would you?

What if you believed that mother didn’t deserve her children based on misconceptions that you heard – would you still help her in her plight? Or would you feel convinced that the children are better off with the little time they have with her and therefore go about your life satisfied that your lack of action was justified?

I love watching the Crown – it is my guilty pleasure – looking into the private workings of the Royal Family. Finding comfort in the fact that much of their history is just as traumatic and toxic as the rest of the world’s.

Everyone deserves the chance to heal and start over. No one deserves to live a life of constant fear, not knowing if your home, your life, your family, your very existence-will be safe tomorrow.

The reality is that history has shown that no place has ever been 100% safe physically. While some areas of the world are more stable than others, there is no guarantee that any life will be safe. It is important to be around others that you know will have your back when things go down. But there is something about that-you see-lots of people are fake. People that live seemingly “good” lives can often be fake. So when a person, who has been racked by events that were caused by people that were lying, now try to find people to trust? How do they go about that? How do they find their allies? It’s a struggle for many and their pleas for others to actually listen, and understand, go unanswered. Perspectives have been changed. Minds have been made up.

Then there is this woman I just recently learned about-Princess Alice.

When I learned about Prince Phillip’s early life, watching The Crowne, I knew there had to be more to the situation with the mother than what was originally shown. Princess Alice’s life is a word of warning, and also of hope, for all of us. She was born in the presence of Queen Victoria, congenitally deaf. Because of her birth defect, she was often misunderstood. Despite this defect, she was able to lip read 4 languages and she married a Greek/Danish Prince (Andrew) in 1903. Her husband was blamed for Greece’s defeat during the Greco-Turkish war and they had to flee Greece and live in exile with their 5 children (the youngest one Phillip).

The Crown series shows Phillip having a recurring flashback of his mother being (violently) removed from their residence and driven away in an ambulance. What an awful thing for a child to see. I don’t know what happened that caused them to remove her that way; however, I feel it was inhumane. From that one moment, Phillip (who obviously loved his mother before the incident) determined that she was no longer valuable as his mother. In that one moment, the insensitive actions of other people put the relationship of a mother and son in jeopardy. If that happened today, would you expect the mother to remain silent?

Phillip struggled with the aftermath for years, nearly causing a divorce between himself and Queen Elizabeth due to his inability to come to terms with the issue. Where was Prince Andrew when this was going down? He was, to me, blatantly absent from that whole experience. Phillip’s sister was the one who comforted him as the ambulance drove away. And Princess Alice, gem that she was, had to deal with the shitstorm she was sent into by herself.

What you don’t understand, in the show, is the trauma that led to the event and the clearly inept psychological care that she received following the trauma. Her husband was nearly executed during the war. She was trying to hold it together, for her children. She looked to the Lord and concurrently sought help from a psychologist (Freud). He labeled her schizophrenic because she was acting erratically and with “religious delusions”. It is important to note that this occurred during Hitler’s reign. What political things might she have mentioned?

I would love to ask Sigmund Freud how HE would act given the same set of circumstances.

When trauma is inflicted on a person…when the situation is such that the person they thought they could trust is no longer real, difficulties in handling several things at once can occur. Unfortunately for Princess Alice-she had to deal with an even worse situation than she left. She was trying to heal her trauma when she initially sought out help. She was also meditating with God. And she told the wrong people her spiritual reality. Thus-the world decided to screw up her life.

But she persevered.

She stayed with the Lord.

She became a nun.

God made her significant.

And at the end of her life, she was able to impact her son’s spiritual life. The sadness I feel regarding the time missed between the two of them is overwhelming. Yet-in the last few years of her life, she impacted him in an extremely profound way.

This story makes me cry and smile at the same time.

Continue reading Fighting for Your Children

Webster’s dictionary defines an advocate as someone who speaks out or fights for another who cannot do so themselves. Advocates comes into play in many different arenas. I would argue that one of the most important opportunities for advocating is for your child. It begins early-at the doctors office, at school, especially when you have a special needs child.

My world has been special since 2007 when my first bundle of joy came into the world. He had a two vessel umbilical cord (sign of genetic mutation) and I had elected not to take the test to rule out things like trisomy 21. At one point, doctors were actually suggesting that I abort my child. However, my inner mother (or inner advocate) kicked in before that child was even born. I shut down those doctors. I told them that God was the only entity that would decide whether the child lived or died. Fast forward to today-my first born is completely healthy; however, he has high functioning autism. But why am I saying however? As Greta Thunberg has shown us, autism can be quite a skill, quite a benefit because they are able to see things others can’t. And the same is true for mine. He truly is a genius mathematically-he multiplies in his head at age 12 things I need to use a calculator for. When the school put him on an IEP in Kindergarden, he tested at a 12th grade level in abstract thinking.

However-he struggles socially.

Socially struggling includes his little brother who has loved him since the day he first laid eyes on him. However, the older one does not often return the sentiment. This can cause some problems of self love for the younger one. Hence the advocate.

Advocating for your child is important and what I love about advocation is that you can do it even when you are miles from your child (as I often am).

It is easy when the people your are advocating for your child with understand your position. However, what happens when people don’t know your life story? When they don’t know how important it is for your kid to see he can get that win (cause he deserves it) and you have to get extra assertive? Why is that so hard? Why do I feel like such a B afterwards? I know my child deserves my fight….yet…somedays I’m left thinking “Why today God?”

My son loves swimming. He wants to be on the swim team (he’s 7, so he has a while before he gets to high school). However, there is a club school that has a team if he can get there. He needs to make his way through the ranks and has expressed an interest in doing so. I can tell that he has a zest for life, that he wants more and to be pushed; however, I have to be careful not to push too hard. On the other hand, I am up against others in his life who don’t see the need to push him at all.

The swim company said that we needed to wait until the following week for him to go to the next level, at that point, because the following week would be the week they move everyone up. However, my son was supposed to have been moved up the previous week and he was not (because he was not with me). Mom advocate kicked in and I decided to put my foot down. This was not following their protocol and that did not make them happy. The fact that I had to push for what my son needed did not make me happy because I have a hard time feeling confident that the situation I am fighting for is worth the fight.

I have been reading about ‘THE SECRET ENEAGRAM” in a book Titled “The Road Back to You”. I determined that I am, at the very core of my being, a type 6 or a “loyalist”. Loyalists are always looking for a way to build safety into their environment without resolving their own emotional insecurities. Therefore, when a situation requires an unhealthy six to initiate a conflict, sixes tend to think that the conflict is not going to go well. So they go into the conflict with an assumption that it is going to end badly. As sixes learn to face their anxieties, however, they begin to understand that the world is always changing and uncertain and sixes can begin to become serene and courageous in any circumstance (including a situation where advocation is necessary).

What I am so grateful about, is that because I had read that book, I was able to stay calm and assertively advocate for my child who truly deserved to move up that day. He needed to see someone fight for him in that way. He needed to see that HE WAS WORTH fighting for. Because he is so much more than the kid that gives up his needs for his older brother.

Some days you just gotta take the win.

I have been angry for a while. Yesterday I worked at Hesed House.

Hesed House is one of our local homeless shelters. It you don’t appreciate what you have, working there for one night makes you appreciate it real quick. You see – at Hesed House, you don’t get to keep your room each day, you have to come back each day and get your room.

I worked the door – I checked people in and gave them rooms. They get to choose their room and many of the men that come to Hesed House would rather wait to go to sleep and put tables up, in order to sleep in quarters where they are watched.

The alternative is sleeping in the upstairs dormitory where there is not a night watchman. They don’t want to risk their lives and sleep up there, they would rather wait, be tired, and clean up the dining room before they sleep there.

For so many years, I have been a part of the rat race. Fearing the very thing that I faced last night. Fearing the end of safety. The problem is that all the work I was doing to keep myself and my family safe, was doing the opposite of safety. It was creating anxiety. It was creating fear.

God doesn’t want us to live in fear. He wants us to live in his power. Anything that we feel that is different than peace is not God. Yet – all these years – I have been giving it power. I continue to give it power.

“God didn’t give us a spirit that makes us weak and fearful. He gave us a spirit that gives us power and love. It helps us control ourselves” – 2 Timothy 1

I spoke to a man last night who cried while he said God Bless you and cried crocodile tears while he stated over and over his gratitude for our willingness to volunteer there. He probably didn’t remember, but the last time I worked at Hesed House, he did the very same thing. He told us that we wouldn’t see him there any more because he had gotten an apartment. God was good and had given him an apartment. He kept pointing his finger in the air at the person he was giving the credit for his apartment.

Have I given God credit for the things that I have accomplished in this life? Some – maybe. But not like that. I didn’t cry crocodile tears and give God all the credit like he did. I am humbled by this man’s gratitude for what God did for him.

This is the thing. None of us are safe from evil. However, we do have the ability to be grateful in the moment for what we have regardless of how much we have lost. We can thank God for everything he has given us and ask him to help us trust him. He loves us and wants us to trust in him.

So this morning, I woke up humbled. Am I still angry? Yes. But I think that my anger has subsided a little bit and that man, who got an apartment and cried crocodile tears thanking me for something that I really didn’t have to sacrifice that much to do gifted me with that. So today I stand in gratitude for a man who doesn’t know what he did for me.

And I point my finger at God thanking him for putting him in my path.

It is amazing how God speaks to us. He sends us messages through scripture if we only will listen and commit to meditating on his word.

Throughout the past few years, I have heard the same message in my mind from God. “Be patient. Let him be. He will see.”

I asked God over and over again to take away the wrath that I was going through. In August of 2017, on a plane, flying back from Nashville, I heard and clear and resounding “NO”. It was disconcerting to hear that no from him. I didn’t understand it. I had done everything my parents and asked of me, gotten a good job, left the house and Started my career early. Found a man, got married. I was faithful. I was loyal-gave him everything I had. Money, love, my time, my intellect. Despite that, I was not good enough.

Why, when I had tried to make it work, was God going to let me struggle? It made no sense.

However, God has told me over and over – be patient. Don’t let them change you. Let me be the one to make the way. You don’t understand.

This morning, I read a devotional about Lot’s wife. The woman who turned to a pillar of salt when she looked back at the burning Sodom. God had given specific instructions to not look back. He was rescuing the family from this place and he didn’t want them to have one foot in both places. He wanted them to be completely devoted to him. Sodom was a place Wroght with greed and lust. I can’t resist making comparisons to the world we are living in today.

Lot’s wife looked back-she didn’t want to lose the life she had and then she lost it. But Lot wasn’t innocent. What I find amazing is that the VERY day that I read that devotional in the morning, I received a book, from my church, written by a Catholic Bishop, who talked about the SAME story!

Can you believe it? This cannot be coincidental. God must want me to get a message here. In the book, he talks about how lot offered up his daughters to protect the three angels from being raped by the men of Sodom. Not really a good choice to make.

God’s purpose is completely opposite of this. And the Bible shows this because the angels came and struck those men from Sodom blind.

My point here is this-both of the spots in which I read this message were read in either a book or a devotional by a catholic bishop or Deacon. The very church that I left for almost 15 years due to the very idea of sexual immorality. However, the church is willing to admit it’s wrongdoings and work to fix them.

I ask this question of myself and others: are we willing to admit our own mistakes, repent, turn to God, and never look back?