The Mental Load

If you have been reading my posts or checking in with me in person, you might have gathered that I have been on the struggle bus. I recently described it to some friends as feeling like Charlie Brown with a rain cloud following me wherever I go. I do not want to be in eternal rain cloud land but wherever I go, there it is. Thankfully this isn’t my first rain cloud rodeo and I know that rain clouds don’t last forever, I cannot control when the cloud comes or goes, and the cloud always shows up to teach me something.

This was not an average year for me. I started over at a new job. No matter how seasoned I feel in my profession, starting over at a new place is always stressful. It is work to learn a new building, new culture, new procedures, new curriculum, and navigate new relationships. I’m very glad I chose this new job, but there is no getting around the learning curve of the first year. It added a pile onto my already full mental load. My two youngest entered middle school and both did cross country, track and travel soccer. My oldest had her last year of college and graduated in May and just moved into a new apartment to start her internship. Did I mention that there was a deadly school shooting on my daughter’s college campus not far from where she lived? Our family’s emotional needs were HIGH this year.

In an article in Psychology Today, the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Reseach says that “In recent years, sociologists have attempted to study another aspect of women’s household workload: the mental work of keeping a family running. You can think of it as the brain power that goes into running a household such as remembering to stop for a gallon of milk on the way home, keeping track of the registration deadline for a kid’s activity, or supporting children’s emotional ups and downs.” (2021). We are learning that a majority of this work can fall to women in a married household. Well when you are the household because you are divorced, you get it all. The nature of my job is to be a caregiver of many children and their families, so the last part about supporting emotional ups and downs is multiplied many times over for me. I’d love to say that I check my job duties at the door but I do not, I cannot.

I have a few other special qualities that make the mental load of life feel like a Charlie Brown rain cloud at times. I am particularly sensitive to judgement, criticism, and negativity because of my trauma history. My brain is hard wired for protection and I have an uncanny ability to hear tone, remember words, and make connections between words and actions. If you comment on people’s larger bodies all the time in a negative way, I understand that you think less of me because my body is large. You don’t have to say it to me, I can feel it. If you have nothing nice to say around me, I will assume that you are unhappy with me and that I need to change something in our dynamic so that you will be more positive. My brain will always think it is my fault, my job and add it to my to do list: my mental load. I really have to be in a healthy space, be attuned to my body and very connected to myself to be able to interact in a healthy way with many people.

I am being tested soon to see if I have ADHD. This was not on my radar until this year when I started seeing a new therapist. She brought it up as a possibility and gave me a preliminary screener. I scored a 95% on the test and that mean I likely have a pretty good case of ADHD. This might mean that there is a medical reason for my inability to cope with my mental load at times. It is not a moral failure, it is a brain malfunction. I don’t know how to feel about this yet. I have so many feelings about it, but one of the biggest feelings is relief because on the top of my mental load to do list was always to figure out how to cope with my mental load. I was always failing. Turns out there may be good reason I fail and I might be able to cross that off my list soon.

Speaking of crossing things off the mental load list, I have been doing just that for the last few weeks. A talk with my therapist helped me understand that I can take steps to decrease my mental load just by looking around my home. Anything that I walk by and have to add it to my to do list can be adding to my mental load. I did not understand this at first so I made a list. I started in my closet. There were so many clothes hanging in there that required thought. Why did those jeans still have a tag on them? Oh right I was going to keep them in case I lost 10 lbs because then they might fit. That reminds me, I should lose 10 lbs. That reminds me I should get that treadmill set up in the basement so I can workout to try to fit in those jeans. That reminds me, you can’t just workout, you have to diet, do I have the right groceries to diet? You can see the mental load mountain building and that was just one pair of jeans.

The more I looked the more the mountain grew. I had craft projects I had been meaning to finish from 8 years ago. I had papers that hadn’t been filed or shredded in years. I had toys in the garage from when my children were little that they never played with anymore. When I thought about one single thing, say a craft project, it was a string that led to a deeper tangle every time. If I wanted to finish making a sign I had bought supplies for I had to get out the vinyl and the Cricut machine. I haven’t used the machine in a while and it needs a software update. Now they have changed how the program works and I have to relearn that. I don’t have enough of the vinyl color I wanted so I’ve got to run to the craft store. At the craft store I see they are having a yarn sale, that reminds me that I have that blanket to finish, what specific color of brown was that yarn? This looks close enough so I buy it, get it home and it is not the right color. Now I have two unfinished projects and yarn to take back, but who am I kidding, I won’t and I’ll just add it to the mountain of yarn I have that reminds me that I never have time to knit anymore.

Mountain of yarn

My mission for the last few weeks was to clear the things that take me down the rabbit hole of the mental load. I took papers to be shredded, I am renting a dumpster to throw away all the things that we do not need anymore. I am finishing jobs that can easily be finished and I am hiring people to do the ones that I do not have the skill or capacity to do myself. It has been so difficult but it feels so good. I feel the strings attached to all the things being cut as I throw out the root. Those jeans that took me down the rabbit hole are now at the resale shop waiting for a new owner. Why keep something that gives me two new jobs. If something doesn’t fit, I can get rid of it instead of giving myself the job of diet and exercise. I can choose to diet and exercise if I want to but I really don’t need another job right at the moment.

I’m cleaning up relationships also. I am taking time to untangle myself from other people. That means that I need to know if being around you feels good or if being around you adds to my mental load. If being around you makes me feel like I need to fix me, I need to figure out why. If being around you drains me or fills me, I need to figure out why. I’m cutting all those strings that lead me to mental load mountains and it is hard. It is lonely. It will be worth it. Sometimes it is as simple as just recognizing the mental load associated with that person. My children have an immense mental load and I gladly take it on (but do sometimes complain about it-hint: travel soccer) because they are my people. They bring joy and love along with their needs. My pets add to my load but they also bring me companionship and humor. I’ve heard that the secret to relationships is boundaries. Learning those is part of the mental load I am willing to take on because the end result will be peace.

The bottom line for me is that my cloud is shrinking. First I became aware of the cloud, then I talked about the cloud with people who could help me with it. Then I accepted the cloud, made friends with it almost. I had to sit in the rain and feel how it felt to be in it. Now I am learning what to do about the cloud and the rain. I’m changing what I can and that is all I can do. Someone just rang my doorbell and I answered it in my bathrobe at 2pm. It was a friend and her family just wanting to say hello. I’m sure I looked like I had been battling the rain cloud to them, because I had, but they were a little ray of sun that let me know that the clouds will clear, the sun will shine, and I can take control of my mental load so that it doesn’t control me.

Entering the Darkness

Winter Of The Heart

These pages have been frozen and this site unopened since June. I was hiding, hibernating, wintering, healing, surviving. Call it what you want but I am out of sync with the world. It was a strange feeling to be wintering in the summer, to be wintering for longer than the season, but no matter the season, this is where I have been residing.

It has taken all of my energy to just live. I know that most people feel that way because our society has created an unsustainable grind culture, and I feel that as well. My experience is deeper, though, and if you have ever done personal healing work, you will know the exhaustion of wintering as few others do.

Some, including me, have wondered if I’m just depressed. The answer is yes, I am depressed, and I am in treatment for that, but this is different. This is surgery. This is cutting down deep to the hidden things while you are awake and living and breathing. It is opening your chest cavity up and leaving it open for an extended period of time to extract the black cancer of trauma and pain that has lived and entangled itself in you for all of your life.

You show up at work with a heavy coat of armor covering your big open wound. You arrive to soccer practice and cheer even though every breath hurts. You cook the dinners, buy the things, smile, laugh, and love with your chest wide open. No one knows that just living and breathing takes great effort. It is a hidden wound.

The truth is, you don’t want people to know. What a tender, tender wound. How could you risk anyone knowing and taking advantage of your wide openness? Those who know have to be trusted with your very life. There are a few and what a relief to take off your armor and have someone gently embrace you knowing how to tenderly hold you, wounds and all.

I’m caring for myself, loving myself, learning myself. I’m navigating my way through this extraction of darkness as best I can. I’ve not been shy or quiet about my troubles and pain and my healing on here. Writing is a therapy for me and sharing is a hope for me. I hope that sharing brings light into the dark places that we are afraid to talk about. I certainly do not like when near or total strangers know my deep, dark, personal thoughts but I heard in recovery that secrets and sickness grow in dark places and that they heal in the light. My hope is that someone reading this will see light where before there was only darkness. My hope is also that you never feel sorry for me and this struggle or treat me with fragility because I shared. If you are not the one that sees me in person without my armor on, then we carry on as usual because I have a life to live.

I struggle so much with that paradox of sharing my heart and then protecting it at all costs. It is a strange place to be, but I also learned in recovery that it is possible to let down your walls and share your story in a safe place, then put on your armor to go out into the wild, terrible world. So while I sit in this chair, in front of this screen, I imagine a sacred space between me and you, were it is safe to share and believe that my sharing my experience may help you in this intimate energy I’m creating. I’m happy to talk about what I write in a planned intimate setting with someone, but it is hard when I am spilling my coffee carrying 7 bags into work and someone says they read my post. I feel exposed. I feel vulnerable. I feel like I did something wrong. I don’t know how to do both, share and then accept feedback in person, but I’ll continue because discomfort is part of vulnerability.

So I’m in eternal winter, and I’m resisting the urge to label it as wrong or unhealthy or something that needs to be fixed. I’m in the middle of transitioning therapists and it has been such a positive experience. I am reaching so far into the darkness and exposing it to the light. It is the deepest work I have done to date and I’m incredibly emotional about it. I am healing my heart. I am healing my inner child. I am healing my past. I am changing who I get to be. I know that my healing will send ripples out into the universe. It will change my children. It will change my family. It will change my friends and my sweet love. It will change my co-workers and students. It will change everything.

I’m eternally grateful for the fire keepers who have kept me warm in this harsh winter. I’m grateful for my Al-Anon program that feeds my soul and feeds my bravery, and is always a safe place to land. I am grateful for grace, forgiveness, grocery pick up and robot vacuums. I am beyond grateful for professional therapists who do no harm and guide me through this. And I’m grateful for an understanding partner who listens with an open heart full of love for me.

If this post has touched your heart and you want to talk to me about it, send me a message or a comment, and we can set up a time to connect. You can leave a heart in the comment section to let me know that the light is being shone in the the darkness. If you see me with 7 bags and spilling coffee or pulling in hot at the soccer game, keep it to yourself. I’m not bearing my soul in the wild world-no way-it’s not safe out there.

The High Cost of Fuel

Just like gas prices, the energy demands on a person have never been higher.

The school year is over and it is summer break for me as a teacher. I have no other way to explain how I feel except that I am out of gas, energetically speaking. The tank is empty. As life would have it, I was also literally out of fuel on the last day of school. I had to fill up my tank. I had heard that Costco had the cheapest gas prices so I went there. It still cost me over $100 to fill up my tank. I don’t know that I’ve ever paid over $100 for a full tank of gas before. It was a little shocking and made me think twice about where I would drive and how far I would go with these prices.

My answer, for the most part, has been to give it a rest. I have been giving my car a rest and not driving many places, and I have been giving myself a rest by not doing many things. It has been a little less than a week since I’ve not been working and I still feel empty. Today, as I was drinking coffee and trying to figure out how to fuel up to get done what I wanted and needed to get done today I realized that I’m not sure how to fuel up.

This year at work, I had never worked so hard for so long on a nearly empty tank. I’m not sure I ever filled up. It was like every night I put just enough fuel in to get me through the next day. I didn’t have a quarter of a tank let alone a half or full tank. The energy I was putting out did not equal the energy I was putting back in. I honestly tried but I didn’t have that ability to put more in my tank than what felt like a few dollars a day.

I know that some can relate with the gas prices as they are right now. Some people will tell you, hurry up and fill up now while gas is under $5/gallon but you only have $10 to put in the tank that day. The day you get paid the prices have risen and you get less for your money. It is a cycle and you can’t get out because you only have enough to survive.

I’ve been in the pace of living paycheck to paycheck and the stress is overwhelming. You feel like you will never get ahead and that you can never take a break to breathe or fuel/save up. It is just the daily grind of getting just enough. That is how I felt energetically this year. Does it matter who is to blame for the prices of fuel being so high? Is there one thing in particular that is causing it? To be honest, I’m too tired to find out about why gas prices are too high right now. If I’m honest, I know it is probably many factors and one of them is that big systems profit and individuals suffer. Well, don’t I know how that feels being a teacher? The system will require all that I have to give and more without any thought to how it affects me personally.

One of my survival instincts is to go along to get along. I want to be good, perfect, give my all, and help no matter what. I think it can be a very good quality to have. I have a lot of care and concern for others and want to help them. I can get caught up in this way of living, and working, at my own expense. I will give you gas from my tank because you tell me you need it. I will give it to your family because they need it too. I will give it to the next person because well, I’ve got a quarter of a tank and you tell me your fuel light its on. Surely I have the heart to give from my stores for you. As long as I have a drop or a fume left, I feel I have an obligation to share it with you if you need it.

This year, there was no shortage of me giving of myself thinking others needed my time, energy, problem solving skills, help, and support more than I did. I passed out my fuel all willy nilly. I put $5 in the tank every night just to give out $9 in gas to everyone else. I was running on fumes daily and acting like I had a full tank for the taking. I wanted to blame everyone else for this problem. I wanted someone to notice and say that it wasn’t fair and offer to fill me up with fuel. The problem was I was surrounded by so many who were also on empty and had no ability to fill anyone up. Also, it isn’t supposed to work that way.

The problem is actually in my thinking. The way that I think is learned trauma induced codependency, over-responsibility to others, and weak boundaries. Many would not think that this is a problem, mostly because it is of great benefit to them if I continue living my life this way. I’m Costco on sale. I have super low prices on fuel, in fact, I’m losing myself by not charging enough for my time, energy, or expertise. Is that anyone else’s fault? Maybe. Can I control anyone else? Can I change an entire broken system? Can I change a world that expects me to be the cheapest place in town for fuel? No.

I did realize last week that I can only control me. I set my prices. I’m in charge of my fuel tank, my energy reserves. I recognize that I am on empty at the moment. I am realizing that there is no quick trip to repair how I have lived this year. There is no quick fill up and even if there was, I don’t have the means to fill up all at once right now. I am going to work on accepting my energy level as it is right now. I am going to work on accepting what happened and what I allowed this year, personally and professionally. I am going to work on resting even when that is in direct opposition to what I want to do and what the world seems to be doing at the beginning of summer. I am going to really look at my fuel prices and the value of what I have to offer versus what I charge or give away for free. I am going to take a hard look at what energy I save for those I love most. They (myself included) deserve the best of me, not what is left over.

My first thought is to go straight into major changes and big moves. I do not, however, have the energy for big moves and major changes. I need to start with the things in my ability and energy level that I can change. The first is to think of boundaries I need around my tank. I must exercise my “no” muscle. That includes doing more work or committing to more work than I have energy for. It includes asking for help. I need to surround myself with people who are able to fill their own tanks and not those walking around with siphons ready to attach themselves to my tank. I need to ignore the ridiculous notion that just because it is summer I have to be busy and do all of the summer things or I’m wasting my “summer off”.

Looking to the future, I need to decide how will I protect my energy no matter who is around me and how badly they need fuel. I need to realize that giving away what I need for myself isn’t loving to anyone. I need to realize that a big organization will gladly suck an individual dry to keep itself running and decide how much I let them take from me before I say no more.

My prices will be going up on my energy. Not because I don’t care but because I do. I care about myself. If I don’t care about me, no one will. I have to look for the things and people who help fill my tank up without also giving what they don’t have. Resourced people are hard to find these days but I want to be one of them. I want to put out the closed sign when I’m running low and not put the open sign back up until I have ample reserve.

So if you see me this summer, staring at a sunset, putting my feet in the water, drinking coffee or reading a book, leave me alone. Do not ask me to stop doing those mundane, easy, beautiful things in service of you or a system. Mind your business. I am filling up. I am toning my muscles. I am getting larger and better. If I tell you no, it is out of love, self love. We all need to respect that more. If you ask me to drive a long way, you better have fuel where I’m headed because gas prices are too high right now for empty trips. Miss me with your urgency or your desperation. I am on E and my low fuel light is on. I’m aware that there is no finger to point except at myself, so I have personal work to do. Yelling at the system won’t help, but refusing to take my normal place in the system does have an impact. This won’t be easy, I’m asking for grace. May you have it too.

Surviving or Living?

What do I do when I slip back into survival mode instead of living?

I have been recovering from codependency, loving addicts and alcoholics, and my past for the past 18 years. I’m not talking little bits of self care like bubble baths and face masks. I’m talking wake up everyday and do the hard work of recovery. I have been looking at my life and myself with rigorous honesty. I have attended recovery meetings for family and friends of alcoholics weekly. I have turned my will and my life over to a Higher Power that I spent years learning to trust and believe in. I have read books, went on retreats, have seen numerous therapists, journaled and prayed for 18 years.

I have looked back on, examined, relived, and healed many parts of my past that were traumatic. I have learned to say no and I have learned to walk away when something or someone is not good for me anymore. I have loved, grieved, cried, gotten honest and faced and did all of the hard things placed in front of me.

I have crawled through glass to get to a place where I am not surviving, I am living. It was worth every bit of hard work, every cut and scrape. Living is beautiful. Feeling is brutiful (brutal and beautiful). Loving is sacred and a gift. Leaving is honoring the truth.

The past few months I find myself in a backslide into survival. I’m not eating well. I’m not exercising. I’m not keeping up with the house. I am not seeing friends or doing things that I love. I cannot sit down without my eyes crossing and my body drifting to sleep. I don’t have the energy for anything. My weekends and evenings are spent trying to stay on top of household tasks. People ask me for things and I promptly forget to do them. I can’t think critically or creatively and words escape me when I need them.

I’m not going to live this way, it is not in fact living. I’m killing myself for something that would not return the favor. I’m being sucked back into a life I left and a way of living that nearly broke me. Give, give, give. Take it over and over and over again no matter the damage it does to your heart and soul. Believe the promises that it won’t always be this way and keep the hope alive that someday will come before you break. I don’t know what to do just yet but I know I have to choose me. I have to choose health. I cannot tell you how disappointed I feel in myself that I find myself here after all of the work I’ve done. That is life, no one is exempt from it, but you can make choices that put you first.

I cannot remember the last time I felt happy, rested, fulfilled and respected but I know I have. Once you have felt that in your life, you cannot go back to a place where it is absent and be content. I will do what it takes. I will trust my Higher Power to lead my path even though it might take me in a direction that I do not understand yet. Pain is a great motivator. I know when it shows up in my life that I have to pay attention to it because it comes with a lesson. Lessons do not go away, they circle around and around until they are mastered. I only get this one life. I will not just survive it.

Compassion in Dark Times

Being gentle with yourself can be the hardest thing to do when things get dark. Do it anyway.

This is the time of year for me when things get dark. Outside it is literally gray and dark and cold most of the time. Inside it is equally dark and gray most years for me. January/February will not ever be the same for me and I have to accept that. My cells in my body will not allow me to forget the darkness of these last few days of January leading into February. There is a heaviness, a grief, a weight that sits on me and pulls me down no matter where I am or what I am doing. This year, the dark feels darker, the grief feels deeper, the weight feels heavier.

On January 30, 2011, my ex-husband and father of my oldest child passed away suddenly. He was 35 years old. It has been ten years. It still feels unreal. I can be knocked back to that place in my mother’s home getting that phone call in a heartbeat. I can never forget telling my child. I won’t ever forget either. It changed us forever. It changed so many people forever. It was tragic. It still is.

Over the years I have had different ways of coping with the grief of that day. Many years I was distracted and I ignored the heaviness. Other years I was undone with grief, barely able to function. Some years I celebrated him and our love and our child with deep gratitude and happiness along with feeling the loss. This year, it feels heavy. Maybe because it has been ten years. Maybe because I’m going through personal loss and a rearrangement of my life. Maybe because our world feels hostile and cold. Maybe because death surrounds me on a daily basis with insane amounts of life lost due to a global pandemic. Maybe because what used to be everyday, routine decisions feel risky. Maybe because some of the people who would routinely love on me and support me can’t be around me for our own protections.

This is tough. I want hugs from my people more than I want to eat sometimes and I cannot hug them. I want to sit in the presence of people who love, support and lift me up and that isn’t available to me right now. This pandemic is so isolating and is depriving me of some of my very basic human needs. Yes I have the love and support of my immidiate family-but this is their wound too. This is their pain and grief as well. It would be unreasonable of me to burden my children with my grief. Their hugs and love and support are appreciated and needed but this is a bigger job than that. Physical touch and being in the presence of people with strength, love, hope, and good solid energy is healing. It can lighten your grief, it can make you feel held, it can fill up your cup. Missing out on that for the last 10 months has been devestating. I hug my people. I love on my friends. I enjoy sitting close with my friends and sharing conversations standing in a close circle with co-workers in hallway. I miss seeing smiles and standing close enough to someone to feel their energy or reach out and grab their hand.

The layers of grief this year have to be processed. They have to be felt or it builds up inside and comes out wonky. What does that mean? It means if I don’t cry for the loss of physical touch, I might start spending all my nights watching internet videos to feel connected to something, but not sleeping, which would be a more loving thing to do. If I don’t scream out in anger when I feel mad, I might lose my patience with my children or my students because it is sitting just below the surface, I never let myself process it. I’ve found the safest place to yell into the void is in the car or the beach (when no one else is there). I cry everywhere and I cry often. I am crying as I write at times because writing is a release, for me a way to process what is happening.

This global pandemic has taken away from me many of my coping strategies. It is important for me to grieve that too and to find new ways of dealing in this new reality. Going to Al-Anon meetings is one of my most important self-care actions. I love the hugs, the deep sharing, the courage, and the holding of hands in a circle at the end. There is magic in it. For long periods of time, we have had to meet online. If we are able to meet in person it is six feet away from any other person, no hugs, no seeing smiles because they are covered by masks, and no circle of hands at the end. I miss it so much.

I used to get a massage once a month. It helped me release all of the things I was storing as tension in my body and to experience safe, therapeutic touch. I haven’t gotten a massage in over a year. I bought myself a little machine that can massage your back and neck and I use it often. It is great but it is not a substitute for a person’s healing touch. I made a personal decision not to expose myself to another outside appointment after deciding that getting my hair done was more important to me. It may seem like a silly loss, but I grieve it just the same.

Going out to dinner with a good friend or a group of friends used to be a welcome outlet for times when the world got too heavy. We would eat, drink, and be merry. I miss laughing and feeling free over the hum of a restaurant full of people. Sometimes that collective energy reminds us of our connectedness with others and how a collective energy can be intoxicating and life-giving. Sometimes that breaking of bread breaks us open enough to share what is in our heart and on our minds with others who can love and support us. We are missing out on that right now. Sitting at a restaurant for hours with friends right now carries with it a risk of endangering the people we love, and that kind of takes the fun out of it.

So what do I do now that these and so many other things I used to do for self-care and to ease my burdens are gone? I have to get creative. I have to reach deep in the well of self-compassion, for myself and deep in the well of compassion for others. Self-compassion for me can take on many forms but really what I need to ask myself all the time is, what is the most loving thing I can do for myself and then do that. What are loving things I can do for myself? Everyday is different but here are some examples.

Taking a nap when I’m tired

Calling a friend or a mentor

Exercise or gentle movement

Reading a book, snuggled in a blanket, sitting by the fire

Going out in nature, especially the forest or the beach for me

Reading something uplifting

Knitting

Drawing or painting

Walking the dog

Listening to a meditation, a podcast or solfeggio frequencies

Dancing to loud music

Looking at beautiful things (in real life or on the internet)

Taking a bath or a hot shower

Journaling or writing

Letting myself have a good cry or screaming into the void

Giving myself a big hug or wrapping myself up in a warm blanket

Writing myself a kind note and encouraging myself with words I would use for a friend that was struggling

Seeing my therapist regularly

Attending a weekly recovery meeting

Sitting under my light therapy lamp

Petting the dog or cats

Not visiting Facebook or social media if it makes me feel less than or steals my peace

If you sit down right now and make a list of all of the things in this moment that are stressing you out or causing you grief or contributing to your upset, you might be surprised at how long the list is. January may not be your time of darkness for the same reasons as mine, but it may be dark just the same. If you really sat down in the darkness, would you know how to take care of yourself there? Do you avoid the darkness, your darkness, because you don’t think you will survive it if you let yourself feel it? Do you not think you have the time? I understand. I have been in all of those spaces and had all of the excuses and all of the avoidant strategies. It did not save me from feeling my grief. It comes every year and honestly most days to visit me. I used to slam the door, pretend it wasn’t there and find ways to numb it or distract myself from it. It waited for me. Really. It just built up time after time until it nearly broke me and I had no choice but to face it. It was as bad as I thought it would be. It hurt so bad. It was white hot pain. The only thing that shocked me in the end is that it didn’t kill me. I lived and I still do. I survived it and I still do. I felt it and I processed it and I still do. I am capable of so much more than I believe I am. I am so much stronger than I let myself believe, and you are too.

Compassion is a super power. It is stronger than grief. It is stronger than anger. It is even stronger than loneliness. It can come from others but most importantly it can come from yourself. Do not withhold this power from yourself. It can fill your cup, warm your heart, and ease your soul. I am being tested this year in my self-compassion generosity. I am being challenged to get creative with it and to allow time for it, to make it my top priority. It is not easy and I need reminders to do it (thank you to my therapist and Al-anon sponsor) but, when I practice it, my darkness gets lighter. In a world where I can feel hopeless and isolated (especially right now) it helps to know that I have my own back. Even in my darkest, most heavy places, I have a soft spot to land. That soft spot is me. It is my self-compassion. Today that looks like tears, writing, cozy clothes, gentle movement, writing, knitting, a nap, and feeding my body food without judgement. It looks like sharing my darkness with others so that they know they are not alone, and that they can survive any darkness if they are willing to show up for themselves. So, so much love for all of you. Hold yourself tight, it won’t always be dark.

Living In The Space Of "And"

Normally I live in a space of “but” and I’m learning to accept the “and”.

I have been unable to fathom getting on my computer to write a blog. Every time I would think about it I just told myself “but everything is so heavy right now, I can’t do it justice” and I would stop. I have been mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. I had nothing to offer and felt insignificant in this moment.

The path of healing I am on has lead me to some amazing teachers and helpers. I have had several counselors, spiritual guides, mentors, and therapists through the years. Last year I had to say good bye to a spiritual guide that had helped me heal because that person became unsafe for me. That person was on a journey that I could no longer follow. It hurt to say goodbye but I had to.

I now have a woman therapist that is helping me continue on the healing and growing journey. The best and most important thing she has taught me is to live in the “and”. The idea of the “and” is that two things that are opposite or that seem to be at odds, can both be true at the same time. An example you might be able to relate to would be loving a person deeply (like a friend, parent, or child) and wanting to be away from them.

This is a normal feeling but I come from the world of “buts”. In my mind if I love someone then it is not an acceptable feeling to want to be away from them. It had to be one or the other. Either I loved them, or I wanted to be away from them and that meant I didn’t love them. Both things could not be true. So if I said “I love you but I want to be away from you” then my love was canceled out. Living this way produces guilt and shame.

Learning to live in the space of “and” and letting two things be true at once allows me to see how hard life is sometimes and allows me a chance to give myself grace. I feel compassion for myself when I can see how hard it is to feel love and want space. I think I picked a great time to start learning about the “and” space because I am getting plenty of practice.

The corona virus has given me so many opportunities to feel these feelings. In the beginning I was terrified of going anywhere and glad to be home with my family. I could be social distancing and longing for touch and connection. Wearing a mask made me feel safer and caused me to have panic attacks. Homeschooling was fun and maddening. I was so grateful to have so much time alone with my family and I was sick of them. I went on a fun vacation and felt like I was endangering myself, my family, and every person I came into contact with. My life slowed down and got busier than ever.

Using the word “and” instead of “but” is a simple enough thing but the affect on my mental state has been profound. I do not feel pitted against myself (well I do, hence the therapist needed, but I am able to come around) and the shame and guilt do not last as long. The internal battle that I used to have that only one thing could be true was really just a trap to keep me from allowing myself the grace to be human. Some call it perfectionism, but in my case, I think it was just a reason to punish myself for being human. If I allowed myself to enjoy a vacation, I could quick come in and say “but you endangered so many people” and it would sap me of my joy and return me to the all too familiar place of shame and judgement. I’m not saying I like to live in shame and judgement, but some things are like and old sweater. There is comfort in their oldness, their familiar fit to you. I am comfortable in the space of shame and judgement, I’ve lived there my whole life. Accepting my full human emotional capabilities is a new sweater, I don’t mind it, but it is not broken in and familiar like the old.

As I look at the world today, I am given so many areas in which I can practice my “and”. I can love the summer weather and be so sad and depressed that I don’t want to get out of bed to enjoy it. I can be so grateful that my city is taking steps to keep us safe from corona virus and miss the community pool so much that I want to stomp my feet and climb the fence when I walk by it. I can understand that social distancing can keep me and my family safe and know that sometimes if you don’t hug a person in the exact moment that they need it most, you are hurting them too. I can understand that children learn best in person and in the classroom and that classroom instruction may endanger their health and mine. I can want my college age daughter to return to her campus in the fall to live the full college experience and want her to stay here with me forever.

I can refuse to eat at a restaurant and march in the streets with thousands of others for Black Lives. This one was hard for me. I had been so careful to social distance and the stay in my family bubble. I would only order take out and cook at home because that is what felt safest. Then police killed George Floyd and when I watched that video and heard him cry for his life and call out for his mother, I knew that I had to be out there. I knew that I had to break my safe bubble to protect and stand for those that do not ever get a safe bubble like me. I social distanced at the march and I wore my mask and I walked alongside thousands of others standing up for human rights. In the past, I would be living in the shame of wanting to keep my family safe and healthy and breaking quarantine to march. New me is living in the space of grace. I can do both. There doesn’t have to be shame.

When I give myself permission to live in the “and” I get to experience the fullness of being a wonderful, complicated, flawed human being. I give myself the grace of being able to contradict myself. I allow myself to feel two things that are opposites and know that both can be true without shame and judgement and without one cancelling out the other. The side benefit of living in the “and” is that you start to see other people as complicated and contradictory too and you are able to extend the grace to them. You can see that one thing doesn’t cancel out the other and that people can be many things. This place makes it very difficult to judge others and allows understanding and compassion to grow.

I challenge you to replace some “buts” with some “ands” and see how that feels. I know it will feel weird at first but try it on anyway and see if you enjoy to benefit of being fully human, full of grace, and void of shame and judgement (if it pops up, tell it it can stay “and” that it can’t cancel out the grace).

A Letter to Myself During This Time of Change

Above all else guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. -Proverbs 4:23

Dear Self,

Life has changed rapidly in just a few months and it is okay to feel unsettled. Feeling unsettled doesn’t mean you are doing anything wrong or that things are not exactly how they need to be. It just means that you are feeling the reality of life, the growing pains of change.

Your oldest child left for college, you went back to teaching full time, your twins are in different classes at school for the first time, you rescued a cat and lost a dog traumatically. You went from seeing a counselor twice a week to asking that same counselor to leave your life in a pretty traumatic turn of events. You went from spending almost every day outside in nature to spending days at a time not being outdoors more that just walking to and from your car.

I know that you do not understand the purpose of all of this change yet. The water is still settling and you cannot see the bottom. I know that it drives you crazy to feel so unsettled and so uncomfortable but you are making your way through. I also know that you have been too busy with work to process some of this stuff. Maybe that is also as it should be? I do not know.

It is really hard in uncertain times to trust your heart and to trust that you will make it through all of the changes and be okay. That your heart won’t always be broken, that you won’t always feel so lost and sad, and that it wont always be this hard. It is hard to believe that these growing pains are leading you to a better place, or maybe just a different place where you will have a new normal. It is hard to feel uncertain and uncomfortable and to struggle with your confidence in yourself, but it is a normal feeling when experiencing dramatic changes in your life.

So trust your heart to the voice that told you to follow that path. It never said that it would be an easy path. Trust your heart to heal after loss and trauma as it has done so many times before. Trust that though your child is out of your home and on her own path, that you will continue to roll with the evolution of her life and remain a touchstone for her. Trust that you had the counselor you needed when you needed him and that others will come when they are needed also. Trust that what other people are going through in their own lives doesn’t have to involve you and that you can be as involved as you choose to be, for your own health and sanity.

Most of all trust your heart to lead you through the murky water until it settles and things become more clear. Be grateful for the chance to grow again and to embrace change (even if it is soooooo beyond uncomfortable). But also trust yourself to protect your heart from negativity, from abuse and pain, and from those who don’t see your worth and your value. Trust that you will know what to do and when to do it and that you can face great pain without shutting down your heart of compassion for others.

Go outside everyday. Pet every dog you see. Show up every day, be present, and do your best. Be grateful for phone calls and Snapchats when they come. Love on your family. Let people help you. Allow yourself to feel your feelings and to process the changes and the losses. They are real and they are affecting you. Lean into your HIgher Power for strength when you don’t have any, love when you feel alone, guidance when you feel lost, and for comfort when none of it makes sense.

Love,

Me

Who Are You Letting Cut Your Trees?

Whatever you are not changing, you are choosing. - Lori Buchanan

July was a MONTH.

When I say I was being tested, I mean it. It was exam month and there were some very strange tests. One of the most revealing tests was the cutting of my trees. Not figuratively cutting my trees but the actual physical cutting of my trees in my yard.

I was floating in my pool on my unicorn float when I looked over and noticed that a whole branch of my favorite tree was cut off. I said out loud “What the hell happened to my tree?” My eight year old daughter replied “Oh yeah, the neighbor told daddy the other day that she trimmed our tree and was that okay?”

Was that okay? My brain exploded. I am an adult and I have the understanding that if you have a tree in your yard that hangs into another person’s yard, that they are allowed to trim it so that it doesn’t interfere with their mowing or if it is damaging their property. This was not that. A whole limb was missing that was completely on my property, facing my house. I love my trees and I love them to be as wild and natural as they need to be within reason. This is my weeping cherry tree that blooms with the most delicate pink blossoms in the spring and brings me joy and delight beyond words. Cut, naked, vulnerable now to disease and insects.

The next morning I get a message that the neighbor on the other side of me wants to cut the bottom branches of my pine tree and chop another tree in my yard down. My husband gave permission to cut the bottom limbs before asking me and I was upset. Like I said, I like my trees to be natural and wild. Pine trees don’t always have needles on their bottom branches but there is no need to cut them off. The other pine tree they wanted to cut down only has needles on it’s top 25 percent but it is still a living tree. I have no desire to cut it down. I was so distraught and upset that I just told them I had no desire to cut it down but if they felt they had to, go for it. I felt defeated and pushed but I did tell them that I at least appreciated the text since my other trees were just cut without my permission. They wrote back that they would wait on cutting the tree down for a bit. I cried.

I could not understand what the hell was happening. Never in my life had I ever looked at my neighbors landscaping, flowers or trees and decided that I could tell them what to do with it or just do what I wanted and tell them they were welcome that I took care of it for them.

The next day I left on a camping trip with my friend. We had 4 hours in the car to talk about life. I talked about my trees, about my recent experiences with relationships in my life and the tests I felt I was facing. It was becoming clear.

BOUNDARIES

My trees, my property. My decisions, my life. My beliefs, my business. My no, back off. My space, get out. Your opinion, not needed.

The people in my life were ignoring, plowing through, disregarding, and disrespecting my boundaries and me. The trees were the simplest form of this boundary violation but also the easiest for me to grasp. It is harder to see emotional, spiritual, and psychological violations, but they were all happening in my life in July.

Physical violations that I could see were adding up though. My friend and I did a lot of hiking and started to notice that many people just walked right into our space and expected us to move. The first few times we were like, “oh, sorry” and moved over. Then we started to look at each other and notice that we were not even being seen. That people were physically plowing into us, just like cutting down my trees. I started saying out loud “Stop cutting my trees!” whenever I felt violated. It became my boundary call.

One evening we were at a restaurant eating dinner. There was a group of obnoxious drunk men sitting together near the entrance/exit. They were loud, inappropriate, and condescending to the waitress. She played along, as waitresses often have to in that situation, but they were gross.

When we got up to leave they all started harassing me about my Michigan State shirt that I was wearing. Normally I would laugh and joke like the waitress had to but not tonight. I’d had enough. I did not smile, I did not joke and I did not stay silent. Instead I just kept saying loudly “I wear what I want!” until I was out of their heckling zone. Step one of reinforcing my boundaries and letting them be known and heard.

Step two would be letting my neighbor know that there would be no cutting of trees on my property without MY permission.

Step three would be cutting off a relationship that was causing me trauma, emotional upset, and harming me spiritually. The person that I had to cut off was very dear to me and someone I had trusted deeply. This person had been a trusted companion on my journey of self-love, healing trauma, and spiritual re-connection. This step would hurt in execution but be very damaging if not completed. This person became unsafe to me. It became a situation where words and actions didn’t add up, commitments were not kept, agreements were broken, boundaries were disregarded and spiritual connection was used as a weapon. This person’s behavior was erratic and disturbing and despite numerous attempts at me asking that it not be brought to me, they continued to drop it at my doorstep.

The worst kind of hurt is one where your vulnerabilities and trust are used against you in order for the other person to justify their behavior, manipulate you into doing what would be best for them, or to try to make you doubt your trust in yourself. A close second to that hurt is when they ask you to explain how they hurt you so that they can “understand what they are doing wrong”. If you don’t know that cutting someone else’s tree down is wrong, hearing me say it isn’t going to help you, just re-injure me. When someone spends a month telling you that what you are doing is hurting them and to stop and go away and you in fact do not stop or go away, you cannot be upset when that person does not want to sit down and chat with you about why they are hurt. It is like chopping, chopping, chopping the tree while it weeps-then sitting on its fallen branches with sawdust on your face and in your hair, asking the tree why it is weeping.

I do not tolerate this in my life. Not anymore. Not after this July. If you have been told by me repeatedly that what you are doing is hurting me and you are still wielding your ax, do not expect me to stand there and let you keep chopping anymore. Do not expect tearful begging for you to change or my understanding of your good intentions for trying to cut at me. Just know that boundaries are going up without explanation. That my yard, my life, my trees, my spirituality, my emotions, my needs and desires are my business and unless you have been invited into my yard, my life, spirituality, by ME, you will be met with a boundary.

Finally, I want to thank my neighbors and my relationships, and my Higher Power for this lesson. I hated it. I cried, a lot. I lost sleep, gained weight, and lost a friend. In the end, I know I will lose more. What I am gaining is maturity, self-love, health, and trust in a power greater than me to bring into my life the opportunities to do life differently. I have gained understanding of who I want in my yard, who is there because they just want to celebrate it for it’s wild, natural beauty, and who wants to come in with an ax behind their back trying to change it. My voice that stands up for me got a lot of exercise and is now louder, stronger, and more resolute. I’m hurting but I am grateful. I have never felt stronger, more clear, or more connected to myself and my God of my understanding.

I hope my sharing this helps you find your voice, your no, and your strength. If it upsets you or makes you start to question whether or not you will be welcome in my yard, save us both the trouble and check behind you for an ax before you even make the trip, because I won’t hesitate to check before letting you in.

Be Well.

The Test

My last post was about being willing to go to any length for myself, my growth, my recovery, my health. I should have known that throwing that out into the universe would bring forth The Test but I always forget that that is how it works. So now I’m in it. The test of my word. Did I mean what I promised to myself? Can I stay strong when it all falls apart? Will I abandon myself and all that I’ve learned and experienced?

The answer is I don’t know. But I’m sure as hell going to fight and try. Here is a letter to myself that you may need to hear also:

Dear Carie,

We are doing some hard things. We are facing some dark challenges and a lot of change. I know that it seems scary and I know that you are absolutely terrified at times. But I’m here. I’m not leaving. I’m here to comfort you, protect you and love you.

We can do hard things together. We have done them before and we will do them again. We will be hand in hand, together, forever facing whatever we need to face to heal and grow.

We have done everything we can for others and now is the time to do for us. We will create safety, we will create healthy connection, we will do whatever it takes to take good loving care of Carie.

Love,

Yourself

For anyone reading this and wondering, what is going on in her life? What is she facing? What is happening? It’s okay to wonder but the truth is it doesn’t matter. The challenges we face internally may not be relevant to your outside life. Most people are fighting battles in their life that you will never know about. They are private. They are sacred. They are vulnerable spaces of internal healing. What matters is not the details but the fact that we share how we cope. That we share our hurt, pain, and healing. Some things are too close to be public, because not everyone in the public is safe with our hurt and pain.

Stay safe out there people. Find someone to hold you when it all falls apart, even if it is just a stronger version of you.

Be well

Carie

Willing To Go To Any Length?

“If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it-then you are ready to take certain steps.” -The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous pg 58

I am on a journey. I’m not sure where I am going but I know the direction is forward. My journey started 16 years ago when I entered the rooms of Al-Anon. Al-Anon is group for families and friends of alcoholics. At the time I was living with someone who was drinking too much and it was having a detrimental effect on me and my mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. Joining Al-Anon gave me support, knowledge, compassion, and strength. It gave me a relationship with a Higher Power that I had long lost and it gave me a place in a community with no other agenda other than supporting one another through life. All of our lives had been affected by someone else’s drinking or addiction. We knew what it was like. There was safety in it, there was comfort in it, there was anonymity in it and I needed all of those things.

Through my years in Al-Anon I have realized that what brought me there was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the affects of alcoholism on my life as a whole. It was a thread of my life since I was born and long before as I suspect that it has run in my family lines for generations. I don’t have proof of this and am not pointing fingers at anyone down the line, but there are behaviors present in families affected by addiction and boy do we have them.

My suspicion is that I marinated in a good stew of drama in my mama’s belly. Not to blame my mother, she had no more control over her life circumstances than I did when I was growing my own child in me surrounded by dysfunction and not even knowing life could be different. I don’t have blame in my heart, but compassion for all of us affected by generations of living with the affects of addiction, alcoholism, or patterns of behavior shaped by them.

So I’ve been chipping away slowly at this mountain of pain, some mine, some left over from previous generations, and some dumped on me by a society that promotes drinking and vice and shames those living out the effects of it all. When I arrived at Al-Anon I was just willing to show up. I wanted to feel better, but honestly, just tell me how to get someone to quit drinking so I could get on with my happily ever after dream. I was exhausted and not really in the mood for working on me. I didn’t know at the time that me was the only person I was allowed to work on. My plan was to work on everyone who was upsetting me.

So controlling, manipulating, stonewalling, withholding, punishing, and/or being a complete pushover were the only skills I had. I thought they would deliver results if I just kept at them with great gusto. As it turns out, none of these work (if you already knew this then thanks for not letting me in on this info 16 years ago). What they will do for you is destroy relationships, chop away at dignity and respect, and leave you exhausted and mentally, emotionally, and spiritually bankrupt.

Al-anon led me to a community that did not scold me for using these old trick in my bag, for as long as I needed to. They used them too and when we got together, we talked about how much it hurt and how could we learn to do it differently. There was no judgement because we all knew how hard it was to learn a new way of life in the midst of great chaos and generations of learned behaviors. It was my safe haven.

I used to go to AA meetings to learn more about the disease of alcoholism. AA meetings start with a reading of How It Works from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is where the quote above came from “willing to go to any lengths…” and when I first heard it, it struck me hard. I knew hearing it that we were all in the fight for our lives and that we were going to have to battle for it. I’m so glad I learned this early on and that I heard it with the severity that I believe the founders meant for it to have. This was life or death.

I have chosen life. At all cost, and believe me the costs have been great. I am willing, at all times, to do whatever it takes. I’m fighting for me. ME! ME! I’m worth losing everything else for. I will go to any length for myself.

Do I sound selfish? I don’t care. The most loving thing I can do for myself and anyone I love is to take the best care of myself as humanly possible. When I am my best self, I can show up for you as a big giant ball of love and goodness ready to scoop you up and spill my goodness over onto you. When I am practicing self care and healthy boundaries, and self-love I am unstoppable. Who wouldn’t want that for me? I’ll tell you who, those who do not wish to be awakened from their sleep that keeps them in the unconscious behavior patterns they survive on. That’s okay. Just know that I won’t be stopping for you and your comfort, I cannot. I have seen what others in recovery and in healing have and I want it for myself. I am willing to go to any length.

I attended a retreat this weekend that took great bravery to get to. I showed up not knowing what to expect, who would be there, or how it would impact me. I trusted the facilitator. I knew what this person had awareness, love, peace, connection with God, healing and the ability to feel and connect in a deep way with others, and I was willing to go to any length to have those things for myself. I know that great change takes big brave acts of faith. I went and I participated to the full extent of my abilities. I pushed through fear, pain, tears, anxiety, upset, trauma wounds, and on the other side was love, community, connection, acceptance, healing and self-awareness. I’m so glad I went. My life will not be the same.

The picture above is me on the deck the first night before dinner. I’m a mess on the inside wondering if I made the right decision, if I had what it takes to do the work, and doubting my faith in myself and the people I was there with. But I could also hear the words in my head that I heard 16 years ago that struck me right in the heart…willing to do whatever it takes…and I stayed. In return, I reached a new level of healing in my life and found a new layer of myself that had been hidden away and pushed aside by the affects of addiction and trauma on me. Every bit of it was worth it and I look forward to more, hopefully this fall, on this lake, in this house, where I found more of me and people to support me in my search.

Not Every Day Will Be Your Best Day

Image credit: Google Images

I did the best I could today. It was not my favorite day. I’ve been feeling shame about it and I’ve been down about it, but I really did do the best I could. So what is the point of continuing to feel bad? I don’t know. I’m going to try to stop that, but even if I can’t-still the best I could do today.

I have been having a hard time with sleeping a full 6-8 hours at night. I’ve been having a hard time getting to sleep, having anxiety at night, and my C-PAP machine keeps malfunctioning on me, so I have not used it for a full night in a few nights. It will get  condensation in the tube and start spewing the moisture into my nose while making the sound of a coffee pot next to a microphone.

So last night I got about 2 and ½ hours of sleep before I had to be up with the kids. After I dropped them off, I lay down on the couch and slept until about 2 p.m.. Sounds like an amazing nap, but it was without my machine, so I woke with a headache and a sore throat. I didn’t think I would sleep nearly that long or I would have went to my bedroom.

I knew I needed the sleep but felt so ashamed of wasting the day sleeping. I cried. I was shaking when I woke up because I hadn’t eaten anything all day since 7 a.m.. I had lunch and started my day at 3 p.m.. I was feeling so much shame that I decided to reach out to a mentor for a little moral support. They assured me that all was well and that there was no shaming needed. They also reminded me to celebrate the small victories of today.

So, even though I did not sleep well and spent most of my day making up that sleep, I did allow myself to sleep instead of barging through my day on 2 hours of sleep (which is what I used to do). I started a new wellness program with a mentor and met my goals for that for the day. I got my emails sent and answered for my job. I walked the dog and started laundry. And I’m writing my blog, which I promised myself I would do today. I’ve cried when I wanted to cry and I’ve laughed and loved with my kids when I wanted to. I plan to eat dinner as a family and to have a restful night at home before attempting to put myself to bed at a reasonable time tonight. But if I don’t, that is okay too.

I also spent my sleeplessness watching the documentary “Surviving R. Kelly” and I feel good about that. It was hard to watch. It was necessary to watch. I am a survivor. I also have not purposefully listened to an R. Kelly song since the early 2,000’s. Just like Chris Brown, I refuse to support someone who abuses women-proven or not in a court of law. I feel proud of myself for having listened to my gut all those years ago and believing women. I am sure that watching that series has contributed to the uneasiness and shame I am feeling today also. It is all connected.

So I’m going to leave you with my mentor’s words:

“All good-go easy on yourself and enjoy your little successes today.”

Taking Care of Myself

It has been a long road to learn how to take good care of myself.

I used to love this picture. I thought I looked amazing. I had done one year of weight watchers and had gotten to my goal weight of 130 lbs. I had actually gone below it when this photo was taken. My size 6 jeans were baggy and my goal had been to get to an 8. When I looked at this photo and the others that were taken, I thought, I did it! I was healthy and thin. Well one of those things was true. I was thin.

I was not healthy in most ways. Weight Watchers had taught me a lot about portions, good fats, drinking enough water, etc. but I was also using sugar substitutes, starving myself if I wanted to have birthday cake that night, and obsessing over everything I put in my mouth. I was not really exercising just restricting my food. Yes I learned some things about cooking and eating healthier, I was also super annoying about where I ate and what and cried a lot because I wouldn’t allow myself to eat what I wanted.

At this time I was also living with chronic pain. I had lower back and abdominal cramping and pain daily. I sat with a heating pad on my mid section on most days and had a lot of stomach issues. Turns out I had a cyst on my ovary that was very angry and endometriosis. It took many months of me getting ultrasounds, images taken of my mid-section, etc. for this to be diagnosed. My periods were unbearable and heavy and I was miserable most of the time.

So I had surgery to remove the cyst one week before this picture was taken. SURGERY-to remove a part of my body. I remember asking the doctor if I could travel because we had planned to drive to St. Louis Missouri for thanksgiving to be with family. I remember the doctor looking at me strangely and saying “you can if you want to”. It had not occurred to me that we wouldn’t. One week was enough. I could do this. I could rally.

My restrictions were that I had to rest, not drive, not lift anything heavy, and not do stairs or do anything strenuous like sweeping, vacuuming, or carrying laundry baskets up stairs. I allowed myself two days of rest. I slept in a chair and let others care for myself and my children. After that I started testing and pushing what I was supposed to do. I started doing housework, I was going up and down the stairs, etc.

Less than a week after surgery, we were in the car headed to St. Louis. I was in a lot of pain. I couldn’t take the pain meds the doctor gave me because they made me dizzy and nauseous. So I had my heating pad, my pillows and my Advil. I was supposed to wear loose fitting clothing. Nothing like jeans that could pull at or irritate my stitches.

The first time I really broke the rules my doctor gave me was at a rest stop on the way when I lifted my two year old daughter onto the toilet. I felt immediate pain and regretted it. But I thought, what am I going to do? She cannot reach the toilet herself. It never occurred to me to ask my other child to help or to have her go with my husband.

This continued. We were potty training twin two year olds. I lifted them on and off the toilet that whole trip. And I was in pain and I was bleeding more than I should have been because of it. Also that trip, I did not rest. I went to a park, a children’s museum, out to eat, and to get family pictures taken. Just before this picture was taken, I had taken my child to the bathroom, which meant I lifted her up. I had started bleeding an alarming amount in the bathroom but just doubled up on pads and vowed to take it easy.

I lied to myself. I wore jeans, I got onto and off of the ground posing for family pictures, I lifted up and held my children for cute pictures and totally threw my body under the bus. And I can guarantee you that I did not rest after.

When I got home after that trip, I was worse off than before I went. I wasn’t healing. How could I? On top of that we found out that the ovary they removed during surgery was the only one I had. I was thrown into menopause and was told I would need to be on hormone replacement therapy for the next 20-30 years of my life.

My body did not know what to do with this new information. I was in pain, bleeding, depressed, having mood swings, hot flashes, insomnia, memory problems, foggy brain, zero sex-drive, and no idea how to live in the body and brain I just inherited.

Needless to say, that was a rough year. I’m just now starting to forgive myself for how I treated my self and my body that year. I hated it and abused it. I fought against it, didn’t listen to it and pushed it to its limits.

A few years later, I would find myself at the bottom of a pit of depression that would threaten my quality of life in a very real way. Years of neglecting to take care of myself, maybe even a lifetime of it, had caught up to me.

I got help. Doctors, medications, therapists, friends, family, and God, all had a part in helping me out of that hole. Sometimes years have to pass before we can see and know what was really going on. I used to look at these pictures and long for that body, that hair, that skin but now I look at it and am grateful not to be her anymore.

I often think that I would give anything to be a size 6 again and to have a smaller body, but would I? Would I want to go back to crying in restaurants because everyone else ordered yummy food and I was eating another salad with fat free dressing? Would I want to go back to beating my body into submission and pumping it full of artificial sweeteners and Diet Coke? To forcing it past it’s limits and ignoring its signs that I was doing damage?

No. I’ll take this.

Me. In a pants size I4-18 depending on the store. Me, smiling because I’m really happy. Me, having eaten pizza with my family and not cried in my salad. Who was that tiny little body for? Me? I’d rather have this one than the abuse and neglect that came with the old one. This one is filled up with love, laughter, sadness, and healing. It is warm and comforting to my children because at the end of the day, it has been listened to and cared for and loved-filled up so it can give out. It is aware of its limits and it is rested.

I am writing this post mostly for me. So I can come back and read the truth every time I want to look back at that first picture with envy, with longing, and with self-shame that my body doesn’t look like that anymore. I need to remember the pain that came with that body. Because I have moments when I hate this body I’m in. When I cry in Dunhams because I cannot zip the extra large ski jacket around my hips and I wish for a smaller body. That little body was a wrapping over an ugly truth. My largeness of spirit and love I have now is requiring a different package. Maybe someday I’ll have both. A fit and trim body that is covering a huge, healthy, and radically loved soul. Maybe not. But for now, I’m doing my best to live in the truth. And the truth is that I’ve never taken better care of myself. I’ve never listened to my body more. I’ve never been happier with the level of care and attention I give myself in a physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and creative way.

So I guess my last thought for those of you reading this would be, ask yourself what picture of me is more acceptable to you? If it is still the skinny me-why? Why after knowing the truth of the level of abuse you know I went through within myself is that still what you would rather me be than what I am? And finally, what do you do to yourself to make yourself acceptable to you and others?

Be kind. Love yourself. Take care.