Community

Self-help Has Been Great But I’m Ready For Community

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I have self-helped myself to the highest levels and I feel incomplete. I have been in therapy on and off for 21 years. I have read an amazing amount of self-help and healing books. I have attended workshops and I have self-reflected and found all of my inner parts. I know my defects. I know my strengths. I know my trauma. I know my mental health needs. I know my relationship quirks. I know my worth. I know my rabbit holes and I know my triggers. I know my cup fillers. I know my cup takers. I’ve learned my no and I’ve learned my yes. I know my favorite color. I know how I like my eggs. I know what I want in a partner and who I want to be in this world.

And…I’m lonely as hell.

I’ve self-helped myself into a corner. In my healing, I needed to cut relationships, set boundaries, create safe spaces, and decide on my participation in relation to other people. I did it! And it was all so necessary for me. I could not have learned what I know now about myself in those old spaces and places, with those old behaviors and roles I had within relationships and organizations. I’m so beyond grateful for the time I have spent with myself, on myself, and for myself. It healed me.

I learned to be the person that I had always needed myself to be. I learned to take care of myself first before I took care of other people. I found all of the parts of me that make up the fantastic person that I am. I would not trade all of that for anything. It was the greatest gift I ever allowed myself.

And…I’m ready for the next level.

What is the next level? The voice of the universe is telling me community. I long to commune with people like myself who have found their healing, their true self, and their purpose. I long to have deep conversations and thoughtful gatherings. I want to laugh in safe spaces and cry in them too. I want to be challenged by people who see my greatness and I want to be held by people who can handle me with care. I want to learn new things and also teach what I know. I want to surround myself with people who have the utmost respect for themselves and who know how to live-not exist-LIVE!

I want to dance and feel safe to do that without anyone invading my space or thinking my body is theirs to touch and fantasize about. I want to eat and experience joy in sharing a meal and not hear about calories and body fat and sugar content. I want to trust that everyone I’m with is able to care for themselves and the day or night will not end with me feeling depleted because they needed my money or protection or emotional life support or wisdom. It’s not that I do not enjoy helping people sometimes with money or protection or emotional support or wisdom but that cannot be my community. Where would I get fed? Where would I get filled up? At this point in my life there are few places that I belong where I don’t leave completely drained. My resources are gobbled up by others who are not doing what they need to be doing for themselves. They want what I have but aren’t willing to do the work I have done to arrive here.

I want a community of compassionate people who adventure, who wonder, who wander and who also have intention. There must be people with love, joy, compassion, self-awareness, hope, fierce sense of right and wrong, and with space for me in their life. There must be safe spaces of healed and healing people who are celebrating and crying and communing together bringing their darkness into the light. I want to go there. I’m asking the universe to bring me to my people. I know that community will take me to my next level.

I am open. I am ready. I am willing. Community or bust!

I Made A Trip To The Hardware Store For Bread

In my defense, I thought I was going to the bakery. I was wrong.

I recently wrote about capacity. Capacity is someone’s ability to do anything really, but the focus of my writing was someone’s capacity to give and receive love. There are people in this world that have a 10 gallon hats worth of capacity for love, empathy, understanding, and comfort. There are people in this world with a 1 gallon hat capacity for love, empathy, understanding, and comfort. Neither is wrong or bad but it is good to know your own capacity and that of others. This can help you set your expectations of the other person correctly. You cannot know that a person is a one gallon person and expect 10 gallon love from them, it isn’t fair to either of you..

Tonight I got a lesson, a hard lesson, in capacity. It hurt. Ouch. Because even if you understand capacity and what your capacity is, you can be mistaken about someone else’s capacity and it can hurt. I’m an optimistic person and I think positively about most people unless I have a good reason not to. Many times I just assume someone is a ten gallon person unless they have shown me they are not. I trust people until I have reason not to. It really hurts me sometimes but I cannot imagine going through life the opposite way. Especially as a teacher, mother, friend, it serves me well to believe that anyone could be anything they want to be. I may have been born a one gallon capacity person but life has worn me by experiences that have carved me ten gallons deep. I believe that anyone can be worn deeper and deeper by life or by willingness. Sometimes I confuse comfort with capacity. Just because I’m comfortable with you doesn’t mean you have the capacity I might expect.

When I turned to a friend tonight, I was very specific about what I needed. I explained it clearly and asked if they could meet me in the space I needed to be met in. I needed to let my guard down, be irrational, be vulnerable and have them feed me certain words I knew I needed to hear. It was a weird but simple request. They accepted. I picked up the phone and let myself go to a place I only show to a very select few people in my life. They are my bakeries that I know will always have fresh bread for me. They can meet me in the ten gallon depths. I wasn’t positive that this person was a ten gallon friend and I didn’t know if they were a bakery, but I had basically written a script for them to follow so that they could bake the bread even if they weren’t sure how. I literally gave them the words that I needed to hear back and told them when to say them to me.

Painfully, there was no bread. No bakery. No ten gallon depths. Instead of a warm bakery I suddenly found myself in a cold hardware store full of hammers, saws, and sharp, hard objects. Opinions I didn’t ask for were given. Harsh words about getting over it and moving on and being happy were said. Judgement of my state of vulnerability, grief, and emotional state followed. The listening I had asked for was cut short with questioning and the words of comfort I had requested were never said. Ouch.

My first reaction was to sit in shock, but then for some strange reason, I started to try to explain myself. I would not recommend taking this path if you should ever find yourself in the hardware store when you thought you were entering a bakery. Hardware store people do not understand bread, they just don’t. Next time, I hope that I will simply say “Oopsie, I suddenly find myself in a hardware store and I was looking for bread, I have to leave now.” Learn from my pain. Sitting on the phone trying to explain your heart to someone who can’t hear you is abusive to yourself. I forgive myself for participating longer than I should have, I was just very surprised. I don’t open myself to many people and my very small group has some ten gallon people in it. I guess I didn’t realize that this person was not capable. I’m sure I hurt both of us with the assumption that they were.

I can see how difficult it would be to find yourself in a situation where someone you know and care about is crying and hurting and needing something from you and you don’t know how to fix it. I had not asked to be fixed, to be clear, I had asked to be listened to and to be given words that I provided, but that isn’t what was interpreted by this person. They felt like they needed to fix it, to make it better, and to offer advice and opinion that wasn’t needed. Wires were crossed and it was very uncomfortable, yucky, and it hurt. We won’t continue to be friends after this. Not out of anger or revenge or anything other than self-preservation. I cannot be in relationship with people who cannot see me, hear me, or meet me in the ten gallon depths. We can say hello at the grocery store, we can like each other’s dog pics on Facebook, and we can wish each other well in the future, but we cannot be friends.

It is a privilege and an honor to be invited into someone’s inner world, into their depths. It is a sacred space where people are allowed to be vulnerable, irrational, deeply hurt, contradictory, and to be given space to be perfectly imperfect and human. It is a space where grief lives alongside love, where reality gets mixed up with the ghosts of the past and you need someone on the outside to just pull you back with a kind word. Shame is not allowed in this sacred space. Judgement is not allowed in this sacred space. Advise is not needed in this sacred space. What is needed is love, understanding, and presence. Sometimes you just have to let someone fall apart and lay next to them and say nothing except “I’m here. I don’t understand it, it scares me, I don’t have any answers, but I’m not going anywhere.”

I must confess that I got the hardware store/bread example from Al-Anon recovery groups. There is a reading or a saying that says going to an alcoholic and expecting them to meet your needs is like going to the hardware store for bread. You aren’t going to get what you need, they aren’t capable. So we can punish the alcoholic for not being able to meet our needs and shame them for their lack of capacity, or we can move on and find the people out there that can meet our needs. It is mean to stay in a relationship with someone and expect them to give you things that they cannot.

The journey to find out who is capable is hard. Sometimes you are pleasantly surprised by someone’s capacity and depth and sometimes you find yourself in the hardware store with no bread to be found. There is grief in going home empty handed and there is hurt if you found yourself on the receiving end of opinion, judgment, and harshness when you bear your soul to someone. Walk away, have a good cry, say ouch, call a ten gallon person and have a good laugh about your surprise hardware store visit. The one thing my ten gallon friend reminded me of tonight is that just because someone is incapable of giving us what we want, it doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with us. I shouldn’t feel bad for baring my soul and allowing someone in, I should not feel bad that I needed something or that I needed to fall apart.

Some people want you to be different because you make them uncomfortable. They would prefer you to suck it up, get over it, be happy so that they can be more comfortable around you. Do not listen to that bullshit. That is what people who don’t ever go below the surface say to people who frequently swim in the depths. I used to be scared of deep water too, of life and it’s pain and depths, contradictions and unfathomable complications. I’ve done my work. I’ve put on my oxygen tanks and I’ve trusted myself enough to dive deep into all of my pain and hurt and trauma and heartbreak. I’ve watched things coming in the distance that looked like sharks and I wanted to swim as fast as I could to the surface and never look back, but I didn’t. I stayed and sometimes it was a shark, with big fucking teeth that scared the hell out of me, but I stood there and faced it. I stayed down there long enough to learn what is a shark and what is just a parrotfish that looks like a shark in the distance but up close is just a big beautiful fish. It is frighteningly beautiful in the depths and there is nothing down there that is going to make you comfortable, you just get used to the uncertainty and realize that that is what makes life beautiful.

So if you find yourself in a hardware store when you really needed bread, leave. You do not have to spend long time comforting the hardware store person for not having what you need or shame them or convince them that they should look into stocking bread. Just leave that store, it is not your store. Get your butt back in your car and drive to the bakery. The place that you know will have bread. Go there.

If you think you might be a hardware store and you think you would rather be in the bread business, do your work. You can start with these little gems of advice:

When someone is crying in your presence, shut up. Do not talk. If you cannot bring yourself to comfort them with a hug or if you cannot just say that you don’t know what to do but that you are there for them, then at least just shut up and don’t try to stop the crying just so you can feel comfortable.

When someone warns you that they are going to show you something difficult, personal, and painful take a deep breath or two, shut your mouth, and practice saying these words in your head “I am here. This sounds painful and difficult and personal, thank you for sharing that with me. I don’t know what to do or say but I’m here.” If you can’t say those things, let them know that you don’t have the capacity right now and that maybe they should not share.

When someone is grieving, you do not get to tell them how to do that. Yes, I can post a montage of pictures of myself with my ex-husband on social media and say that I miss him on the day that he died. I can choose to remember the part of him that loved me deeply, just like I loved him deeply. That does not mean that I forgot all of the pain, the hurt, the traumatic experiences that I had with him. It means that grief, divorce, addiction, abuse, love and loss are fucking messy and complicated. You do not have to understand my journey to honor that I’m on it. You can be confused by it but understand that I am not. I’ve done my work.

Never tell someone to get over it, move on, and just be happy. Not when it comes to their life experiences. You tell someone to get over it, move on, and just be happy when they ordered no onions on their burger and the cook gets it wrong and they have to pick the onions off the burger. If you have not experienced the deeply personal, tragic, painful life experience that this person who is confiding in you has, do not ask them to kindly get over it so that you can feel better around them. If you cannot handle them, they kindly exit their life and do both of you a favor. Insisting that a person get over something and assuming that there is something wrong with them if they cannot is mean. Expecting someone to be happy all the time is denying that person their full humanity.

When someone isn’t handling something the way that you would, again, close your mouth. You need to sit back and let that person have the dignity to make their own mistakes, their own choices, and go through their own pain. Do you really think you know what is best for someone else? Do you really understand the complexity of their life? Do you really not trust them to do what is best for themselves? If you have not been asked specifically for advice do not give it. If you have been asked specifically for advise you can practice saying “I’m not you and I don’t know what I would do in that situation, but I know you will figure it out.” The only exception I have for this is if someone’s life is in danger. Feel free to tell them to get out and offer to help.

Last, if you find yourself face to face with someone who came to you thinking you were a bakery and you realize that you are a hardware store with no bread, do not be personally offended when that person has to leave because you don’t have what they need. There are plenty of people in the world that need hammers and saws and the things you have to offer. It doesn’t mean that you should change what you have to offer (though my local hardware store does have bread and donuts) but don’t chase after someone trying to sell them a hammer, trying to convince them to stay in your store and get what they don’t need and didn’t ask for. Point them in the direction of a bakery and let them go.

I’m physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. I’m a person with a large capacity to hold others and their truth, pain, and sorrow. I was looking for someone to show my own depths to, only wanting a few comforting words to tell me that the shadows I was seeing in the depths weren’t sharks, just parrotfish that wouldn’t hurt me. I picked the wrong person tonight. It hurt. I won’t do that again with that person but I won’t let it change me and desire to be met in the depths. I will let them go in love and I will remember that all is not lost. Just a couple of humans being human and hurting each other, it’s what we do. My reminder to myself is that I can meet myself in the depths. I can go there with my Higher Power and my wise self and tell myself those words I had so wanted to hear. So I’m off to have my own back, to comfort myself, and to tell myself that I was brave for trying.

Take good care out there.

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).

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.”