Today a friend sent me a post on Facebook. Seems simple enough. She sent it to me with a beautiful note and kind words. Everything you can ask for really. Someone who you don’t see everyday who knows a piece of you that you hide from the world. Someone who reads something and thinks of you. She isn’t someone I see everyday or interact with constantly she is just someone that took that extra little bit of time to break through the walls. Which let me tell you isn’t something that is easily done or easily accepted by me. But she did and we have had moments of honesty in a very busy world. That is something to be appreciated.

So I read what she sent me. A very beautifully written and brutally honest piece about feeling out of place and being a person who feels the world very deeply. Actually the piece was about so much more but I will not do it justice trying to summarize it into just a few words so I am going to continue and just leave it here. But what I took from it that has sparked me to write today was about how we walk through life pretending. I’m pretty sure that I am not the only one to do this. We as teenagers, adults, parents and spouses want to present the best to the world. We want people to look at us and think that we have our shit together. But if you are anything like me even on the rare day when I do actually have all the exterior shit together my inner world is a mess. If I had to describe what it would look like it would be like a child’s messy bedroom. Self esteem rumpled like sheets and blankets at the end of an unmade bed. Confidence thrown like dirty laundry over the chair, stained from the battle of pretending like yesterday you had some. Composure kicked into corner of the room like muddy shoes. And Strength shoved under the bed like long forgotten toys.  But even though I might wake up and look around and see this type of mental mess I know I must get up. Somedays I work on cleaning the room and other days I just sigh and walk out to face the day. But the point being that no one sees the mess but you or at least you hope no one does…

Ever since I became a mother, almost 14 years ago, I have found it interesting how desperately mothers want each other to think we have it all together. We talk about how wonderful motherhood is and all the joy it brings. All of that is true but very rarely do you find a circle of mothers who are honest about the rest of motherhood. The dirty parts; the exhaustion, the self doubt, the not wanting to repeat the mistakes of our own childhoods and the everyday mental struggle of “are we screwing up our kids”. It use to really bother me. Because one of the biggest downfalls of pretending is it isolates people. It makes everyone feel alone in their fears and doubts. And who hasn’t had the moment over and over where you ask yourself are you really the only one who feels this way. That lonely moment of fear where you think it is just you against the world as you cling to the edge of the cliff by your fingernails. Bonding over the hard stuff would provide a stronger community not just of mothers but of people. And please know I am not just speaking of complaining. But sometimes a little bit is ok.

There is some irony in how we all want to act ok. To be normal and to smile and not let anyone know our doubts and insecurities. And for me the irony is that pretending to be ok doesn’t help anyone. It is when you let down your walls that you find help and can provide help. And sometimes you will never know about the help that it might provide. And that is ok. It isn’t about the reward it is about the community. Just reading that someone else feels like you might give you the strength to go straighten the mental mess, stand a little straighter and face the world with a little more strength than before. (Which happened to me today with the article) Or you might find that it might just help you. You might just feel a little lighter when the load is shared with friends, or in the case of the internet, complete strangers. Either way pretending isn’t always the right choice. Sometimes we have to let down the walls enough to start to fix the foundation. And in that we might find that we are stronger for it.

With love and support for your own journey,

Michelle

Sometimes you have to turn and face your demons. I am trying to do that today with several events in my life. Letting go is a very difficult concept for me. I know others find it easy and it probably is, but I haven’t quite figured it out yet. I have heard that until you can think back on something and it not make you cry then you aren’t truly over it. I have had a lot of trauma and loss in my life but it is my job to create my own peace. Sometimes that involves brutal honesty, sometimes apologies and sometimes facing very scary situations. Most of the time I love inner work on myself. The opportunity to grow. The chance to see my personal flaws and try to become a better person. With all that said I have taken the somewhat easy route and left the big issues hidden and locked beneath the surface. Too scared to look. Partly because I was afraid the pain and hurt would swallow me whole.

All of this is a process, at least for me it is. A start or a beginning. Hurt, trauma, loss and grieving creates layers in a person. Layer in the physical body, the energetic body and in the soul itself. We have to be gentle with ourselves and take on healing layer by layer. For some this can take minutes or days. For others years or a lifetime. But this morning I felt the gentle nudge to address several things with several people. We all can feel this inner voice at times and we can either choose to ignore it or to listen. There have been many times I have ignored it too afraid to look at the emotional pain that was already there and the possibility that addressing the issue might cause more pain. But sometimes we are brave enough to listen to that inner voice and make a move. The hardest part for me is letting go of my desire for the outcome. To truly grow we must be willing to speak our voice and not be tied to what happens after. We all want to be heard and be validated but that isn’t really working to let go. Holding on to a desired outcome brings ego into the mix. And anyone who has had a run in with ego knows nothing good comes form it. It taints our healing. It take us down to the flawed level which most of the time is part of what causes the problem in the first place. So we must be willing to speak our truth and let that be our healing. To allow others to take what we say and do and have their own reactions and emotions to it. Trying to control someone else will just cause you both pain and I know because I have tried.

As I sit here typing this I am dealing with my least favorite part of inner work on the self. The emotions. Facing a situation gives the emotions permission to come bubbling up to the surface. It makes all the hard work I have done of burying these emotions seem like a waste of time. When you do allow the emotions to come back to the surface you can’t control how strong they are when they rear their head. You have to face them. You have to look them in the eye and give yourself permission to feel them. I hate that part. I like to be in control and when you allow yourself to work through past emotions you aren’t in control. You are inside a tornado of feelings. Some of which make sense and some don’t. You feel your feet come off the floor and yourself tossed about from extreme to extreme. But like any storm it does not last forever. It will eventually calm and you are left to clean up the mess it made. But the hope is as you work through the layers that when the storm comes back it is weaker and less intense. You can begin to calm the winds and keep your feet grounded for longer. For me it always involves looking at myself and addressing what I did wrong and sometimes that takes time to be far enough way to actually see the situation come into focus. One part of this is that does not excuse others behavior. I use to get lost in that part and still sometimes find myself arguing with it. Acceptance and owning your part does not take away someone else wrong doings. But while their actions can create great pain they are not yours to fix. You can only address the way it affects you. This is your job. You can not change what has happened. On some occasions you may get an apology but most of the time you don’t. And your healing can not depend on them. Now trust me when I say I am not 100 percent OK with this. But I know in most of my situations I will never get one. They are too lost in their own stories. But again, part of the work is not needing it to heal.

So in conclusion, be gentle with yourself as you embark on self healing. Allow yourself to feel out of control but don’t live there. As I go about my day I will keep telling myself that these feelings will not last forever and I will breathe again. My feet will land on the ground again. And in the meantime I will be grateful for the love and support of those around me.

“Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle” ~ Plato

This simple quote is originally attributed to Plato, the Greek author and philosopher, but has been re-quoted over and over in many different forms over the years. In my mind, it doesn’t matter who said the words first, what is important is the deep truth behind the words. We all are fighting battles, yet it is so simple to forget this in our everyday lives. Most people walk through this world with our defenses up and hide behind judgement of others to help keep our esteem up and our minds distracted from our struggles. Subconsciously we feel better if we make others feel smaller. The problem with this is we become disconnected from others and isolate ourselves behind walls of our own making. This seems to be painfully true in the world of young girls, mothers and women. Not that by any means we are the only group of people guilty of this. To see this kind of judgement play out all you have to do is turn on the TV to a news station and watch this type of judgement play out in every political arena in our country and around the world.

This reality seems to become more obvious to me when we find ourselves in a time of sadness and loss. So many of my friends are currently dealing with great losses, myself included, and the world is definitely not being spared from this type of suffering. But to me it seems like there are more people leaving this world and crossing over. I don’t know that there has been a time in my life where I have known more people who have passed on. It seems to not be sparing anyone these days and this is what got me thinking and typing as well. We humans are capable of creating great things, great love as well as creating great suffering upon each other. Yet no matter what is going on in our lives we all try so hard to keep each other from knowing what is going on inside ourselves. Now don’t get me wrong, some of this is a great protection mechanism we have created to keep ourselves from being hurt further but to protect ourselves in this manner also keeps out the love and support and despite our best efforts we need that love and support. We are designed to need other people. This simple fact has created a lot of controversy inside me at times, because while growing up I convinced myself that to need others created a weakness that made me more vulnerable than I cared to be. To not need others, kept me safe or at least that is what I chose to believe. But now, at this point in my life, I can need the positive people who I have in my life and still not allow myself to come to harm at the hands of people who want to harm me. This may not sound like a big task in writing but trust me it is huge for me and I dare say for others as well.

One of the greatest gifts I feel we can give to others is our vulnerability, love and support. By allowing people to see us strong as well as weak we are giving them the gift of knowing us. (I hope that reads the way I am intending it to and not in some arrogant manner) If we could allow ourselves to look at people differently then we can change the way others interact with us as well. When we can see every person as a whole being, one that suffers, one that loves, one that has been hurt, one that struggles with their own issues daily, then we being to see through the walls and into the heart of that person. We no longer see just the shell of the person, we can see past the scars and emotional battle wounds but we can begin to see the beautiful being of light that we are all on the inside. We can allow ourselves to care for others, even if it is just for five minutes as we pass them in the store or on the road. We can send love to another who is hurt or crying, or even to someone who is laughing and radiating joy at the table beside us. This is gift we can give each other and to the world. And I think we all can agree, that no matter what background, political group or belief system we come from, that this world needs more love. That we all need more love.

One of the hardest things to do is to appreciate someone while they are still here among us. We all seem to come together and appreciate someone who has passed. We all share memories, stories and love with each other about the person who has passed, but imagine what that kind of love could mean to someone who is still here. Why do we wait until after someone is gone to say all of the nice things we feel? It is such a waste of love that people could so deeply need when they are here suffering in silence. We all suffer in silence and we all could benefit from feeling cherished and appreciated everyday. I think everyone has heard or possibly said the words “don’t forget to tell the people you love that you love them before it is too late” and we seem to remember this during our time of mourning and grief but do we really do it? And do we keep doing it once our day-to-day life is back to normal, so to speak? I know that I am guilty of not always sharing my feelings. There is a fear of rejection that comes hand in hand with love, that make me hesitate but I don’t want to live my life with regret. I want to live my life each day filled with love. I think the contradiction of the overuse and at the same time the under use of the word love also complicates this entire process. In particular with situations that deal with friendships of the opposite sex. There is this fear of over sharing or someone taking your words the wrong way, but the truth is some of the people I love the most are the male friends I have in my life. Yet I don’t always feel comfortable telling them I love them the same way I do with my female friends. This can get us into an entire other topic so I won’t go to deep with this right now, but I want to live my life open. And by that I mean open enough that I can let the people who are important to me know that I care for them, that I love them without hiding behind my walls. Telling someone you love them can be a very hard thing to do but sometimes you just have to take the risk and jump in with both feet.

“The most valuable gift you can receive is an honest friend” ~ Steven Richards

To all of my dear friends in this world ~ I Love You!

The song Home by Phillip Phillips became an instant favorite of mine as I watched him win America Idol a year or so ago. The words seemed to speak so powerfully about life and how we deal with things that come our way. The reason I am choosing to write about these lyrics has to do with the transformation that they have undergone in meaning to me over this last year.

When I first listened to the song I thought it was a beautiful story of two people going through life and trouble but making the outcome their home. Ok,  this is a very shorthand description of one possible meaning. But over this last year I have been undergoing some huge transformations in my life and this song surprisingly has been along for the ride with me. For me now it is more about my higher self talking giving a loving pep talk to the part of me that gets stuck in fear, ego and worry. “Settle down it will all be clear, don’t pay no mind to the demons that fill you fear” This is a lesson that I must say has been a journey, but one that I am beginning to see the light at the end of the very long tunnel. Realizing that worry and fear get you no where has been huge in allowing myself to let go of the past and allow my true self to shine through. There are so many more points that are personal to me in this song but I think I will save that until the end!

I haven’t posted on this blog since late last year. This was mainly out of avoidance more than anything else, but I am done avoiding things I love out of the concern that I might upset someone. It is time to follow my heart and to continue to work on one of the issues that I am pretty sure we all worry about to some extent, other peoples judgement of us.

“Troubles they might drag you down, if you get lost you can be found”

I owe a lot to the amazing people who helped me find myself when I got lost over the last 3 years. Some of these people are the ones who are with me everyday but others are the “earth angels” as a dear friend of mine put it who helped bring the right people in my life at the right time. I am now at a place where I am uncovering my true self, the true self that had been covered with the troubles of the past, but now can be thankful for the challenges and see that they have helped make me who I am today. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that I have reached some sort of high enlightenment, but I have reached enough to accept things the way they occurred and to see that the future is brighter than I had given it credit before in the past. 

“Just know your not alone, I’m going to make this place your home”

I know now that I am not alone, not that I ever really was. But the people who have presented themselves in my life are so amazing that thankful is not a strong enough word for my feelings toward them. And to those that I have left behind I am just as grateful, without moving on I would have never had the opportunity to find out what true love, friendship and family truly is. I am more at home now internally and externally than ever and I look forward to where the future is taking me. I am grateful for having found true inspiration again and knowing that this is something unique that I can give to the world. I am grateful to have such amazing children who will forever be my greatest gift to the world, for they will share their bright inner selves to help the world in a way that I can’t even imagine. I am grateful to my amazing husband, who stands by me as I am uncovering who I am deep down and loves me unconditionally. I am grateful for my amazingly loyal & true friends, friends who stand by each other not just when things are good, but support each other through the hard times. And to my dearest Angela, there are no words to thank you for all you have done for me and I love you deeply! 

“Pictures of you, pictures of me
Hung upon your wall for the world to see
Pictures of you, pictures of me
Remind us all of what we used to be”

Pictures of me…. Looking back on my life is a lot like looking back through someone else’s photo album. Lately I have found reflecting back on my past to be a very disconnected action. I have moments I can still connect with, if only through the leftover emotions. It truly feels like a book that I had started reading so long ago that I have almost forgot the beginning. That’s how my life has unfolded for the most part. In very distinct chapters, complete with dramatic characters and intricate plot lines. There is always a struggle, hidden lessons and then a very quick transition into the next chapter. Even though, at the time the transitions didn’t feel quick, to look at back at the actual years I have lived it seems like there is way too much information to fit into a book that has yet to be completed. But none the less, there it is, in a file stored somewhere in my heart and in my head.

In retrospect, I am very grateful for the ability my mind has to push a lot of these old memories into the back of my sub conscience. There are a lot of events in my life that I can be thankful for not having to relive each day. But then there are the ones that I want to remember which are becoming fuzzy as well. It is an interesting balance trying to live in the present moments and let your past be your past but still feel like you need to keep your history. Chances are I don’t need that history anymore. The healthiest option is probably to glance back and be thankful for all I have lived through and to bless the past with love and release it from my life. At least that is where my thinking falls at the moment. Who knows what tomorrow thinking might hold.

Anyone who knows me closely can speak to the dramatic nature of the events in my life. I chalk some of this up to my inherent stubbornness and some is just the life I entered into. In the past, and even not so past, it has taken the big sign to fall on my head before I get the lesson. I wish I had been one of those people who could hear the quite whisper of guidance and get the hell out of whatever negative situation I was in at the moment, but speaking for me as a book character, I make for a really good dramatic reading! With that in mind, admitting you have a problem is half the battle, right? So, over the last year I have done a lot of reflecting and I know that for the first time in my life I can begin to hear the whispers. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that I am aware enough to always listen, but I am beginning to hear them.

I have found it intriguing how few people in my life are in my story for more than just a chapter. I was talking to my husband the other day about how there are these people in my life who I know are just meant to be here. And that is saying a lot, because I have had a lot of people come in and out of my life and very few of them I had any connection with or wanted them to be around for any length of time. Just over this last year, when I was able to begin to deeply shift my focus from pleasing everyone around me to being to be true to myself, did I start to see a few people from my past begin to sneak back into the plot line. And in addition to the past, I am deeply grateful for the new amazingly positive ones that I have connected with.

So as I sit here playing parts of my life over in my head, I am lost in wondering if it is worth looking at all I have been through. Is it the next logical step to put it down onto paper and see how it unfolds, or should I just be thankful for where I am today because of it all and move on….

“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” – Sir Edmund Hillary

Ever have one of those days where you just want to give in and quit climbing up the mountain? I’ve had a few of those days lately and they have started me down the road of wondering why? Why now? After having just crossed the threshold into a brand new year and having successfully made it through one of the hardest years of my life, why now do I feel so down? Holiday blues? Maybe. Or maybe it goes deeper than that. Actually I know it does. But do I really want to look at what the real reason is? Not really! But that is what this post is all about. It is about me sitting down with resolve and looking at these emotions and dealing with them. I know, from past experience, that the unknown and unexamined are so much worse than the truth. So why have I put this off so long? I don’t know, but here goes…

Now, as I look at a brand new year, I am scared. I know that this year will be filled with changes, more changes than my inner voice believes I can handle. You know that voice right? That voice that fills you with self-doubt, that can so rapidly and swiftly convince you that you are not good enough that you never even stood a chance at arguing with it. Yeah, that’s what I’m up against right now. And until now, she was winning. And sadly, I didn’t even try to argue with her. I just believed her. Until today…

I like comfort, I think we all do. We all like security and the wonderful emotions that come from knowing where we are going in life. And without this we are left with the fear of the unknown. This is the real root of my emotions lately. This fear that I have boiling deep inside me is about knowing that I now have no one to blame for my unhappiness. I have methodically and carefully separated myself from most of the external causes of my pain over the last several years. 2011 was a year full of purging myself from my past. This was not always something I chose to do. Most of the time these situations were thrust upon me despite my begging that they go away. But this has been a wonderfully powerful and extremely painful experience all at the same time. It has been a journey that I am just now getting to the place where I can honestly say that I am glad I have gone though it all, well, most of it anyway. (Ok, I’m working on it!)  So, now with most of that moved into the past, I am left looking at the future. A future that I can create without the burden of being under someone else’s control and vision. There is a clean slate waiting to be written on and it’s just mine now. No one to blame, no one to be controlled by, just me. What could be more powerful and terrifying all at the same time? For me right now, nothing. This is a first, the first time that I am truly able to live my life on my own terms. I have been striving to release myself from he heavy load that I have carried for way too long. The guilt that I let limit me, the abuse that I allowed to stifle me and the control that I let dominate me. And there are moments that I can feel the freedom of carefully unpacking and taking these things off my back, but somehow it is almost more comfortable when they are there. This brings me back to the fear of the unknown.

I am not good at the unknown. Living peacefully in the present moment requires and acceptance of taking things as they come and not controlling every situation. Controlling situations in my life has been my only real sense of security. It has been an amazing coping skill. One I am thankful for getting me this far in life, but at the same time, one I am so ready to let go of. Nothing is more exhausting than trying to keep everything in control. As mothers, women, wives, daughters we all know this feeling to some degree. It is passed down to us by family and given to us by society, just to name a few. I don’t mean that is was negatively thrown upon us, but we got it all the same. So putting this down is very difficult for me. I am not sure I know how my shoulders feel without this weight on them. But I am determined to learn. Determined to learn and accept the feeling of freedom and insecurity that comes from taking life a step at a time.

“Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.”  ~Leo Buscaglia

These quotes to ring so true for me. But I know how little of my time is actually spent now, in this present moment. I am always projecting into the future. I know that with a busy life and children it is impossible not to plan ahead, but worrying ahead is a different story. And that is where I spend most of my days. I get lost in the worry of everyday life and now with this open door into the future I have allowed it to spiral me down into the depths of worry. When in reality I should be feeling excitement and joy at the amazing future that now lays before me. So, that is what I am going to work on now. I am going to begin to make friends with the unknown. I want to give my shoulders and back permission to feel the freedom of the giant bundle I have put down. I am going to give myself permission to be happy, to feel excitement and joy and to begin to find security in the unknown. But at the same time remember to take this journey step by step and to forgive myself if I slip momentarily back into old habits.

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” – Maya Angelou

“I am a honey bee, Shunned off from the colony, And they won’t let me in, So I left the hive, They took away all my stripes, And broke off both my wings, So I’ll find another tree
And make the wind my friend, I’ll just sing with the birds, They’ll tell me secrets of the world…” Zee Avi – Honey Bee Lyrics

This beautiful song was gifted to me by one of my dearest friends in the world at one of the hardest times in my life. These amazingly simple and beautiful lyrics told the painful story of how I separated from a portion of my family. This story is a very complex one that I want to begin to share with you. The portion I am going to write about today is about the painful lesson that I learned about family. Family by definition for most of us is thought to be the people who love us the most. The people who we have grown up to believe that they have our best intentions at heart and will be with us through thick and thin. The ones who will support us know matter what. Well, with those definitions in my heart of what family is “supposed to be” was I in for a shock when I finally had to draw up enough courage to share one of the most painful events of my childhood.  I knew that there was not going to be anything easy about sharing my painful secret, but I was not prepared for what came next.

When I was a young girl, I was sexually abused for years. I had only told my husband of this and was really worried about sharing this with anyone else. Like most children who have gone through this experience, I was well-groomed by my abuser. Even as an adult, I still had those fears that he had instilled in me during the years of abuse. So, when this time came to bring it to the light, I was terrified. The timing of sharing my deep secret was not really of my choosing. It came about through a very long and winding road, so I will spare you all the details of how I got to the place where I had to share and get back to the point. Needless to say, I was a stressed out disaster up until the moment the words came out of my mouth. I had to tell my mother which was extremely painful and on Christmas Eve to top it all off. But I did share my story with her, and she was very supportive considering the pain she was going through on the realization of what had happened to me. Then the most dreaded part of the story, where we met with the parties involved, the abuser excluded of course, and I begin to speak. To say that my truth was met with a wide array of emotions would be a understatement.

I experienced the situation that keeps most victims (I use this word here, but no longer refer to myself as a victim) from ever speaking out. I heard every excuse as to why it did not happen, why what I had gone through wasn’t as bad as being raped, all the way to complete anger that I would ever tell anyone. The truth is that the people I was speaking to would have been much happier if I had never said anything. They could have gone about there lives in simple bliss and unawareness and been none the worse for wear. I was asked to not let it bother me,to put the needs of everyone else above myself. The vast array of reactions I was not prepared for, I knew that it would be hard but this type of hate and anger that was lashed  towards me crushed me. I quickly and harshly learned  not assume that people close to you do not mean support and love. I do have some members of my immediate family who are the support that I need and without my loving husband I don’t know how I would have gotten through those days. But I did get through them!

Over the next several years life got harder, more stressful and I got to a darker place than I have ever seen before. Everything in my life was tied up around this situation and  I got sicker and sicker. Until last year… I have mentioned several times that this last year has been one of the most challenging in my life and this is not an exaggeration. My husband and I had to come to some very hard realities about where we wanted to be and where we wanted to lead our children. Things had to get really bad for us to leave this life we had created over the last 10 years. But it did get bad enough that the decision was made, we had to put our health and happiness above everything else. We had to love ourselves more, and more than ourselves, we had to love our children enough to teach them that this unhealthy situation was not normal.

I had so many issues around this situation, and still do to some extent. I had to begin to deal with the fact that no one believed me. That my abuser thinks that he has won and my ego really gets upset by this. It wants everyone to see him for who he is and to see him punished. But I have had to come to the harsh realization that this is not my place. Going to this dark place of anger and vengeance only brings me down, not him! If I let this defeat me then I am letting him win, and I know that I am more than what has happened to me. I am grace, love, compassion and forgiveness. (Although anyone who knows me would never call me graceful!) The forgiveness part is still a daily struggle. I really want to hold onto that anger, but piece by piece, day by day, I am easing into forgiveness.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you.”

Speaking my truth became the beginning of the end of a lot of things in my life. It caused me to align with my true support group and separate from the people who were not a positive part of my life. All of these things that have snowballed from this one truth session I can now see as some of the greatest blessings in my life. They taught me just how strong I actually am. It has also allowed for some of the greatest gifts to flow into my life as well. The creation of my dream center, the place I want to give the world, Bodhi Grove. And it gave me the ability to write this, to find the courage to share my story and own my truth. These lessons allowed me to realize that I can walk where I like my steps, and I choose to walk with the people who love me and to go build a hive in another tree.

Forgiving is rediscovering the shining path of peace that at first you thought others took away when they betrayed you.  ~Dodinsky

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”  ~Elizabeth Stone

This statement has never been more true for me then in the last few weeks. The start of this school year has been a challenge not only for my son, who started the third grade, but for us as parents. It was a quick dip into the waters of the real world. Waters we were not at all prepared for or even thought we were near. Dylan just turned 9 and to us is still our little boy. But we have had the opportunity to take some very hard situations and begin to teach him lessons through his struggles. But as every parent knows when we set out to teach our children they always end up teaching us.

We are blessed to be able to send our children to a wonderful school where these lessons, even at their hardest, are buffered by talented & loving teachers and parents. (And since I have started down this path I just want to thank all of you who have been on this journey with me the last few weeks. Your love, support and kindness helped me keep my footing as we walked along this bumpy new path.)

The challenges that have been set before us were ones that caused Scott & I to look at every aspect of our parenting and to really search for what our beliefs are and make sure they are what we want to pass on to our children. Looking back at the beginning of these trials I can see how far we have come, now I can see that we have gotten to the place where I can reflect on the lessons hidden inside. This is always my favorite thing about hardships. I know deep down that there is a lesson in every situation and the deeper the pain the bigger the lesson. I have started to develop the ability to know when the situation arises that I need to find the meaning and this helps me step outside of myself and my emotions to see the big picture. Don’t get me wrong, this does not mean that I don’t get sucked into the emotions and the stress, but it has given me the ability to at least keep the light at the end of the tunnel visible, and for that I am grateful!

Watching your children suffer in any way is such a painful experience for a parent. We want to take it all away and make everything better. And with my personality I want it done now! I want them to be happy and free of worry and pain! So watching him painfully find his way through some tough situations has been unbearable. But we are starting to make progress and see more and more of his happy, loving self coming back to us. That is what it is about, to guide our children through life and see that they still remain whole at the core of their inner self. For me, that is how I measure my success.

In many ways I can see how Scott and I have taken this on as a challenge. An unspoken challenge to look at our parenting, our beliefs, our values and our relationship. To assess what we believe in and to be sure our priorities are in the correct places. Without these challenges we would not have taken the time to learn more, to research more, to reach out to others and to communicate to each other about these unspoken agreements we live with as partners and as parents. So in looking back at all we have learned and reassessed, we are so deeply grateful to our son, our deeply sensitive and loving child, for allowing us this opportunity to check in with ourselves. To take our family up to the next level. There is no love deeper than the love I feel for my children. They are my gift to the world. My gift of something better than myself. I know that they are going to make a difference, for they have already made a difference in me!

In Love,

Michelle

“It’s not only children who grow.  Parents do too.  As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours.  I can’t tell my children to reach for the sun.  All I can do is reach for it, myself.”  ~Joyce Maynard

“If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Surrender… Until just recently the word surrender has always held a negative connotation in my mind. To surrender to me felt like giving up, quitting and I have always loathed giving in. But just recently I have caught a glimpse of surrender in new a light. I have seen it as a peaceful and quite action. In my mind it is more about allowing than to surrender. But no matter how the word needs to be dressed up in my head for it to have the “proper” meaning, I have seen it and felt it these last few days. And I love it there. It is quiet, calm and peaceful. It is totally in the moment. Not deep in planning as my mind has always run, but in the utter stillness of the now.

For anyone who knows me it would not surprise them that I had this revelation at the beach. The ocean is my home away from home. A place where I feel more of myself than anywhere else in the world. (Granted I haven’t traveled that much but we will just go with it!) I can walk along the surf for hours and as I walk I find myself deeper and deeper in stillness. What an amazing change from the endless chatter of my mind usually. And I have really quieted my mind a lot from several years ago! But as a parent my mind is always on, planning, packing, remembering more than seems humanly possible! Yet as moms we all do this. So when I find that stillness, that almost complete peace, it is a very noticeable change from the norm. It is one I never want to leave. And that is where I stumbled across the meaning of this quote.

When we traveled as a family, my husband and 2 children, to the coast for a few days, I made a decision to let go of the fretting. The worry about fitting everything in, the reality of knowing it was going to come to an end soon and just be present in each moment. (Truth be told it wasn’t in every moment, but I allowed myself a few relapses and did not get mad at myself when I slipped) With the surrender came a new-found presence. And our trip seemed so much better. I was so present, I felt, loved and laughed without my usual mental separateness. I am amazed at the difference it made, and not just in myself.

I feel such a fullness about this trip. I really lived it from a new perspective and new reality and I am so deeply appreciative of my journey. I love these moments in life where you can look at all the hardships and see that they have been worth it. And if you have lived a rough life like myself you know what I am talking about! It takes a big moment to see over the top of the mountain of negative experiences and say it was worth it. In my shoes, that is a big statement!

Sometimes in life you have to get away, to step out of your usual routine to get the big lessons. And I am deeply grateful for my walk in the sand…

“One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh

In Love,

Michelle