Mother’s-day, naturally full of shame unless we are able to be a friend to yourself, present with the bad in Me even if reluctantly.
Question: What is a barrier to you becoming a friend to yourself? What role does shame play? Please tell me your story.
Self-Care Tip: Get friendly with your shame.
LIFE
Misty sounded relieved,
Yes. That’s it.
She had just realized that life isn’t fair. Sure. She knew that before, but she just realized what she knew. Don’t we all love that moment when our senses join up – sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, emotion, intellect, spiritual and the rest. That is a lot to coördinate after all and sometimes some of them don’t make the train.
Misty was a single mom of three. Her ex-husband was what she called, “Disney-Dad,” and her kids relished their time with him. Misty complained that she didn’t get to spend the special times with her kids. She mainly took care of them, but missed out on irresponsible fun. She was sure her kids wouldn’t look back and think of her like they would their father. She was getting angrier about it all the time, ruminating about it and it was getting in the way of her ability to connect with others and feel pleasure. There it was in front of her blocking her from seeing her kids even, let alone herself.
Then after weeks of this along with medication and talk therapy, she told me,
Yes. That’s it. Life is not fair. There are many other things in my life that aren’t fair either and if I look for them, I could spend my whole day every day counting them off.
It broke my heart a bit to hear her and see her there. Humble like that; she would I think affect you the same way. So real.
Yesterday, Carl D’Agostino replied to our post about growing our understanding of our choices beautifully.
…we wait until we are at our wit’s end before we seek assistance…. considering reaching out as personal failure or inadequacy re: our own self-esteem…. Foolishly we wait until our way just is not working anymore. That is why AA calls this a gift: the gift of desperation. …For many, the depths into which we have succumbed are now found not to be so deep at all and in fact, ladders are readily available if we use them in recovery.
Ah Carl. Say it again.
The gift of desperation.
Too good. Don’t you think?
Questions: Have you ever received the gift of desperation? What did it bring you? Where did it take you? What did it do to you? Do you still have it? Please tell me your story.
Self-Care Tip – Celebrate your gift of desperation.
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Self-Care Tip #256 – Think about the good and the not so good on scheduled memory-maker days like today.
Questions: What do you think scheduled intimacy has to offer you? How do you manage to allow the not so good to come together with the good in your life? Please tell me your story.
Just like any scheduled memory-maker, Mother’s Day brings the good and not so good. And for most of us, we have some of both, even if just a little.
Yesterday, in the company of my three healthy children, I couldn’t help but notice the lady I sat beside was sniffling. “Should I say something? Should I not say something?”
…Almost six years ago, my nine year-old niece suddenly died. One week later I delivered my second child.
I don’t remember most of my daughter’s first year of life except a couple random things. My sister-in-law, sitting alone on a rock just staring. I remember her clothes, the weather during that moment, the texture of the rock, but I don’t remember nursing my baby. I think this was still in the first month when I saw my sister-in-law on the rock.
We buried my niece’s ashes under a Jacaranda tree and it took forever for that tree to bloom. I watched its skeleton month after month thinking, “This is terrible! It needs to bloom!” Isn’t that ridiculous? And I remember my brother, red-eyed. The lines on his face cut in deep. He said,
I’m so glad you’re having this baby Sana. It’s just what we need. You remind us, this baby is reminding us that we are still alive.
The good and the not so good.
Of course I sensed what my brother was saying, but I still had a moment of hypervigilance when my body seemed to say, “What?!”
There was a lot of insecurity and emotional confusion that year but I don’t remember much more. I believe my daughter breast-fed, learned to sleep through the night, transitioned to solid foods and took her first steps. But I don’t remember.
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Yesterday, I turned to the lady and asked,
Are you sad? Is there something you are sad about?
More water-works.
I used to have a son. I had a son. He died.
The good and the not so good.
Right on schedule. Mother’s Day came. We knew it was going to happen. And yet our bodies crack open, poorly defended. Little our calendars did for our emotional preparation.
The lady grabbed my hands in further intimacy than I anticipated. She told me her name but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about my niece, her sometimes blooming tree, my children around me; so much. I was thinking about the good and the not so good on scheduled memory-maker days like today.
There is a coming together of our parceled selves that have been scattered to the east and to the west by the winds. There is a coming together that this Mothers-Day, Christmas, Valentine’s or my nieces birthday, have on us and the process itself is bruising. It is an opportunity to gather what we will or won’t. It is an opportunity to be present with our changing selves. In the tears, in my daughter’s crooked rainbow pictures and backwards letters,
bear mommy, i love yu….
In the grip of a stranger’s hands, in the company of our own Mom’s, wherever we find ourselves on these blue-lettered calendar days is where we have this
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opportunity to do some of the sometimes hard work to grow presence. Without it, we will continue to change. That can’t be stopped. But with it, with our choice-making, with accepting the gift of our folding up of the space between our past and our present, if we hadn’t cried again for our loss, if we hadn’t we might not have remembered what has made us and who we are. Changed. Covered by Love. Connected. Doing what a friend would do for Me.
Tonight my daughter sits on my lap. We are watching a blue-ray recording of Les Miserables (musical) Twenty-Fifth Anniversary touring production at the London’s Barbican Centre. I am listening to an excellent tale of the good and the not so good in life.
To God, our Mother, today was scheduled and I thank you.
It doesn’t take as much work as publicized to take care of our children. I’m not saying it’s not hard, here as I put my throbbing feet up on my coffee table and write. However, I will say that the real work, the difficult work, the work that isn’t in the headlines, is a woman’s work. Taking care of ourselves. It is hard. Taking care of our children is natural, instinctual, congruent with our inner selves. Taking care of our children is on our minds before anything else, without trying. However, taking care of “Me” is not. You want to see a woman sweat? Watch her try to peel away the guilt when she’s writing a blog instead of reading to her kids ;). Wedging time in for yourself, seeking out to know yourself, teasing apart your thoughts to find your voice and then acting on what you discover – that is hard work.
Then why do we spend so much time talking about how hard it is to care for our kids? Hmm. Because talking about ourselves doesn’t interest anyone. Talking about that isn’t applauded. In fact, we feel ashamed of it. When we stop fighting for this though, stop working until we sweat, when we stop pressing in to the heart of this most difficult challenge, than we stop growing. The shame that hides us drifts over and touches the very ones we are sacrificing for. How we see ourselves eventually is how they see us too. In the end, will we even understand why?
What would happen however if we did our most difficult job? Wow! The idea is huge. Everyone wins I think. It may not be so apparent and it may not be as celebrated as Mother’s Day. But we do. Our kids do. Our partners, our families, our communities, and on. It starts right here with “Me.”
Self Care Tip #7 – Work a woman’s work. Be a friend to yourself.
Friend to Yourself 