Thoughts
I took a breath. Not any breath It was a huge breath…and then I forgot about it. Today I remembered. I recalled the depth and beauty of it. I remember the feeling of peace that came after, as if all was right with the world. It came back to me in a rush, the safety of it, the awe of how much space I could find in my body and the total relaxation that I felt letting it out.
Being able to take a day trip or weekend up to the mountains and listen to the river, smell the mountain air, cook in my grandmothers kitchen and care take this special place I love has been a great part of my healing.
I’ve been pretty stoic about my kids leaving home. I prepared for it by returning to school while they were in high school and going back to work as they entered college (yes….to pay the tuition bills…but also to fill my time.) Because I did “build my life around” them and now my job is to let them go. But to tell the truth, I really do miss them a whole heart full and to the moon and back and to eternity and beyond.
OMG…I spent the last month worrying about something that I now know was based on a false belief! Not only did I waste time worrying, I was angry at times and my back hurt and I was avoiding things. Turns out it was a problem that took an hour to solve.
Transitions are a part of life. Some come with much fanfare and celebration and others with sadness and grief. I find that we are often caught off guard by the impact of the happier transitions and at a loss as to how to process the sadder times. Mindful living can help with transitions. Being aware of the variety of emotions and acknowledging them will help you move through transitions with grace.
As much as we strive for independence we must remember that we are all interconnected and dependent on other people using their talents and having diversity in their ability and capacity. Everyone has value and "counts" and anyone who can’t see that is probably living in fear of not counting themselves.
As a parent, I often feel anything but wise. You might think, because of my work, I would be great at parenting. Ha Ha….I’m great at giving parenting advice, taking it is a whole different ballgame! To give myself some credit my children were almost grown before I officially became a social worker, but I still am pretty good at screwing it up now and then. They will happy to tell you about it.
There is the one tall guy with the extra long mat who sets up first and throws off the rows, or the newbies in the back row who are just far enough from each other to not have room for a mat between them, but far enough that someone might just try and squeeze in (possibly to teach them a lesson.)
Most of us learn our relationship skills from our parents. “Whoa? What? I’m not like my parents!” Well I didn’t say that you would mimic them, but that you learned from them. For most of us, we do mimic some of our parents relationship habits. Others try so hard not to be like their parents that they go too far in another direction. For anyone who had healthy role models it is a good thing. But with a divorce rate of 50% or so many of us did not.
One of my earliest memories is of a street preacher who was shouting about “hypocrisy” when I was about six years old. It stuck with me all day and I later asked my parents what hypocrisy was. From that point on I was on the look out for it…and as you can imagine, I saw it everywhere, especially because we were a good southern church going family. And to this day the people that irk me the most are those who judge others before looking at their own faults first. (Matthew 7:3: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”)
