Work In Progress

The first time I turned invisible I was ten years old. My sister was 18 months old and had graduated from adorable living doll I could dress up and feed, to a demanding toddler.  As a former only child and only grandchild, I was used to being the centre of most things in my world and finding myself summarily dismissed I was determined to redirect the spotlight back to its rightful place---on me. First, I tried flinging myself onto my bed with a dramatic sigh.  But since our house was a rather a spread out, no one seemed to notice.  Sometimes I would stand behind my bedroom door and wait until I heard someone coming to that end of the house---and then fling myself again.  LOUDER sigh.  But no one came.   WHY OH WHY DO MY PARENTS NOT COME INTO MY ROOM AND SIT ON MY BED AND ASK ME WHAT IS WRONG LIKE THEY DO ON THE BRADY BUNCH!! Those were REAL parents!  Those were LOVING parents!  They had some sort of internal guidance system that...

Change is hard.   It is particularly difficult when you are recovering from anxiety and depression.   Your old self, old habits, old mistaken beliefs, sit beside you in therapy looking like a comfortable blanket to throw over your raw, wounded self. It is easy to go back to what you know.  Putting yourself out there; being vulnerable and open to change; that is the hard stuff. In group therapy, I listened to people often lamented that they just wanted to go back to being who they were. That is exactly what I didn’t want.   Before each of my breakdowns (yes, there were two) my daily habits included not taking lunch breaks, working while I was sick, isolating myself, gossiping at work to fuel the fire of injustices (imaged and real), doing for everyone until I was so exhausted there was no time left for myself, then being resentful and wearing exhaustion like a badge of honor. That is what landed me in the hospital…..twice in 15 years.   Clea...

I am back at the Leaning Tower of Pisa that started this whole blog over 80 posts ago (and yes that is me in the foreground).   Back then, I was an observer; intellectualizing the Tower and the path in my head as I took a few steps in the general direction to  plant a shovel here and there, probing the soil for a good point of entry.  Work in Progress signs were hung and after a few weeks the digging began.  And like any project--there were delays--and unexpected circumstances which allowed me to emerge from the musty subterranean tunnel to gulp down the fresh air I didn't know I was missing while searching for the broken part in me that made me so off balance.    But it's been months and months and I am far below the Tower, digging; the cool dampness compressing my lungs; words and thoughts  absorbed by the loamy damp earth; each shovel exposing more and more of my damaged spirit.  It has been heart a...

When faced with overwhelming anxiety that caused dizzy spells, Brene Brown went to her psychiatrist to find out how to better handle her increasing anxiety.  Her story is much like mine, but  I knew what was coming or what could come, because I had been there before.  It's a bit like losing control of your car in the snow, tires unable to grip now matter how to you turn the wheel.  Another car looms in front of you.  You can see it coming. You windmill the wheel the other way. Your arms lock, extended, bracing yourself for impact. I had been here before. I had also temporarily evaded a couple of near misses with therapy, so I thought I would give it another try. Unfortunately, it was  too much, too fast and the Ka-BOOM lurked around every corner.  Each day I was more conscious of my heart thudding faster as my world slid in and out of focus, my hands or voice often quivering with an...

With all the things going on right now I am feeling a little lost, and so will return to the Guideposts of "The Gifts of Imperfection" to help me focus on my work. It is fitting that this guidepost is about letting go of the need for certainty.  Much like my "unbeknown to her" mentor Brene Brown....I like to be a logic and reason kind of gal....head over heart I would say.  But over the years I have also developed a healthy sense of intuition and faith --which is a key component of Wholehearted living. Brown's research has led her to the conclusion that intuition is not just a belief in something independent from any logic or reasoning, instead, intuition is in play when we use our database of memories and experiences from which we can measure and asses new situation to get a "feeling" about what we have observed.  We input the data--and the output may be ---I need more data,  which I recognize as the feeling of not being sure...

Eighteen years ago today my life changed forever.  At 7:11 AM  I held in my arms a wee, pink, bundle with peach fuzz hair and ten little fingers and ten little toes.  I was oblivious to the intern doing my stitches (until he asked the resident if they looked ok...that caught my attention for a second----yes please, do they LOOK OK!!!!) as I stroked his lips, his ears, his cheeks, his feet. I was in awe that this 7 lbs wonder had only minutes before been living safely inside me and was now out here in the big wide world and it was just the two of us.  My marriage had dissolved when I was four months pregnant and my life purpose crystalized when my doctor asked me if I was feeling like I might hurt myself or someone else as I sat crying in her office after my husband left.  The tears dried up immediately. I was having a baby. THAT child and I were priority number one...I dismissed her as absurd. I had never felt stronger...

At my core, I am someone who like structure and a good plan.  Don't get me wrong---there are days in the summer when I will wake up early and decide it is a great day to go to the zoo.  There is much grumbling as I wake everyone up and inform them of my fantastic idea and let them know we are leaving in 20 minutes.  Breakfast?  We will eat on the road - breakfast sandwiches (that gets them moving a bit faster). I start packing bathing suits and lunches, sunscreen and water bottles.  Spontaneous trips often turn out better than planned ones since I know I WANT to go and there feels like there is less pressure for the day to be "like I planned".  It is an "adventure day" so anything can happen and I don't put expectations on the trip---ok well fewer expectations.  A couple of years ago we went on a7 day Caribbean cruise out of Tampa - me, my husband and two of the boys.  I planned out each day of the drive to and Flor...

I have discovered that I care more about what people think of me than I thought. This comes as a bit of a surprise.   Not often enough, I get together with two women I have known since childhood.  As it often does in situations like this, we reminisce and inevitably the conversation winds its way around to why we did what we did when we were younger and someone alwayts says to me, "You never cared what anyone thought!  I wish I was more like that!  When we were little, we would come to your house and ask you to come out to play and you would say, 'nah, I don't feel like it' and close the door!"    Though now, I am wondering if other people would say ?  I will take an unofficial poll and see what I find out.    When I announced to the same two women I had discovered I was a perfectionist during my therapy--they looked at each other and burst out laughing. I have still not told anyone I ...

“At the core of all well-founded belief lies belief that is unfounded.” ― Ludwig Wittgenstein , On Certainty At the core of each of us is a set of beliefs --"a repeating pattern of thought and behavior defined by our various assumptions and expectations, as well as our ideas about the way the world works, collected over time."[ 1 ]  These beliefs were formed in childhood, and throughout life we generally seek out situations where our actions reinforce our core beliefs --- which in turn, provides us with proof that our core beliefs are true --which reinforces the belief. It is a self-feeding cycle. Core beliefs are elusive---they are in our subconscious--quietly feeding our feelings (which are a bit more easy to identify) information mixed in with so much misinformation you can not longer tell what is real. Let me walk you through something that recently happened to me to help shed some light on one particular core belief I have been struggling with.  I have...