My Safe Place

 The other day, I was sitting in a virtual classroom with 90 other students, when the professor asked us to each participate in an exercise designed to evoke a feeling of safety, of feeling supported, loved, and comforted. He asked us to focus on a moment, a memory that was both vivid and that would produce those feelings.

Immediately, my thoughts wandered to all the possible memories I could have chosen: me being in my grandparents' barn hayloft with a mother dog and her pups, or me talking to my uncle's Percheron horse as a nine-year-old girl, my grandmother making new potato hash browned potatoes... but I rejected all of these and chose something more recent: one time I awoke in the middle of the night as a grieving mother, sobbing into my pillow, and feeling my husband's arms around me. His presence, his unspoken support, his love, his comfort - they were all tangible. 

As we went through the exercise, our prof engaged all of the five senses. As he drilled down into the memories we each chose, he was able to bring them front and centre. When it was done, I was one of many who dabbed at their eyes.

It was a powerful experience for me, both during and afterward. My eyes filled with tears of gratitude, of love, of letting go of that pain, of a feeling that I was kept safe and sheltered from the horrible storm in my heart. The feeling stayed with me long after the exercise was over. Each time I thought of that moment, the same feelings came back. I had discovered a new Safe Place, one to which I could return when I felt overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, or threatened. 

Free photo by Pexels at Pixabay

Our professor took us through that exercise so that we could experience for ourselves the power of emotions and the need for acknowledging them in our lives and the lives of our clients. Point. Taken.

Shortly after I wrote the above words, my kitten, Willow (aged 7 months) crawled into the space between me and the arm of the loveseat. I started petting her head and neck. And then she lifted her head, looked at me, and crawled up on my chest and laid down, her face nuzzling under my chin. She stayed there for a good fifteen minutes, soaking in the love, absorbing the sense of peace and calm in my body and in the room, and dozing off amid soft purrs. 

For a few minutes, I was her safe place. 

When she was all filled up with comfort and with love, she got up, hopped off my chest, and went to her perch on the cat-tree to groom herself and survey her domain. Cats position themselves where they can see their people as a way of marking their territory. We are her people. She feels at home here. Now, she has returned to the back of the loveseat, and has laid down just behind my left shoulder. Her left front paw is on the back of my upper arm. She has fallen asleep. Connection. Trust. Safety. Love. Peace.

That's the feeling everyone needs to feel. I need to feel it; she needs to feel it; you need to feel it. And we need to feel it often. At least once a day, Willow comes to me for that feeling of safety and love, usually right before we settle down for the night. It's security for her. It's belonging for her. It's Home to her. 

We can call that return to security whatever we like: grounding, meditating, centering, breathing, pranayama, enjoying the moment, going to our happy place, or whatever. For me, it's going to My Safe Place. As part of a healing and growing process in my life, it's essential. And it feels SO good. It's designed to - because we are each designed to connect, to feel safe, to feel settled and secure. 

 * ♫ ♪ ♫ *

If you want to learn more about living a lifestyle that lets go of the past and releases the future, you can try my book, after which this blog is named: Get Unwrapped!  It's not long, but it's worth reading slowly. Get it here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/91697

New light - Thoughts under the stars

 The clock nears 2 a.m. I cannot see the stars, but I know they are above the clouds, each one singing its song in the symphony of the Universe.

Free image "Milky Way" by Pexels at Pixabay. 

I sit alone at my computer with only the sound of the refrigerator behind me and the peeping frogs of tinnitus pulsating in my right ear to break the silence. 

The dog, confused at my early emergence from my cocoon of blankets, watches me sleepily from the hallway. 

An open cookbook is to my left, a reminder that I will try that recipe for English muffins when I eventually start the day; hopefully I will have slept before that. To my right is a shiny white mug that I use to encourage myself to drink more water. 

I notice these things but I attend to my writing, to calm my racing thoughts. This happens occasionally, these bouts of insomnia that I have learned to accept and do something else until I feel tired enough to go back to bed.

My thoughts turn to the sleeping ones in my house. The cats of course - they sleep over 18 hours a day - and my husband down the hall, oblivious to my insomnia, snoring softly. I hear him whistle occasionally in his sleep, pent-up breath escaping like a distant boiling kettle. I imagine what it must be like to breathe all the time through half-congested nostrils. To have to choose between breathing and eating, for only one can be done at a time; his allergies make him miss so much of what others ... what I ... take for granted. I shudder.

My daughter stops by and checks on me. I explain my insomnia (or what I think caused it this time) and she brings me a heating pad for my aching belly - in this body I pay for every pleasure, it seems, with pain - this time it was a prolonged belly-laugh earlier this evening at some silly thing that happened. She and I understand each other's pains. She's a good person, one I am honoured to call my friend as well as my child. She goes back to her bedroom and wishes me a good night. The heating pad helps. Or was it just her love and care for me? Perhaps both. Definitely the love.

And in this relative silence, I sit and type out my thoughts. Blogging relaxes me; it gives me an outlet and orders my thought process so that it doesn't race along, pinging off the walls of my mind like some freshly-released pinball. Yet the thoughts this time are not regrets or flashbacks - those rip at my soul, but not tonight.

Tonight I am ... grateful, pensive, even (dare I say it?) happy. I am unaccustomed to this new way of being. The change came just this morning when I was watching old reruns of The Big Bang Theory. It was near the end of the series and Leonard, who grew up in a loveless home, realizes his mother is using him again to further her career, as she did when he was a child and all through his growing-up years. 

He becomes very angry ... and she gaslights him, ignores him until (she says) his tantrum is done. At the end, he finally decides to forgive her, and comes to tell her so. She hadn't asked for his forgiveness, and told him that. But he forgave her anyway. And his words (paraphrased below) pierced my soul to the quick. "I forgive you because ... I'm just going to have to accept you the way you are, and realize that you will never change. And maybe someday, you will learn to accept me the way I am."  She sits in silence for several seconds, and says, "That feels good. To be forgiven even though I didn't ask you to do it."  He is silent. And she gets up and for the first time in his life, she hugs him. And he hugs her back. No questions, no conditions, no ground rules, Just one simple act of kindness. 

And yes, I cried.

Free image by
Evgeni Tcherkasski at Pixabay.com

The scene reminded me that there are certain people in my life who need forgiveness and who will never change. And maybe it doesn't matter if they do. They need it anyway. And more than that, I need to give it to them. No questions, no conditions, no ground rules. Just one simple act of kindness, repeated over and over and over again, until the healing is complete.

I said to someone earlier this week that miracles happen every day. And a miracle is no less a miracle if it happens slowly and gradually. Just like my little light here that I shine is no less amazing than that of the stars that seem so dim but are really enormous and magnificent. That there even IS light is amazing. And just because I cannot shine as brightly as the sun (or as brightly as other people whom I admire) doesn't mean that I should stop shining my own light, or that I should even dim it. It could be that somebody, somewhere, might be just as inspired as I am by what little light I can shed.

I think I can go back to bed now.

Whether I sleep ... is immaterial. 

Annnd GO!

 I'm less than 38 hours away from my orientation at my practicum site. Normally I would write this on my student counselling blog, but I wanted to reflect on my feelings as I start to turn this corner into a second career as a counsellor.

I've done similar work to counselling before: six years as a La Leche League leader (breastfeeding support via telephone and in monthly group meetings), six months as a mentor to an at-risk single mom, and of course face-to-face practice counselling of my classmates in my grad program. 

But real-world, real-time clients? I would be an idiot if I were to not feel some trepidation. And I do!  

I have the feeling that once I get into seeing clients, things will come together. I have the training, I have the practice, and I know how to use the theories effectively. I just need to calm my jitters and take one client, one day, sometimes even one moment, at a time, and things will all come together.

Photo from http://www.pixabay.com

I do know that I feel a strong sense of gratitude for all that I have been given, not the least of which is my family and their support and encouragement. The same goes for my close friends, my work colleagues, my former and current classmates, my profs, my supervisor, and my on-site mentor. I have been (and am) thoroughly blessed by my higher power. 

The reality is that I don't have any clients booked yet. Other than times booked to observe my supervisor, my appointment book is empty. I'm trying not to panic, and I've been getting the word out, but it's hard not to worry that I won't be able to get the number of clients I need to satisfy my university's expectations for the first couple of months of my practicum. So here's where the rubber meets the road. Do I trust God? Do I trust myself? Where are all these people who keep complaining that there aren't enough counsellors in my province and they have to wait for months to see one? At what point do I ask for help? 

My emotions are in a bit of a jumble, as you can imagine. I am both confident and unsure, excited and terrified, happy and nervous, hopeful and discouraged. I believe I have done all I can, but I wonder if it's enough. 

Time will tell. 

I truly hope that three months from now, I will be able to be confident with no question marks in the back of my mind. 

So, here goes!

Musings from Above the Clouds

(*I initially wrote this post on the plane on July 16, 2019.*) 

So here I am at 34,000 feet somewhere over Manitoba, on my way to Calgary to participate in a 5-day intensive, face-to-face training in Solution Focused Brief Therapy. My classmates are all gathering there, as is my professor, and my first order of business will be to get from the airport to the place where I will be staying – a fifty-dollar taxi ride. Friends have advised me to download UBER to my phone so I have done that. That turns the $50 into something like $30. Not bad! Plus, you pre-pay so there’s no meter running in rush hour traffic, a bonus for me!

I also choose not to avail myself of the Internet on the flight because it costs. So, I am doing this blog off-line, and because I am using a new laptop, I will have to wait until I get back home to upload it. 

Oh well. At least it gives me something to do.

My university is virtual, so it contracts with other places to provide space for their students’ face-to-face requirements. My destination in Calgary is one I’ve stayed at twice before; it is a lovely place with rolling gentle hills, and a garden with a man-made waterfall next to a gazebo. The last time I was there, two years ago, I thought I would not be visiting it again. However, as it turns out, this special studies course became available with a summer institute at the same campus and … here I am, sitting on an ever-increasingly numb bottom and trying to keep my mind active! 

The challenges of traveling to a university campus, three thousand miles away and three thousand feet higher than I’m used to, were daunting at first. But this is something I have done twice before, and I am getting to know how to navigate the airports, taxis, and so forth. I am even thinking of trying out the transit system to shop for groceries! In the meantime, I am saving airplane food to tide me over until I get to a store. As Crocodile Dundee said, “Well, you can live on it, but it tastes like s#*t.”

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My mind is flitting all over the place as the plane speeds at 550 miles per hour. I wonder what I will learn and whether I will do well at this type of therapy I’m studying in this course, I wonder whether I will like my fellow-students (probably), and I cannot help thinking about my youngest daughter, who passed away almost 6 years ago now. Today, July 16, 2019, would have been her 27^th birthday. She is proud of me for getting my degree, I am sure of it. And I’m only a little over a year away from getting my parchment! But today, my thoughts keep returning to how much I would love to feel her arms around me in one of her big bear hugs, when she’d lift me off the floor – no small feat – in her go-big-or-go-home way. She is my inspiration for continuing this journey.

It’s been a journey for sure, these last few years working toward a career in counselling while finishing up my current career in the federal public service. Working for Canadians behind the scenes has enhanced my desire to help people and to see the good that I do, so I look forward to being able to do that in person after I graduate! Moreover, it’s been a journey in the sense of personal growth. I have learned so much about myself, good and not so good, and I’m working on the not so good parts. I have found an amazing therapist and she and I are working through some family-of-origin issues together. I am so thankful for her kindness and her faith in me. 

I would have given up in discouragement long ago, if not for the support and love my husband and daughter have shown me. They take up the slack, run errands, share in the cooking and cleaning, and tell me on a regular basis that I will nail this and be a great counselor! What a great blessing they both are! 

My friends and colleagues also have been nothing but supportive. Aside from one close friend who told me I would have to grow a thick skin (haha, he knows me well!) everyone has been amazing. My sensitivity to people’s feelings has stood me in good stead so far, and I have learned how to take constructive criticism and also to recognize when someone is being domineering. I’m learning how to stand up for myself without getting angry and flustered. I have learned simple tasks I never learned as a child: how to apologize, how to make conversation with people, and how to accept people who are different from me and who hold different views than I do. Those are important lessons, learned (as usual) the hard way. The road has been steep at times. However, I think I am beginning to come into my own, as they say. Confidence is starting to grow again, and I trust that it will do so even more as I get closer to graduation! 

As I look past the next hurdle (passing this course!) and to September, I realize that my first day of my 8-month practicum is only a little over seven weeks away, and I am both eager and nervous to start it! I think, though, that the nervousness is only natural, given that there is a great big “unknown” out there in practicum-land. I’ll be working three days a week (unpaid of course) as a counseling intern at a local church. That in itself does not seem strange, but I must chuckle at the irony of me having a practicum at a church, when I left the formalized church five years ago and have been pursuing fellowship with other believers on an individual basis (not in a church building) ever since, no looking back. So, part of the situation feels a little weird. The other thing is that my supervisor is an external supervisor to meet the requirements of the university (a Master’s degree in a counseling-related field with at least four years of post-Master’s experience in counseling) as there is no one at the church who meets those requirements. And to top it all off, she self-identifies as an agnostic … and the majority of my clients will be church people! (Oh yeah, the Almighty has a really cute sense of humor!) That said, neither she nor the pastor have expressed any hesitation about working with each other (or with me) for my benefit. Bonus! 

At the same time, starting in September, I will also be working two days a week at my job. It will be … interesting juggling the two.  It will definitely be a charged schedule, as I also take a practicum course (with readings and homework and all that) during the same time frame. So, I can foresee needing to spend lots of time doing self-care! I might even blog once in a while… aren’t you lucky! 

Saplings

I helped my family plant a couple of saplings today in our back yard. They were special saplings ... two different types of apple trees. One was a Honeycrisp and the other was a Red Nova (kind of like a cross between a Cortland and a McIntosh).

They came to us in a box, perfectly packed for shipment, with the root ball protected in a plastic bag with slightly moist compost around it.  And the saplings themselves looked to be little more than sticks. Long, bumpy sticks with a few tiny buds starting to poke through the tender bark. Below these tiny shoots, on each "tree", you could just barely make out the place where the grower had grafted the fruit-bearing portion of the tree onto the original sapling (the one attached to the root ball). That graft, apparently, was our guarantee that the tree would produce the type of apples for which we had ordered the trees... if that makes any sense. 

It will take a couple of years for these little sticks to resemble trees, and to produce blossoms in the spring. They will need to be staked before this fall to grow straight and tall, and they will need to be covered in burlap before the snow falls this year to protect them from the howling winds and deep snow. They have already undergone quite a process to get to the point they were when we received them, and they will need to be carefully tended until they can stand against whatever Mother Nature throws at them. 

Photo by Matthias Cooper from Pexels

I kind of feel like I am at that stage as a budding counselor. I feel bare, but I am showing growth; most of the growth is underneath, and I feel quite vulnerable.

To continue the analogy, even though I have not graduated from my Master's program, I have already done some growing and have experienced some cutting and healing - just like the graft that guarantees success - and I have started to send out a few tentative leaf-tips. I feel as though I've been planted in fresh soil, and part of me feels like I need to have support as I face the next year of my life when I will do the most growing I will have ever done. Hands-on experience is far superior to book learning - and I sure feel like I have done enough reading and studying to last me a while! So now it is time to move onward and put what I have learned into practice (pun intended.) 

My practicum has been approved, and I will be working on my Learning Plan over the next month or so with my future supervisor, in order to start my hands-on work in September. It is so surreal to realize that a year from now, I will have finished my practicum and will be taking my final course in the program. What an amazing ride it's going to be! 

There are still a few things to iron out between now and September, but these will fall into place as time goes on. I am looking forward to continuing my studies, to the helping hands and hearts of those who will be my "stakes" throughout the growing process, and to new growth in the meantime. 

The blossoms will come soon enough. I'm just taking it one day at a time. :)

That first dip

I have aquaphobia. I've had it ever since I almost drowned in a pool incident when I was 13. The feeling of panic of those moments was something I am highly motivated not to repeat. It was the loss of control, the feeling I could do nothing to save myself, that made the experience so terrifying. I have since learned to go into a pool, and although I don't call myself a swimmer, I can at least go into the water - even though I don't volunteer to go.

Photo free, CC0 Commons license from Pexels

It took me many years to realize that I had the same kind of traumatic experience (although much more drawn out over years) growing up in the home that I did. My mother's temper was like this giant wave of unpredictable outcomes for me, and I learned a deeply-ingrained belief that people were going to hurt me. I therefore began to fear them. Especially women. 

So now I am in therapy for the trauma that those years brought into my thinking and feeling, affecting the way I interact with people, how I think about my role and the role of other people in my daily life. And a couple of weeks ago, I took my first dip off the side of that pool into the traumatic memory that has become the signature experience of my childhood, the one that represents all the other traumas I went through. 

I will not lie. It was intense. It was scary. It was uncomfortable. It was a whole host of other things that I can't even begin to name. But my therapist walked me through it and allowed me to keep control of the experience at all times. And I was able to go into that memory and interact with the people in it, especially my child-self, in a way that was healing for me. 

I'm not saying that this one time was a cure-all. It wasn't. But it was a good first step, a way to know that I could bring myself into other incidents, other traumas, and process those things over time with self-compassion and self-care. 

And it was a reminder that change can and does happen. Slowly. 

Whenever I need reminding of that in the every-day, I look at our feral rescue cat, Callum. Cal came to us after having been caught inside the fan-belt of a snowmobile as it sat in someone's field during the summer. That traumatic incident, as well as the traumatizing efforts to rescue him from it, happened to him when he was only about 8 weeks old. He came to us at about 4 months old, after having spent some time at a foster-home. He was still very skittish, sometimes hissing, mostly running away at the first sign that we wanted to touch him or go near him when we were wearing footwear of any kind (especially boots). That was in October 2014. Today, baby step by baby step, he has been learning to trust. And earlier today, for the first time, I saw him close his eyes and lean into my husband petting his head - a huge difference from when he first came to us.

It gives me hope. Hope is such a powerful thing.

My counsellor tells me that as I bring these traumas to the surface and deal with them, I may experience times when the memories come back to me between visits to her office. My job, she tells me, is to be kind to myself when that happens, to use my breathing exercises and my other self-care tools so that I can get myself through these moments, and to not try to go farther on my own.

I can get behind that. I like it that she hasn't thrown me into the deep end of the pool, but has taken it in small steps so that I am more comfortable with the process as we get deeper and deeper in. That's a positive for me. 

I'm even sort of looking forward to my next dip, in that nervous, half-panicked way, because I know she'll be there to steady me. That's a good feeling. 

A Moving Target

Back in 2009 when I first got into therapy and I was learning a whole new (well, new to ME) way of living, I'm afraid I was a little arrogant about it. I thought that I had arrived. How very wrong I was. I had a LOT to learn!

And when my husband and I decided in 2015 to leave the organized church and seek relationships with God and others without the structure of a church family, again, I was pretty "my way or the highway" about it... at least for a while. One would think I would have learned by that time. But no.

Now that I'm in therapy again for something I thought was dealt with (aka buried), I'm not so cocky. Things I thought I knew, I am learning that I have only paid lip service to (plus there were some things that I was completely oblivious to!) And when it comes right down to it, when push comes to shove (so to speak), I revert to the old way of reacting to things that happen, and then I wonder why some people feel uncomfortable around me (or I feel uncomfortable around them). According to my therapist, that's common with people who have experienced trauma such as long-standing child abuse. (Huh. Who knew.)

I want to put that trauma in its proper place instead of being trapped in the patterns of behavior that the trauma has caused. I will need to not only address the abuse, but I will need to learn new skills, like (for example) how to behave in a normal social setting (!!) without appearing aloof, ungrateful, insecure, or not completely present. Old habits will have to die. New ones will have to form.

Clip-art free from http://clipart-library.com/clipart/8c6ozLEri.htm

But the "normal" I thought I was in 2009 and again in 2015 isn't the normal that I hope to be now. 

And more and more I am realizing that normal, as I used to tell my kids, is just a setting on the washing machine. The real "normal" is a moving target. It changes with the situation and with one's level of emotional maturity, which can be at different levels in different situations. Quite confusing! In many ways I feel like poor Wile E. Coyote, trying to catch the Road Runner. There's no catching him. He comes out of nowhere, disappears in a flash of flames, and leaves Wile E. Coyote slack-jawed (and usually injured.) Many times, I am bewildered and overwhelmed by the sheer size of the task ahead.

What is so confusing is the idea that in order to move on, I must "integrate" my experience of abuse into me, make it a part of me, but not be overcome or overwhelmed by it. It seems impossible. All those hurtful words and blows ... well, they are not going to go away. But somehow I need to make meaning (to use a psychotherapy term) out of those experiences and use them and the lessons learned from them to not only get some closure, but also to be able to use them to help others to heal. And that is my goal in this process.

And even though I know a lot about therapy as a grad student studying counseling, I find that as a client, I am just as vulnerable and just as fearful as any client would be about that process. Going through this really gives me an appreciation of how there absolutely needs to be an atmosphere of trust between client and therapist before progress can happen. This is private stuff ... and if I don't feel totally accepted, there is no way I can open up the starting gate and get into specifics. 

But my therapist is doing all the right things to create that atmosphere, to help me look after myself, and to help me find ways to ground myself when I'm stressed. And the next time I see her, she tells me, we will start opening that gate. It won't be for another couple of weeks... but that's okay. Slow and steady is the best way. Which makes me think that if just I sit still and accept what comes, maybe the Road Runner will stop running so fast and come pay me a visit.

Feeling ==> showing

Ever noticed how in some relationships, if you ask each individual, they feel lots of love for the other person but each person feels unloved? Parents and children, spouses, friends, brothers and sisters often fall prey to this seeming roadblock. We love the other person but we are not sure they love us.

The problem is not loving. The problem is SHOWING love. Let me explain.

A teenager loves his parents but they don't really talk much (no common interests, perhaps), and he doesn't know if they really love him because all they seem to do is tell him no. The parents love the teen but they wonder if the teen loves them back because all the teen seems to do is break the rules. Each of them silently asks the question, "Do you still love me?" What a tragedy. 

So on it goes. The problem is not that they don't love each other; they DO! The problem is that they have no idea how to SHOW that love. 

In his book, "How to Really Love Your Teenager", Dr. Ross Campbell, a child psychiatrist, describes this phenomenon and also gives the solution. The answer is in learning to communicate love in a way that the other person will understand. In our Western culture, his advice is sound. He gives three cornerstones to communicating love:

1. Eye contact
2. Physical contact
3. Focused attention

It sounds simple, doesn't it? Yet it can be hard to learn to do. I have learned, however, that it does work. Making the time to talk, and not being distracted by other things, can do a lot to bridge the gaps and repair relationships. Each person needs to know that they matter to the other. You can say it, and yes, please do, but showing it backs up those words. Establishing this kind of relationship early is the best way to ensure that the other person is secure in the relationship, but it is never too late to start.

I'd like to say a few things about each of these cornerstones I mentioned above. Perhaps by giving some examples, I can spark your imagination to try something that would be specific and meaningful to you. You can do them with family members (spouse, kids, parents, siblings) or close friends. They don't just apply to teens. (Everyone needs to feel worthy of love and belonging, as Brené Brown says.)

Eye contact - In our family, the 'wink' - even from across a room - can convey a special meaning. It can mean, "I notice what you're doing, way to go!" Similarly, it can mean, "I'm proud of you." And in certain situations where the person may be nervous, the 'wink' can mean, "I believe in you! You got this!" 

Okay, I know that these days, a lot of teens don't make eye contact well. But they will know that you are looking at them when they talk to you. And in some cases, it's a good bridge-builder to have talks while driving in the car. They don't feel threatened by your gaze, but you can talk about pretty important stuff when you have to be 20 minutes (or longer) in a car going somewhere together. 

But adults? Yeah, we were brought up to pay attention. In our generation, it shows respect when you look at someone who is talking to you.  So show respect. Please. It could save your relationships.

Physical contact - I get it that some folks are not touchy-feely. That's okay. But sometimes a hand on someone's shoulder when they are having a rough day can express in a non-verbal way that you care about their feelings. And nowhere is this more true than in families: with your spouse and with your child(ren). 

In our family, a hug goes a long way. Not just that sterile, pat-pat-pat type of hug but one of those fierce, heart-felt, "I'm with you" hugs. Life is tough sometimes! Hugs can help. They can communicate a feeling of solidarity, support, and caring. I've experienced hugs from one of my family members that lifted me off my feet - and aside from throwing me a little off-balance, those hugs told me that, as a teary Samwise Gamgee said in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, when the burden of carrying the One Ring got too much for Frodo to bear, "I may not be able to carry it for you, Mister Frodo, but I can carry you." And Sam picked Frodo up, Ring and all, and carried him the rest of the way to the top of the mountain. Such expression of love and support is hard to show with just a few Hallmark cards a year. 

Focused attention - In our fast-paced, information-highway world, giving someone focused attention takes something we don't think we have: time. Off with the TV, the cell phone, and/or the video game. Make a date. Go somewhere; it doesn't have to cost a dime. Our kids and I used to go to the local public pool; they would play in the water while I watched. Sometimes I would even go in the pool and splash around a bit. But I was always watching them, drinking in their enjoyment, knowing that at any moment they would look back to see if I was looking. And I was. "Watch me, Mommy!" means something to a child. It's important to him or her. I could have sat there with a book but it would not have meant as much as being WITH them, being PRESENT. 

Photo by it's me neosiam from Pexels

I lost track of the times we would go to the animal shelter and just visit with the critters. Our one family rule was that we were there to look and visit the animals, not whine and plead to take one (or all) of them home (unless previously decided.) I remember the folks at the shelter got to recognize us. We obeyed all the shelter rules (no running; ask permission; wash your hands after you handle the animals, etc.) and we had a whole lot of fun. And it never cost us a nickel (or in those days, a penny. We don't have pennies in Canada anymore.) 

I also can't count the number of times I have heard someone say to me about their spouse, "He (or she) never listens to me!" as they described a spouse totally absorbed in the TV or the newspaper, or a computer game. Or some sort of sport or hobby. It's a relationship. You can't have a relationship without relating!! Focused attention means that you give the person your undivided attention. And that needs to happen on a regular basis. I'm not saying not to read the paper, watch TV, or have a hobby or interest. Just make time for the people you love doing something you will both / all enjoy.

One more side-note about spending time together while giving focused attention. You know when you tell your friend, "Yeah, we really should get together sometime," and it doesn't happen for weeks? or even months? Ummm, "sometime" usually doesn't work, especially if you (or your friend) has mental wellness issues. Instead of "sometime," how about "WHEN can we spend time together (or have coffee, or lunch, or an evening)?" Nail down a time and a place. Put it on your appointment calendar. I'm just saying. And I'm talking to me as much as to anyone else.

As 2019 dawns, we might do well to invest our time in strengthening the relationships we have and making connections with the people who mean the most to us. It will be worth it. Trust me.

Do Not Cross

One of the things I have been learning since 2009, when I embraced a lifestyle of acceptance and freedom from the need to control people by either intimidation, manipulation, or care-giving, is the concept of boundaries.

I didn't know that boundaries even existed in people's lives until I was well into my forties. Nobody respected mine growing up, and so I didn't know I had any to respect. But being in therapy in 2009 taught me many things, and one of them was that everyone has boundaries, and that there are just some boundaries you don't cross - even if you feel you have the right to do so because you're someone's parent, or spouse, or best friend.

You just don't.

I guess I've become so super-sensitive to it in my own behavior that I see it really clearly when someone else does it. My daughter gave me a perfect example of what I mean by crossing boundaries, as we were chatting this morning about this very thing. She said that until I learned about boundaries (mine and others'), I would see her reading a book in her room, walk into her room, grab the book and read a paragraph or two (to determine content) and then decide whether she would be allowed to continue reading it. I called it protecting her heart and mind from the evil messages in the book. She felt as though I was treating her like property. 

I was. Without knowing it, that's exactly what I was doing. 
I cringed at the thought when she told me about it. It was perfectly normal for me at the time, but I would never dream of doing such a thing now.

In my counselling program, I've been learning about how to listen to someone. Mostly, I have learned what listening is NOT.  It's NOT getting the gist enough to remind me of something in my own life, and turning that conversation into something about me.  It's NOT thinking of what to say next.  It's NOT dreaming up a solution to the person's problem and trying to "fix" it.  It's NOT a game of one-upmanship, where my suffering is worse than the other person's and they have no right to be upset.  It's NOT belittling the person by saying that they don't have a reason to feel the way they do because it could be so much worse.  It's NOT about me at all.  It's NOT about trying to get the person to stop being sad, or angry, or whatever they feel that might be uncomfortable for me.

What it IS, is about understanding what it is like to be that person. It's about being able to come alongside that person and feel - even if only briefly - a little bit of their pain or distress.  It's about THEM. Their feelings, their experiences, their perceptions.

Photo "Crime Scene Concept"
courtesy of ponsulak
at www.freedigitalphotos.net

Telling them what they SHOULD do is not allowed. Telling them how they SHOULD feel is doubly not allowed! That yellow crime scene tape that indicates danger past that point? That's what is all over those actions. They imply judgment, and a lack of faith that the person is able to solve his or her own problems. That screams, "Danger! Do not cross!"  Ignoring the warnings - cutting that tape - leads to disaster.

It's okay to ask questions if these lead to a deeper understanding of the person's feelings.  The important thing for someone who is hurting is not for the person listening to take the pain away; it is for the person listening to LISTEN, to really HEAR their heart, their feelings, their take on things. People need to feel validated, ... not violated. I was thinking of this last evening as I was talking to a family member on the phone. In spite of my own personal opinion regarding this person's choices, I was not there to pass judgment, agree or disagree, or give direction or even my opinion. I was there to LISTEN - nothing more - because if I gave advice to this person, they would cut me out of their life and that would be a loss for both of us! 

Even if this person asked for my advice, let's say I gave it. Let's say that the advice worked. What harm would that do? the person is happy, the problem is gone, everything's cool, right?  WRONG.  The next time the person has a problem, who do you think they'll come to? That's right, ME. Again, since I'm such a wise person (hahaha) the advice works. I have therefore created a dependent relationship. And the person doesn't grow.

And if (that is, WHEN) the advice doesn't work, and everything blows up, who is this person going to blame? ME. 

See how what seems like a good idea ... isn't?

Friends accept each other and don't try to change one another. Family members, whether blood or chosen, deserve my acceptance. They also deserve to have their boundaries - whether they know they exist or not - respected.  I don't have to jump on everything someone says that I don't agree with. I don't have to constantly state things that I have already made clear in the past: my beliefs, my opinions, or my way of doing things.  That will only push them away when they might need a real connection with me.  

What I need to do when they open up, is to accept that person the way he or she is, and to let them know by example (that is, by listening and refusing to give advice) that what they are going through, and how they feel about it, is important, even if nothing changes. If that means that I don't get to give them the benefit of my experience (such as it is) right now, and merely offer my presence, I think that this would do far more good than rushing to cross that line.

2017 in review - Gratitude month by month

Every December 31, I take the calendar out and transfer birthdays, anniversaries, and appointments onto the next year's calendar before storing the current year's calendar away (I have calendars going back several years, which would come in handy were I ever to write my memoirs, haha!)

If I could choose a word to describe what 2017 has been for me and mine, it would have to be 'miraculous'.  Rather than theme by theme, I thought I'd take it month by month to show you how that has played out in my / our life.

January

January 4 - My brother had surgery to remove about five inches of bowel due to having stage 1 colon cancer. The surgery was successful; they got it all, and he did not have to have chemo. While he was in the hospital, he had a gall bladder attack and because of the recent surgery, they only put in a drainage tube instead of removing the gall bladder. He still has the tube... but more about him later.

January 9 - I had surgery to remove my reproductive organs due to some pre-cancerous cells inside my uterus (discovered the previous October via a biopsy done under anesthetic). I was off work for about 5 weeks. After the initial recovery period, I discovered that I had more energy and slept better at night than I had been. 

February

February 16 - I returned to work after my surgery January 9. I had been team leading since October so was returning to that - what a wonderful experience! 

February 27 - My post-surgery consultation / followup - my OB/GYN told me that everything was fine and that I had far less chance of getting other kinds of cancer (e.g., breast) now that my uterus was gone. :) 

February 28 - I celebrated eight years in recovery from codependency (see my "What is Codependency" tab). It might seem like a small thing, but my life is so much better now that I am living a more free lifestyle.

March

March 14 - my husband had an MRI on his right shoulder to determine the cause of his shoulder pain and weakness that he'd had ever since a shoveling accident last winter.

March 25 - my husband celebrated 8 years in recovery from alcoholism. Every day is a celebration really, but this is one of those landmarks we remember every year. 

March is a hard month usually; we have had our fill of winter by the time New Year's rolls around, so in March, with winter showing no sign of abating, things can get pretty exhausting and discouraging. A couple of well-timed vacation days near the end of March tides us over until the next long weekend - Easter (which was in April this year.)

In mid-March, my brother had to go into the hospital to stabilize his sugars (he is an insulin-dependent diabetic and the sugars, due to stress, were around six times what they should have been). He was home again in a few days, but while he was gone, we had to rely on extended family members to take up the slack of caring for my mother. Some of these family members got tired of doing that. It was the beginning of the end of a lot of things - though we didn't know it at the time.

April

April 14 - Good Friday - A day-visit to see my mom and brother showed us how badly Mom's dementia had deteriorated since our last visit a few months previous. I was seriously starting to worry that she might burn the house down by leaving a burner on or something.

April 17 - Easter Monday - My brother again had to go to hospital to deal with a cardiac incident. He was only in the hospital for about a week, but while he was gone, those extended family members, who I mentioned earlier, put their sinister plan into motion.

April 19 - Due to lies told to a Social Worker, Mom was taken to hospital "for her own safety" since my brother was still in the hospital and the extended family members didn't want to care for her. As a result, she became a "court-ordered" patient and wheels were put in motion to keep her in the hospital until she could be placed into a nursing home.  

May

May 26 - My husband had his appointment with an orthopedic surgeon regarding the MRI he had undergone in March. The surgeon told him that his bicep muscle had mostly torn away from his rotator cuff in one spot and that he would need surgery to repair it. The wait times for this would be about a year or so. They finally settled on August 2018.

May 29 - My brother received a writeup of the allegations that put Mom into the custody of the province.  He showed me a photo of each of the pages. Everything they said was either a bald-faced lie or a gross exaggeration and misinterpretation of the facts. He had no money to fight it in court. We advised against fighting since it was the province (not the extended family members) who would gain financial control over Mom's affairs.

June

June 9 - After two years of talking about it, we finally got our tub "replaced" - we used Bathfitters and we were very pleased with the results! This was a big deal because the old tub (a purple one from the 1970s) was such an eyesore and so was the badly done tile job around it. Now we have a sleek, easy-to-clean tub and shower surround. 

June 16 - I started seeing a counsellor to help me deal with the stress of the situation with Mom and my brother. The therapist and I immediately clicked!

June 20 - My husband and I celebrated 36 years as husband and wife. 

July

July 10 - I headed out to Calgary for a 2-week intensive finale to my Group Counselling course. A good friend of my daughter's picked me up at the airport and drove me to campus. My room-mates were pretty good and even took me to the grocery store that afternoon so that I could have food for the coming week. Such a contrast to the last year I was there!

July 13 - That friend and her partner had me over to their house for the BEST steak dinner I have EVER tasted - and the partner even helped me with a computer problem I had been having. :)  They offered to take me out to breakfast on the 16th - Arielle's birthday (she would have been 25). 

July 15 - A classmate contacted me and drove me out to Canmore - close to the Rockies - and I saw the mountains up close and in person for the first time ever. NO comparison to only seeing pictures!! it was a spiritual experience for me mostly because Arielle had seen a similar sight when she and a friend drove to Calgary from Edmonton about a month before she died. 

July 16 - Breakfast at Denny's - what more needs to be said?  It was busy because it was a Sunday morning, but the food was great and my daughter's friends put themselves out to make the day a little more bearable for me.

July 21 - The flight home. My daughter's friend's partner drove me early to the Calgary airport, so I spent a LOT of time waiting at one airport or another. I was supposed to arrive at 11:10 pm, but due to the absolute worst thunderstorm of the year on the Eastern seaboard (affecting flights leaving LaGuardia in NY), my connector was delayed.  It arrived two and a half hours late in Toronto, and then when it finally took us to the Maritimes, the same storm was affecting our ability to land in PEI (five inches of rain on the runway). We diverted to Moncton, spent an hour inside the plane while the pilot was on the horn with officials in both places, and then finally took off to land in PEI around 3:15 am. I could have kissed the tarmac when we landed here! 

August

I spent more time than usual in the sun. After my time in Calgary and the intensity of Summer Institute, I welcomed the chance to relax whenever I could. Aside from a dental filling and a couple of birthdays, there's nothing written on the calendar for this particular month. 

However, my daughter did decide to take a course through Athabasca University online, a precursor to eventually transferring the credit to UPEI. It was a big move for her psychologically, and although she was anxious, we were confident that this was a good move for her.

My brother was diagnosed with cataracts.

September

I began a four-month hiatus from school. No courses that I needed were being offered in that term, so I paid my program fee (to hold my place in the program) and then prepared to fill the time with something else. I must admit that I didn't know WHAT I would fill the time with, so September I spent a lot of time lurking on Facebook, playing computer games, and watching television: luxuries I only sipped in moderation when I was taking classes.

I took to calling Mom about 3 times a week, and my brother at least once a week. During this time, he was learning how to manage a household on his own for the first time in his life, so I was giving him tips and tricks to getting things done and bills paid on time. I also helped him stick-handle through the process of trying to get quotes to put in an oil-fired furnace to replace the wood furnace he could no longer tend (he had qualified for a grant for this).

October

Photo "Young Plant" by amenic181 at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I rediscovered crochet in October, and began one birthday project for my brother, and started my Christmas projects. Finally there was something productive to do with my evenings and weekends!

October 9 - Thanksgiving - We had friends over and I cooked a turkey with all the trimmings, including some deep-dish pumpkin pie I made myself. The food was good, but the company was better!

October 26 - What was to be a trip to NB to take my brother to an ophthalmologist's appointment (pre-surgery) ended up with me going to the Moncton hospital after learning he'd had a heart attack the day before. Fortunately the damage was minimal. Yet he was still having chest pain.

I remember having a great visit with him, including telling his kidneys to return to function, and telling his pancreas to behave themselves, in preparation for an upcoming cardiac procedure. 

While I was there, I visited my mom, who was still in the hospital awaiting placement, and who thought she'd only gotten there about a week ago (it had been over six months.) It was a good visit, not at all like I might have feared.

October 30 - My brother had his cardiac procedure and it went perfectly! They put in two stents in the vessels on his upper heart muscle because there was a 90% blockage in one and a 70% blockage in the other. His kidneys didn't fail and his sugars actually improved with the decrease in stress.  Within hours, all the pain was gone - just gone!! - and he was able to get a full breath and even was able to walk for more than 50 feet by the end of the following day!

He was still waiting for the furnace project to get going, however, after he got back home. He was keeping the electric thermostat on 58 degrees and using the blanket I had crocheted for him to keep warm when the temperatures started dipping. The hospital stay gave him a reprieve from that, but the weather wasn't getting any warmer and with a badly insulated house, things were pretty chilly.

November

After involving the NB Ombudsman as well as some creative plans to get the furnace work done, the grant people finalized the agreement with an installer to put in the furnace. They started the work on my brother's birthday, near the end of November. 

Interestingly, the nights didn't get as cold as they usually did that time of year. 

He also made arrangements through Social Services to get transportation to and from medical appointments. This was a big relief for everyone!

My daughter decided to attend UPEI as an "unclassified student" while she was taking some upgrading to qualify for a program there: the Kinesiology degree. This was a huge deal for her.

December

December 3 - My brother's first delivery of furnace oil happened early that Sunday morning and he texted me, "Sis, it's 68 degrees and so warm." 

December 8 - Mom was moved into the nursing home. At last count she seemed to be settling in, but the staff was discouraging visitors that she would associate with her going back home. As yet, we have not yet seen her.

December 11 - Many discussions with UPEI Registrar and Student services later, we had the joy of seeing our daughter register for a Kinesiology course at UPEI to start January 3, 2018. 

December 13 - My brother had an appointment with his surgeon (the one who did the cancer operation). She's been monitoring his creatinine levels to give her an indication of how well his kidneys are doing. Before the cardiac procedure they were at 600 (the high end of normal is 113). He told me on the 13th that even though the doctors could not explain how, his creatinine was now at 225, and that he was in the best shape he has been in for several years! What a great Christmas gift!

December 23 - A good day-visit to see brother - we gave him his Christmas gifts. He cooked a scrumptuous meal and enjoyed our company to the full!  He still has his drainage tube but now has a target date for the surgery to remove it (and the gall-bladder): March 2018. That is quite the relief. We are still waiting for word from the ophthalmologist on the date for the cataract surgery. They want to talk to his cardiologist first. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later.

December 25 - This was the first Christmas we have spent alone (with just the 3 of us) since Arielle passed away. It appears we were ready for it - a quiet one with just us - and a good turkey dinner to share and lots of leftovers!

December 26 - Shepherd's pie with friends who came over for supper and the evening. A good time was had by all! Precious memories built and exchanged, and nobody left the table hungry, haha.

December 31 - Today. We are planning a quiet evening at home with a dear friend.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2018

The year ahead looks bright with many significant changes coming up and lots of bends in the road ahead. Yet all we have seen, as R. W. Emerson said, leads us to trust our Creator for all we have not seen.

I wish my readers all the absolute best of all things for 2018.

The Sounds of Silence

I've spent most of the day feeling quite down. 

Aside from the fact that I have been concerned about someone I can't seem to reach for some reason, or maybe because of that (in part), someone reminded me this morning of that gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach that I felt when my youngest was living in Alberta. It was the feeling that I'd never see her again: a feeling of dread, of fear (even panic), and of anger that there was nothing I could do to change it.  

So I've been flooded with memories of those days back in 2013, and I've been allowing those feelings to come to the surface so that I can feel them and deal with them. It's hard, but it's better than stuffing those feelings down underneath the surface, and having them pop up unexpectedly.  

Permeating all of that is also the unspeakable sadness that goes with the outcome of those days - she never made it home alive. 

Even though the television has been on and there is that noise in the background, there is a very real sense of stillness, a feeling of incredible silence, of unspeakable isolation. The background noise of grief took center stage for today. And I chose to let it come, and I breathed and felt my way through it.

And it is still going on. It will last however long it lasts, until it's done - another wave-crest in the flood of loss as I just try to stay afloat and ride it out. 

Photo "Lighthouse At Sunset" by
Serge Bertasius Photography at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Of course it will pass. It always does. Yet it is a journey, a passage from one place to another, this silence, this sadness. Nobody likes to talk about it when they're going through it, only when the "victory" has been won and the yucky parts are done. But this is real stuff. Life really is messy, and sometimes the only victory that can happen is the one-breath-at-a-time survival of the wrenching moments that claw into the soul. It's part of the journey to healing. It's part of embracing life. 

I'm grateful for my husband and my daughter, upon whom I lean when I need to. They see me struggling and - unbidden - they come alongside to help me, just like I've seen them struggling and have come alongside to help them when they needed it. 

And in the silence comes a sort of weird kind of calm. It's a reminder that I've traveled this road before and that I had help then too.  And so - I know that I am not alone, even though it might feel like I am. And because I've been through this before and come out the other side relatively unscathed, I'm going to be okay this time.

Maybe not without scars, but I will be okay. Maybe not today, but I will be okay. For today, I will listen to the sounds of silence and not stifle their voices. Nor will I dwell on them or try to stay here. It will be what it is. It will pass when it passes. And ... though it's not easy, I guess I'm okay with that.