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!

Around the Bend

I like to be able to see a clear path ahead. I like to know what is coming so that I have time to prepare. I like it, but it doesn't often happen.

There are bends in the road. Where I live, the members of my family joke about how the designers of the roads must have been on a drunken binge because the roads twist and wind and nearly turn back on themselves so much that if you took all the curves out, and went in a straight line, you could get to your destination 80% quicker. 

Mind you, the scenery would be a lot more boring. :) 

Photo "Serpentine Path Stones On A Park Lawn (concept)"
courtesy of arturo at www.freedigitalphotos.net

Lately, in my work and professional life, things have been taking quite the twisty path.  After my best prospect for a counselling practicum placement fell through in my city, I received rejection after rejection until I had exhausted all possibilities. It was quite discouraging.

I had also looked into placements outside of the province, but these seemed unworkable... until one day my husband indicated that he would be willing to make whatever sacrifices he needed to make to allow my dream to become a reality - and if that meant me living in a neighbouring province, then so be it. 

Really?

Yes, really. So I contacted these prospects and tomorrow, I will be attending two interviews with these places. By the end of the day, there MAY even be an offer on the table. In the space of about two or three short weeks, I have gone from ultimate discouragement to first a glimmer, and now a beam of hope. And not a moment too soon.... with only three weeks until my practicum arrangement must be approved by my grad school, timelines are tight. 

And yet ... and yet aside from the usual jittery feelings preceding an interview, the deep inside part of me feels a sense of calm about the whole thing, like I don't need to be concerned about it.  It will be what it is. And it could be quite wonderful. 

Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat. And before you know it, I will be around that next bend in the road. 

Hating Waiting

I hate waiting.

That's probably why I spend so much time doing it, I joke. But the joking is wearing thin right about now. It seems that the last few years, all I have been doing is waiting: waiting for the next university course, the next blood test, the next phone call, the next email. 

It wears me down. Especially lately, now that I am waiting for any word of any agency that is willing to work with me for my counselling practicum this coming September - and while I wait, my university's non-negotiable deadline (for submission of a practicum proposal) of April 30 ticks away. 

It was less irritating as long as I was doing something (like sending out literally dozens of feelers since my best option pulled out two months ago), but I've exhausted every option, receiving rejection after rejection, and all there is left to me is the waiting. And of course there is the "not knowing"... and all that implies. It is hard to get motivated to do much of anything with that hanging over my head. And by "that" ... I mean whether or not I will be even DOING a practicum this year, or postponing it yet another year while the mental health care system in my province tries to figure out what to go do with itself. They (whoever "they" are) say they are crying out for counsellors, but they want trained ones, people who already have their certification. They don't have the space or time to invest in someone who is perfectly willing to help them - because they want pre-qualified people. It's supremely frustrating. 

I have pretty much exhausted all possibilities in my province. I know it is the smallest one in Canada, but still!! Anyway, to that end, I have expanded my search to include sites that are out of province, yet still close enough to allow for relatively easy visiting. I have been looking at apartments for rent in some of these places, thinking that I will need to move away - if temporarily - to make my dream come true. That it has come to this is rather upsetting, but I see no other way for it. 

My friends and co-workers have been very supportive and I have had many suggestions from a lot of people, and I have followed up on each one. However, it has all been to no avail. Either the sites don't have enough work for me (they themselves are part-time), they disagree with my university's requirement to allow recording of some of my sessions for evaluation purposes, or they just don't have the space to put me.

Photo "Opening Door Knob" courtesy of
sixninepixels at www.freedigitalphotos.net

Hopefully, I will be able to navigate these rough waters and come out the other side at least holding onto a life-buoy. it is hard to hold my head above water - and the sense of panic is very real at times. There have been times this last month when I have been so close to giving up and dropping out.

My professors tell me I will rock this counselling world - but they are not here with me to see the state of affairs. My family and friends tell me that they believe in me, and I appreciate that, but my fate lies in the hands of those people who are (pardon the expression) looking for their pound of flesh too. 

I am expecting a call from a couple of prospects (out of province) sometime this coming week. Whether that will result in me obtaining a placement is anyone's guess. I have learned that I need to be flexible, and i have the loving support of my amazing husband and daughter for whatever I will need to do to make this work. I have begun to consider options I never thought I would have to consider, options that scare me half to death. Yet here we are.

So for now, I take a deep breath, take one step at a time, and put one foot in front of the other. I have come too far along this path to stop now ... but it's just that .... I hate waiting.

Part of your world

I've been taking some well-deserved time off from my studies to rest, reflect, and recharge. As I ponder the various facets of my life, I find myself thinking about the people in my life and what they mean to me. I try to put myself in their shoes to empathize better with them, and when I got to my mother, I found something quite distressful.

My mom's life sucks.

She has dementia. All of her life, she always looked at folks with dementia and told us, "If I ever get like that, take me out in the field and shoot me." And now she has dementia. And she is watched, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And she is medicated if she gets unruly. And she feels like she is alone: even though people come to see her on a regular basis, she doesn't remember that. She only remembers the last fifteen seconds.

Image "Crying Old Lady" by
imagerymajestic at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

If ever anyone lived in the moment, it is a person with dementia. However, feelings - even if someone doesn't remember the reasons behind them - remain. The feelings affect mood, and can make a person with dementia profoundly depressed. Or anxious. Or angry.

And what makes the feelings? Thoughts lead to feelings, even though the thoughts are no longer remembered. And words - whether spoken by the person or by those around them - create the thoughts. Combined with core beliefs about oneself - things one tells the self through decades of habit - a person who has dementia cannot reason themselves out of those feelings. Reasoning is useless. For someone (like my mom) who has prefronto-temporal dementia, the ability to reason and to make decisions and carry them out is absolutely GONE.  All that is left is the lizard-brain ... the limbic system ... the one that lives totally in the present, that is influenced by words and thoughts but that doesn't remember them; it just feels what it feels. 

So for those who think that it doesn't matter what they say when they visit a dementia patient because "they won't remember what i say anyway", think again. Their MIND may not remember, but their FEELINGS remember. So trying to convince them of the rightness of something about which they have believed all their life is wrong will serve only to frustrate and upset them without knowing why. And after the visitor leaves, it is the staff who have to deal with the fallout: the patient becomes agitated, distressed, depressed, anxious, or whatever, and needs to be medicated more just to make them "manageable." 

So - dear readers - leave your arguments and your opinions home when you visit a person who has dementia. Learn to enter their world - the world of the continual present - and even when they bring up your pet topic, refrain from discussing it. Distract the person toward the positive (not YOUR idea of positive, but THEIRS). If that means lying to them and telling them that it won't be long before they will be going home, then do that rather than tell them that they're going to a nursing home.  To many, including my mom, a nursing home is a horrible, torturous place where people go to be forgotten and to die alone. You can't convince her otherwise; it's too deeply ingrained. Don't even try. 

Phone them. Talk to them, let THEM talk. If you can't physically be there, phone them, send them cards and letters (happy ones!) and little gifts.  Do it often. The hospital / nursing home can be a lonely place. Don't forget them.

If you can be there, then BE there for THEM.  Play cards or board games with them. Watch TV with them. Encourage them, compliment them in every way possible. They are no longer part of your world; accept that. Be part of their world. Enter THEIR reality, the reality of seconds. Not days, not hours, not even minutes, but seconds. Leave your preconceptions and your grief at what they have already lost, and what you have lost with it, at the door. You are there for that person, not for yourself. You are not there to talk anyone else down or to win any arguments.  You are there to brighten their outlook. You are there to make it easier for that person (and for the staff who look after that person) to live a little more pleasantly. 

That is the way you visit those who are infirm, who live inside the prison of their own mind. Don't judge them. Don't judge those they love. Talk only of pleasant things, things that are pleasant for THEM.

Just be there for them, whether in person or not. Just BE.

Restoration Work

I absolutely love reno shows. I love to see things go right down to the bare bones and then to see the new take shape. 

One of my new favorite shows is Rehab Addict with Nicole Curtis. She buys old homes and restores them to their "former glory." And she is not afraid of hard work. Often she stays up into the wee hours of the morning doing what would be considered thankless jobs - like cleaning old greasy kitchen backsplash tiles with baking soda, vinegar and a toothbrush to avoid tearing them out and replacing them - and the results are truly remarkable. 

Watching her work and listening to her talk with passion about her finds reminds me of a few things in my own "personal reno" process. These are lessons I've learned - and I see them repeated over and over again whenever I see shows like this. 

Often the problems that she fixes are ones that were created by former owners who didn't like the old décor. So, they just painted or papered or plastered (or stuccoed) over it without fixing the original problem. 

I hear a lot of people say a lot of things about how people need to deal with their own emotional fixer-uppers. Some of these ideas are that one needs to forget the past, live in the present, and so forth.  I'm not sold on the idea of forgetting the past ... and when I watch reno shows, I see parallel lessons on how to live life - and how to deal with the past - so that there are no nasty surprises down the road. 

Here are a few things I've learned in my journey:

Restoration is messy. Mistakes have been made, things have been allowed to slide, some things don't work anymore, and it takes a lot of work to get them working again. Or even to the place where you can figure OUT if they work. 

The past never stays in the past. Like rotten beams and ant-eaten wood, the past will keep on causing problems unless is excavated, exposed, and evaluated. If something needs to be fixed, it's easier to fix when it's sitting in front of you instead of buried beneath layers and layers of emotional veneer.  If it needs to be eliminated, or replaced, it's best to do that while the walls are down, rather than cover over it and then wonder why your support structure keeps sagging. 

Sometimes you need help.  Asking someone who is trained in dealing with certain kinds of emotional problems that seem overwhelming to you is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of strength. Often it takes "another pair of eyes" to detect any issues and help to deal with them systematically and objectively, but with empathy and kindness. For some people, that might mean talking to a counsellor. Or a pastor. Or some other kind of spiritual advisor. 

It takes time. There are almost NO "quick fixes." Sometimes spiritual breakthroughs happen, but for the most part, it's dealing with one or two issues at a time, and this is a process. It's easy to get discouraged, but keep in mind that things that are worth doing take time to do. And the goal of being free, strong, and beautiful inside is worth the time it takes. 

Sometimes you have to do hard things by yourself. Depending on another human being is great, but there are times when there is an unsavory job to be done (like cleaning a toilet, for example) and it's really a one-person task. The part of my journey that was like this was after I had gone through my memories and ferreted out all the resentments I had harbored inside against people who had hurt me. One by one, I had to get to the root of these and figure out whether it was because the person had harmed me on purpose or whether it was something over which the person had no control. I had to experience emotions I had suppressed for a long time, emotions that sat there and festered the longer I denied they were there. This was hard, slogging work and nobody could do it for me. 

It's okay to take a break. Sometimes the process of restoration is overwhelming, and it can wear you down. The hard work will be waiting for you when you get back to it. Do something you like to do for a while. Take some "me" time. That too, is part of the restoration process - one that is way too easily overlooked - self-care.

There will be setbacks. Old patterns of fear-based thinking, habitual controlling or self-defeating ways of relating to people, will happen. Guaranteed. The trick is in recognizing them when they happen. The work that has preceded  will help you to catch yourself falling into those mind-traps and allow you to get out of them sooner. "Do-over" is a great concept; give yourself a break and try not to beat up on yourself when you go back to your old ways of thinking. Just let it go, and rethink, and move on. The setbacks are learning experiences. They will get fewer and fewer. 

Morning at the beautifully restored great room at
Charlottetown's The Inns On Great George

Celebrate little victories. These happen, and sometimes it's hard to acknowledge them because it makes you sound like you're tooting your own horn. Be your own cheerleader. Spend time reviewing - and being grateful for - the changes that you see happening over time. You may not see a change from yesterday; that's okay. You will be able to see a change happening over the long term. Compare your reaction to events to what it was like six months or a year or two ago. You may surprise yourself. You might find something that you thought you'd lost for good - happiness - as the changes become more and more a part of your life.

Live in the new part - work in the old. it can be extremely discouraging to live your life in the constant disarray of a "work in progress." Learn to live in the new reality - the present and restored reality - and enjoy the benefits of that portion of your life, that area where you are no longer "less than" or "more than" someone else, but an equal. 

Because of that mindset, new relationships will have formed with people who believe in you; nurture them. Old and dysfunctional relationships - at least some of them - will have changed for the better; maintain that and keep working toward equality. You will feel less and less of a need to define yourself by what others think of you, and more and more by what you think of yourself. Keep working on your unfinished business, yes, but pace yourself and live more in the new reality than in the old. This will get easier as you continue to work on restoring more areas of your life to their intended purpose. 

It truly is worth it.

Anticipating Life

Every year I hear them, usually in April (and if I'm lucky, in March.)

The first time it always arrests whatever it is I'm doing. If I'm talking, I stop in mid-sentence just to listen. And I smile. 

What I find myself doing in the extremely long month of February (only that long because it is so very cold) is dreaming of hearing their voices again: the billing and cooing of the mourning doves. 

They started nesting around here about 10 years ago and they come back year after year and raise their young. It is one of the very first signs of spring for me, long before robins nest on our property (because our property, though treed and replete with areas to nest in, also is the litter-box of all of the neighborhood cats. So-o, not prime real estate for robins!)  And before I go any further, let me explain that for me it does not matter what the calendar says the first day of spring is. I live in the Maritimes, and for me, that means that spring takes its good sweet time getting here: any time between mid April and mid May usually. The temperatures need to be consistently above 10º Celsius (for my American friends, that's 50º Fahrenheit) for at least two weeks for it to be "Spring" for me.

Photo "Two Mourning Doves" courtesy of
Liz Noffsinger at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

More and more often as February turns to March and beyond, I find myself listening each morning for the contented cooing of the mourning doves, singing soothing songs of hope, devotion and peace to my discouraged, apathetic and stressed-out heart. I do it without even realizing it. They come back to this area while winter still has me in its gnarly, sadistic grasp and they speak reassurance that warmer times will come. And I so need that reassurance: even though my brain knows that spring always does come, my heart comes to the brink of despair every year.  It is not enough to hear someone say that they have seen pussy-willows, or that they've seen robins hopping about. These things are hearsay and I've always been about first-hand experience.

And it is not enough for me to simply survive winter, to grit my teeth and bear the cold, the bulky clothing, the slippery footing, hoping that it will eventually pass. I must know that I know that I know that there will be an end to it. Not to know it intellectually, but deep in my inner being. The song of the mourning doves accomplishes that. It gives me that assurance which carries me through to the time when spring actually does come.

And every day that I don't hear them, there is a vague disappointment - not a conscious one to be sure, at least not often - but there nonetheless. And my heart has to process the lack of reassurance and reset its hope again for hearing that sound, the harbinger of spring even while winter thinks it "has" me. 

"Maybe tomorrow," my heart says to itself. "Maybe tomorrow they will be here."

And so I live today, this 24-hour period, accepting what is. And I live in anticipation of dove-song, knowing it means that life and green and warmth will come again. And soon.

Tommy

When I was fifteen, I went to see a movie that, had my parents known what it truly was, I would never have been allowed to go to. It was the original rock opera, "Tommy" - featuring Elton John. Basically, it was the story of a young man (Tommy) who was deaf, mute, and blind, and who finds his niche playing pinball, to the point where thousands of young people wanted to emulate everything about him - even putting plugs in their ears and covers over their eyes and mouths.

I was completely weirded out by that movie - it seemed so chaotic and surreal to me (which I guess was the idea). I was most freaked out by the scene of Elton John wearing a rhinestone white suit and three-foot-high elevator shoes and falling off the stage into the crowd... but we won't go there today.

Of course, what made it an opera was the music. The songs were somewhat memorable; everyone who went to this thing remembers "Pinball Wizard" of course, but the thing that stuck with me most was just a line in the middle of all that chaos, the internal voice of Tommy, singing "See me. Hear me. Touch me. Feel me." 

Tommy didn't care about the fame and acclaim. He didn't want anyone to like him or hate him. He didn't want to be "fixed" or to "fix" anyone else. He just wanted to be seen, heard, touched, related to. He didn't want to be what everyone else thought of him as being. The one who was known only as the Pinball Wizard soon became a one-trick pony, trotted out for everyone's amusement. Nobody thought of him as anything more. Deep within, though, he longed for some semblance of humanity, of connection. He, like everyone, wanted above all to know and to be known, to matter for who he was, not for what he could or couldn't do. 

"Woman Hand With Microphone" photo
courtesy of thawats at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I've sung that song inside of my spirit for many years since. There have been times that I felt that some people hung out with me only for what they could get out of me, that either they stayed away from me because they thought they couldn't do what I did (especially in the singing area, even though that gifting was not of my own doing) or they flocked to me and wanted me to trot out my one trick for their enjoyment. 

Even in the area of regular interpersonal relationships, I've often felt like poor Tommy, seen as two-dimensional - nothing but appearance - with people playing out their own agendas on me rather than actually taking the time to know what I'm about. I've frequently caught my inner self singing that melancholy plea, "See me. Hear me. Touch me. Feel me." 

Thankfully, a few precious people have done just that. I've been blessed with friends who, even if they don't understand fully, at least try, and by them trying, I know that they care about me, not just the surface - and that they respect me too much to give me trite answers that follow whatever party line they (or I) adhere to. 

When I share a problem or open my heart ... I'm not asking for someone to mount their white charger and ride in to rescue this damsel in distress. I already have a White Knight; I find the One sufficient. 

All I'm seeking is to be seen and heard, to have a touch-point, to know that there is someone who can relate to me or to my situation, to have someone acknowledge my feelings and to tell me I'm normal for feeling them. 

That's all I can ask for.

It takes what it takes

I make no secret of the fact that I don't like to see something unfinished. Especially in my life. I want so badly to "skip to the end" and see the final result.

Unfortunately, life doesn't work like that. It's messy - and there are always loose ends, incomplete "works in progress." Not just one or two, but all over the place. This relationship, or that project, or maybe another as yet unmet objective. Even times when I think something is just the way it should be, only to find out a crucial step was missed - and I have to deconstruct it and build it back the right way. 

Even if it's hard. Even if it takes a long time. Or a lot of work.

"Winding Road" photo courtesy of pixbox77 at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

And so, I am always reminding myself that "in progress" is the status of a life being lived, that the journey is as important as (and perhaps in some cases more important than) the destination. 

"It takes what it takes," I repeat to myself. "Someday I'll look around and it'll be the way it's supposed to be. And I won't even have noticed it."

Someday.

There are setbacks. Obstacles. Times when it feels like two steps forward, one step back. Or ... maybe even three steps back. 

Stuff happens. People change. 

Someone enters my life; someone else walks away. Or maybe I need to be the one walking toward - or away from - a particular person or group of people. 

People misinterpret intentions. They take advantage of my desire to be liked, to not have conflict - and I find myself being the doormat again. Or I become so passionate about helping someone that I lose sight of that person's right to choose, and I end up trying to control the outcome. 

It happens. 

The up side of all this is that at any moment, I can choose to stop what I am doing and take a different route. Sometimes that means making an apology - or setting (or enforcing) a boundary. Or I can choose to stay the course and see things through, depending on the situation. 

Along the way, I need to be sure that I'm looking after myself, or (as one friend put it) being kind to myself.

I never know how long something is going to take, or when (or even IF) a situation will be resolved. I never know what the outcome will be. That (maddening and discouraging as it is at times) is part of the journey. 

And ... it takes what it takes ... however long it takes.

Barely recognizable

A couple of people I know have recently lost a LOT of weight. 

Of course it happened gradually, but after a while folks started to notice. "Wow, you really look great!" people said to them, especially those who hadn't seen them for a while. They flushed with pleasure and showed off the new clothes they'd been able to buy. Or they just said, "Thank you," and grinned to themselves. 

Photo Weight Loss courtesy of luigi diamanti at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Occasionally, someone who hadn't seen them since their "before" picture would say to them, "I almost didn't recognize you!" More smiles. 

Few people would argue that when someone who's overweight loses weight, there are so many health benefits that it would be ludicrous to criticize someone for not being overweight anymore. Or to try to twist that person's arm into overeating again. 

Weight loss is an easily visible transformation. The results are measurable, and those who care about the person who has succeeded in taking off weight would no more do or say anything to jeopardize their success than they would try to drive full speed into a concrete wall! 

Yet when the change is internal, that's often the first thing that happens. People are used to relating to someone in a certain way - and when that person changes, it can be hard for them to adjust. They may react in any number of ways: anger, sadness, fear, or a combination of those ... and more. What is excellent news for the person who's changed on the inside to mature or grow, become more free of fear, of resentment, of anger ... is often NOT good news for those who still see the changed individual as the same old person they used to know. Not that he or she hasn't changed. It's that the people around him or her are actually living in denial, not wanting to admit there's been a change. Or, they see the change but they really don't like it. Like the old drinking buddies of the alcoholic who's in recovery, they just want to go back to the "way things used to be." 

First, the person usually looks the same. The automatic assumption is that the person therefore IS the same ... and that the "change" he or she claims to have experienced either won't last or is somehow suspect, perhaps a veiled personal attack against family and/or friends from that former lifestyle. This leads to some inevitable boundary issues, and may actually lead to the end of certain relationships.

Second, and maybe more importantly, admitting that there has been a change, or saying that it is a good thing, would be the same as admitting that their own lives might need to be changed. In a lot of cases, people just don't want to examine their core beliefs, their attitudes, or their behavior that closely. 

I didn't. Until I did.

That is, I had to get to the place where I was desperate enough to look for help. Anyone who needs help won't seek help unless he or she feels there is no other alternative. Everyone seems to want to do it on his or her own.

Adjusting to that kind of reaction from people from my "old life" was a stretch for me. I guess I naively thought that if I was happier with the new me, then everyone would be. I hadn't counted on folks feeling threatened by it. Or denying it even happened. Or being weirded out by my insistence on rigorous honesty.

Just like I needed to be my own motivational coach, I need to be my own cheerleading squad. To myself, I'm barely recognizable compared to my "before" profile when I look into my spiritual mirror. To the ones who know me well, they can see and rejoice in the difference too. However, very few appreciate the transformation, so most of the motivation to keep it up, and the recognition for milestones already reached, has to come from within. 

For now.

Soup for the spirit

EASY MINESTRONE (wheat-free)

One tetra box of chicken stock
1 cooked boneless chicken breast, diced
2 and 1/2 to 3 cups water (3 if using celery)
1 minced onion
1/4 diced turnip
1 stalk celery, diced fine (optional)
3 diced carrots
2 medium potatoes, diced
1 to 2 Tbsp summer savory
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 to 2/3 can (5.5 oz) your favorite tomato paste
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Soup in the process of cooking vegetables.
It's so good on a wintry day.

Put the stock and water in a large (4L) pot with the chicken, onion, and turnip (and celery if you wish) and bring to boil. Lower heat to medium and boil uncovered for 30 to 40 minutes. 

Add carrots, potatoes, summer savory and pepper and continue boiling for another 20 to 30 minutes to meld the flavors together. 

Then add tomato paste and ginger, bring to the boil and reduce heat. Simmer for about 2 to 4 minutes, stirring frequently so the broth won't stick to the pot. The soup will be thick, something like the consistency of mulligatawny (or perhaps Irish Stew). However, the taste is like minestrone - without the seeds. Serve alone or with garlic bread.

When I awoke this morning and looked outside to see a snowstorm in progress, I knew today would be a "soup day." I'd seen ingredients last night in the fridge, so I decided to put my creative cap on at around 11:30 this morning. The result was a delicious minestrone-chicken-vegetable soup that stuck to our ribs and hit that "it's cold outside, let's hunker down" spot. My impromptu recipe appears above. It turned out better than I thought it would with no recipe to guide me.

One of the bonuses to soup in the winter is the way it helps with the humidity level inside the house, easing coughs and getting rid of that annoying prickling feeling inside the nostrils. 

A nice thick soup is "comfort food" too. It warms the insides. 

When the cold winds of discouragement whip all around me, when I just want to pull the covers up around my head and tune the world out, that's when I look for a good helping of soup for the spirit. I start to remember all the good things, all the miracles that have happened in my life, all the blessings I've been given. I surround myself with wholesome, hearty helpings of wonderful, uplifting music and the caring company of true friends. These things feed my spirit - they make me feel warm and cared for inside, grateful for even the smallest things and even more grateful for the big things. 

I let that simmer. I linger over the good feelings they give me. I dwell on those great experiences and as I do, more bubble up to the surface. And when the "soup" is just right, when the goodness of those gifts lends flavor to all the other things in my life which might be somewhat bland, I allow myself the joy of letting it feed my innermost being. 

It's okay. That's what soup for the spirit is for. 

Two highly underrated words

I was chatting with a buddy earlier, and she happened to thank me for something in our relationship that meant a lot to her. "Although 'thank you' seems so trite," she said. 

What followed was a discussion that took me straight back to the late 1960s and early 70s. "Thank you," I told her, "is highly underrated." I'm a big believer in "thank you." 

It encourages.
It validates.
It helps the one who receives it AND it helps the one who says it and truly means it.

When I was a child, our family would go grocery shopping once a week in "town" - which was a small town of no more than 5,000 people. Everyone knew everyone else - or at least the family they came from. 

I loved going to town. There were two places I wanted to go every time. The first was my great-uncle's shoe repair shop, where I felt accepted and wanted every time I walked over the threshold. I'd burst in through the door and the tiny bell over the entrance would ring in glad abandon, wildly flailing back and forth on its spring-loaded tether. I would sidle past the counter and venture immediately to the back room, where Uncle John was busy behind a heavy-duty sewing machine, amid the smell of cured leather and shoe polish, and where he "held court" with the men who had accompanied their wives to town so they could do the grocery shopping. Yet (unless he was sharpening skates, which took a great deal of concentration to get the edge just right) he'd stop whatever he was doing to greet me with a warm hug and introduce me as his niece. I'd wander about the shop, watch him sew leather on the machine, re-heel shoes and boots, or just go out behind the counter and tidy a bit so I could listen to the men talk. Many times he forgot I was there, minding the store front while he and the other men joked and laughed about this or that thing. It was an atmosphere of total acceptance. 

These expressions of love and caring stay suspended on
our wall all year round. Yes, they are Christmas cards.

The other place was the grocery store. Not the store itself, mind you. Just the little glassed-in passageway inside the entrance and exit doors. 

Back then, people still got their groceries in heavy-duty brown paper bags (with no handles), before the days of automatic sliding doors. Customers would get and pay for their groceries, fill their arms as full as they could with the chock-full paper bags, and head for the door. Some of them could barely see over the top of the bag's contents, especially the older widows who lived in little apartments scattered throughout town, some in the nursing home and some not. Anyway, I stationed myself by the exit door so that when I saw them coming, I'd be able to hold the door open for them. 

I did this so that I could hear the one thing I heard in no other place on earth: "Thank you."  Not perfunctory, polite thank yous, I mean to say, but expressions of gratitude spoken from the heart. I lapped it up and soaked it into my heart like fresh, clear water to a parched throat on a hot summer's day, knowing I'd have to live on that for a week. It saved my sanity - it was something to which I looked forward and on which I looked back when all I got from everyone else was either criticism or indifference when I tried to do something nice. Criticism if I didn't do it exactly as they would have done it  ... and indifference if I did. 

As a result of those experiences, I have always believed firmly in the power of acceptance and of gratitude. These two commodities are in short supply, it seems, and yet they cost absolutely nothing. Since they cost nothing in monetary terms, many people think that they are worth nothing. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Acceptance says, "Thank you for being you."  This is a lost art in some circles where rewards are linked to performance and where, if someone isn't talented in this or that way, he or she is made to feel like a second-class citizen. Acceptance opens the mind and quells criticism. It strengthens self-esteem and engenders confidence. It sends the message that it's okay that this person exists, that this person is special, unique, worth knowing. There is no feeling in the world quite like feeling wanted, loved, appreciated - not for what you can do for someone, but for who you ARE. 

Gratitude says, "Thank you for doing (or saying) what you did (or said)." How many of our psychologist's offices are clogged with people who never got a word of thanks from their parents, teachers, or other authority figures in their lives, who always feel like whatever they do is never "good enough?" How many spouses leave, how many children run away, how many workers reach burnout, how many pastors and church leaders leave the ministry because the people they cared most about never bothered to verbally show their appreciation?  All this heartache, all for the lack of two sincere words. It's tragic. 

It doesn't take long. It only takes a few seconds, perhaps a few minutes. 

I've seen "Thank you" actually save a life. I've known it to restore sanity to chaos, to give purpose and meaning to people, to dispel loneliness and despair, to inspire people to do even better, to encourage people that they're not alone, that who they are and what they think, say and do are important, that they've not gone unnoticed, that they make a difference to the world, even just to one person and most likely to many more (remember the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life"?), by just being there. 

Perhaps there is someone in your life who needs to hear those words. I know that there are so many in mine.

Beginning the beginning

It was a week before Christmas 2008. Fast-forward through the impatient waiting for my drive, the frantic phone calls, the worry, the fear of finding him slumped over the wheel ... the tight-lipped drive to the emergency room in mixed relief, anger, and panic - and the waiting for the blood tests to show what I already knew.

Never mind that I'd been trying to hold it together, lurching from crisis to crisis and keeping the wolf at bay through several half-truths and self-delusions that "it isn't that bad" - the growing uneasiness that maybe this was too big for me to handle, the denial that I needed help from outside myself. 

Amazing how our perceptions of the season change
from the time we are children and snow just means
fun making snowmen.

Those who know me well, know that winter is my least favorite season of the whole year. I hate the cold, the snow, the wind, the slippery roads, the cleaning off of the vehicle, the shoveling, the heavy clothing, the scraping, the extra time traveling more slowly, the scarcity of parking, and so forth and so on. Whenever possible, I would let him drive, preferring not to face winter slushy, dirty, yucky traffic. 

Which is why, when the doctor told me that he would have to report the incident (me finding him slumped over the wheel with the motor running, plus his blood alcohol level) and that the standard penalty for this offense was losing one's license for 6 months, I felt cold, icy fingers of fear rising up from my gut and closing around my throat. I instantly envisioned months of driving in winter, braving the horrible winter elements, stretching out in front of me.

I also saw the inevitable questions, the anticipated judgment of those from whom I'd been able to hide his secret, and the cold shoulders that I just knew would result, and I started to tremble.

I was SCARED. Irrationally, unreasonably afraid.

I felt the weight of being the only driver in the family at the worst possible time of year, the isolation that came with that, the inconvenience of assuming the responsibility of carting people where they wanted to go (he'd always done that) whenever they wanted to go. It would be at least two more months, probably three, before he could get into Rehab; he'd already been "bumped" from the waiting list once. I didn't know how much longer I could DO this.

I truly didn't know where to turn. The driving was only the tip of the iceberg. It unveiled a whole host of other things I had been afraid to face, shed a spotlight on how dangerous it was for him to even be on the road, how I had been hiding from just how unacceptable it all was. I felt like I couldn't talk to a whole lot of people, that nobody would understand how I felt, bearing the consequences of his drinking and feeling like I couldn't afford to fall apart - yet wanting so very much to bury my head under the covers and never come out! Nobody I knew would understand that "overwhelmed" feeling, the shame, the fear, the anger, the constant pressure. 

Nobody except - perhaps - someone who dealt with this kind of stuff all the time.

The idea began, just like that. Just a seed of thought at first. Someone had to understand me. I needed someone to comprehend. A stranger perhaps. Someone who didn't know me, who had nothing to do with the circles in which I was involved. 

It percolated through Christmas and into New Year's Day. By that time, the idea had rooted and was starting to take shape. I'd call the treatment center. They had family counselors. I'd talk to someone there. Nobody had to know.

I didn't know what would become of this. I didn't know that this would be the very first step I would take toward healing in my own life, the first chink toward crumbling the facade I'd built up and beginning a life of honesty and vulnerability, of openness and commitment to being real, of freedom from so many things that had shackled my soul for so many years. I had no way of knowing that it would open the door to so much good that has happened since that time, only the least of which was learning that I actually COULD drive and survive in the winter. :) I couldn't have possibly predicted the friendships that would strengthen, the new friendships that would form and the amazing journey I was about to start.

I just knew I needed help. 

It was early January. My head in my hands and my elbows propped up on the kitchen table, I glanced beside my elbow to the 7-digit number I'd written down on a slip of paper. The numbers slowly lost their blurriness as I blinked and wiped the tears from my cheeks. 

With trembling fingers I reached for the phone.

The soft underbelly

I just finished reading a post by my friend and fellow-blogger Ellie at One Crafty Mother, a post which has spurred me to talk about something that I don't often discuss. Especially not in a public forum.

Here is her challenge:

I want to issue you a challenge.  I want you to think of a moment, or period in your life (maybe it's still happening - even better) where you were feeling shame and vulnerability.  There is a difference between shame and guilt - just to clarify - shame is feeling badly about who you are, guilt is feeling badly for something you've done.   Vulnerability is that feeling we have when we've placed too much power in the opinions of others (oh, if they only knew how _______ I am) and shame and vulnerability feed off each other in very toxic ways.

Once you've identified a time when you have (or are) experiencing shame and vulnerability (almost always accompanied by their evil cousin fear) - I want you to write about it.  If you don't have a blog, crack out pen and paper, or a word document, and just let it pour out.  Try, if you, can, to write about it in narrative form.  Close your eyes, picture yourself in that moment, or in that period of your life, and write it like a story.  Tell the truth, every part of it, especially the little nuggets of shame, fear or guilt you've mentally edited out because thinking about them makes you feel small.

Talk about your inner shame dialogue; what did it tell you? How did it make you feel?  Writing about it - seeing your words out there - will take a lot of the power out of what is, essentially, holding you hostage.  I promise.

I must admit I'm a little daunted.  Especially because the first thing that popped into my head was something that I'm still going through and which I don't see any way out of except through it.  (Wow. That sounds familiar.)  But ... there's something that resonates in me with this concept - that truth makes people free, even if it's not pretty. That ugly things like shame and evil lose their power when brought into the light, when their soft underbelly is exposed.  

So ... here goes.

Many of you know that last fall, I e-published a book about my journey from the bondage of control-freaking and door-mat-itis into a lifestyle of freedom, passion, and purpose. It was a huge deal for me to have made the journey, and I wanted to write about it! 

The response I've received has been rather sporadic, actually - definitely not what I had hoped.  To be sure, I didn't expect to make much money from it; it was something that I wanted to do so that if even one person is helped by it, then it would be worth it. But I had thought I would receive just a smidgen more recognition than the large round of indifference I've gotten.  

Except from one quarter: my birth family and extended family, and anyone who is friends with them.  

For, you see, I did mention a couple of members of my family-of-origin in the book a couple of times.  I did so to highlight the "before" picture and some of the things I went through to be free of the things certain people did and said to me: things which scarred me my whole life long.  I took great care not to make that the focus, though.  I wanted to talk about the "unwrapping" that happened as a result of a day-by-day relationship with God, with myself, and finally with others.  (For more information on the book, see my "About Me" page.)

But by talking about their part in it even once, I broke the cardinal rule that was hammered into my psyche as a child: "What happens here STAYS here - we don't talk about it outside these four walls." 

I found this photo at THIS SITE

The truth about my childhood has always been a source of great shame for me.  I always thought - until I was well into my forties - that if anyone knew that I was abused as a child, they'd not want to have anything to do with me.  I'd lose everything.  Fear had me by the throat.  I thought people would blame me.  I thought that my family would disown me.  I thought that I would never be able to look anyone in the eye again.

But for the most part, people outside of my birth family have been kind, if not just tolerant. And I've experienced a great deal of healing from those traumatic experiences.

Yet, I am still ashamed.  Not for the horrors of what happened to me - God has healed me from that shame - but for telling the truth.  Ashamed for (even though it is the last thing I intended) appearing to be disloyal, ungrateful, vindictive.  For exposing the deception and no longer keeping "our little secret." For being honest ... and being called a liar. For having my motives judged and for not being able to explain to their satisfaction why I would cast such a shadow on the reputation of someone who - to friends and family - is the closest thing to a saint that they've ever seen.  

I wish I could say that it's been resolved. That would be nice, nice and pretty, all tied up in a bow and a "wonderful testimony."  But it hasn't.  This is a process.  I struggle with these feelings of shame, of feeling exposed and vulnerable to what others think, nearly all the time.  There have been many nights - even in the last six months - that I have cried myself to sleep because of the fallout, the pointed fingers, the broken relationships, the constant criticism and the lack of any kind of attempt to understand what I'm trying to accomplish. Grief over lost contact, lost favour, lost relationship, is something I deal with daily. All too often, the weight of shame and the crushing, smothering feelings of loneliness, fear and anxiety overwhelm me. 

I fight to keep in the moment; it is the only way I can survive.
 
I don't know how to get past this wall of misery.  I don't know if I SHOULD get past it.  I don't know if I'm doing any good to anyone - or if secretly I WANT them to suffer.  (Am I really that horrible? How can I ever look at my reflection in the mirror? When will this end? HOW will it end if it does?) 

I don't know.  I really don't.  I have wrestled with saying goodbye for good, with writing them off, with closing the door on that part of my life and never looking back.  

More shame. More vulnerability.  More feeling like I want to crawl into a hole and disappear.  

I am exposing my soft underbelly here - in the hope that shame has a soft underbelly too.  My friend Ellie says that shame and vulnerability hate the truth; they hate compassion.  

I hope so.  I really DO hope so.

Walking through it

I don't know if it is a function of where I live, or the times I live in, or the particular culture of which I'm a part (be it church, or just the "country" attitude that believes everybody else's business is their business - keeping the figurative binoculars by the window), or what it is.  But I've noticed over and over again how incredibly difficult it is to live the lifestyle of letting go, when all around me, there seems to be a silent, yet persistent resistance to the whole concept.  

Some people don't think that it's necessary to do the leg-work that it takes to get to the place of freedom.  They are waiting - as I once did - for God to come in and "zap" them, and suddenly they'll be free.  I don't deny that it happens.  SOMEtimes.  

But more often, He merely provides the strength, like charging the battery if you will, to take the steps that are necessary to walk through it.  Which is why, when people tell me that they're amazed at the changes in me over the last few years, I am quick to say that God gets the credit.  I would never have had the strength to go through what was necessary for me to walk into freedom if He hadn't given me the inner fortitude and strength to do it.  But there were things I had to do - given that strength - to get where I am today (and I am by no means done!)  I had to "walk through it" in much the same way as the children of Israel had to walk into the promised land (in the book of Joshua) and fight to drive out the giants.  

What I find most discouraging (and I know that this is a failing in myself that I even LOOK at what others think or do) is that so very few are willing to take that first step into freedom.  They either acknowledge that the need is there to change, and hesitate to launch into deeper waters because it DOES involve a journey and it IS hard (but worth it, and no, I'd never go back!) - or they don't see the need at all.  

HERE is where I got this photo. Good post, too.

It is that last group that is the most frustrating for me.  I live in a culture of "country living" (as I said earlier) that believes that there are no boundaries between people, that we should all know each other's business and be prepared to jump in and give advice to others or try to manipulate the outcome in someone else's life, just because we "care".  

I hesitate to use the word codependent, because so many think they know what it is, and so few really know what it means - but the idea that I am responsible for my own actions and that so-and-so is responsible for his own actions seems to be lost, swallowed up in the teaching and attitude that is so prevalent in this culture of ... well ... co-dependency (for a definition please follow the link I placed at the first of this paragraph).  In this culture, the vices of the codependent person are lauded as praise-worthy, even adorned in the robes of religious living (e.g., "speaking the truth in love" - often a euphemism or a cloak for being controlling and invasive.  Or "selflessness" - which is usually just self-degradation and doormat-itis wearing a halo).  Why would anyone want to be freed from something that is so socially acceptable?  Isn't it the right thing to do, to look after other people? to try to help them? to tell them what they should be doing? what they should be believing?  Isn't it wrong to think of ourselves first? to say no? to keep others at arm's length?  

Well ... yes and no.  In our results-based society, which looks at the final result of a healthy personality (ie serving others out of a heart of love) as the goal and expects people to behave that way before they've even started to become healthy ... then I would say that our society has the cart before the horse. The end result of expecting people to be selfless when they don't even know what their real self IS - will inevitably be burnout, resentment, bitterness, anger, and depression.  And in a good majority of the cases, not only will that person experience those feelings, but they will also be echoed in the lives of all the people that person tried to "help."  

What I'm saying is that it is necessary to be (or to become) healthy before offering healing to others.  Otherwise, it will most assuredly backfire.  I speak from experience because I lived in that reality for decades before finally reaching the end of my own strength, with my kids and my husband shutting me out. Only then - in desperation - did I wise up.  

And then I had to give it all to God, trust His strength to empower me, and step out.  I had to walk through it.  To use an old King James expression, I had to "possess the land."  And it had nothing to do with any catch phrases or platitudes - for me it involved a lot of unlearning old habits and attitudes which I had tied into my belief structure and called it "my faith" when it was "my preference", and it also meant learning what was healthy for me and for those I cared about, and putting those lessons into practice in the everyday.  

When I had gone through and understood that process, when I had made those lessons a part of my daily living and begun to see some freedom in my own life, that was when I decided to put that process down in an e-book and describe it - not that I expect anyone to be a clone of me, but to provide a template, a guide-book to healing for those who want to be free, an easy-to-follow road-map to be adapted to the individual's own needs.  I've included a link to it on my "About Me" page.  

I know that not everyone wants to go there; I accept it.  A person has to be ready, to really see the futility of such a lifestyle as the one I had embraced and found to be void of any kind of happiness, before he or she is willing to do whatever it takes to be free.  Desperation is required.  And just a tiny spark of faith that God will be there through it all. 

A person cannot give away what he or she doesn't have.  It's only out of a place of fulness that one can be in a position to fill others. And it's only in admitting that one is empty that one can be filled.  If that sounds attractive - if your soul resonates with that and is wistful thinking about it ... then perhaps you're ready. 

Perhaps it's time.

Start SOMEwhere

For the last year or so I have been toying around with the idea of reducing the clutter in my life, but have been putting it off because the task seemed (seems) so daunting.  

I'm a packrat.  There.  I've said it.  

I'm the sentimental kind of packrat.  Letters, cards people wrote to me, notebooks I wrote in years ago, articles of clothing I liked when I was um, a few sizes smaller and then couldn't bear to part with after I "grew out of" them, even some of my kids' baby clothes - outfits I remember them wearing ... these accumulate over time.  The result was that the stuff I could use in the now, I couldn't find because it was buried in other stuff I couldn't use.  

I'm also a bit of a slob.  That's no secret to those who know me well.  But combine packrat with slob and you get a borderline hoarder!  And one of the side-effects of that ... is how unhealthy it is - the dust accumulates, and we're all allergic to dust here - and the frustration level at not being able to find something when we want it mounts to colossal proportions.  For everyone.  After a while it all gets to be just too much. 

If the last 3 years has taught me anything, it's that baggage from the past can weigh you down in the present.  The baggage can't be thrown out in one fell swoop.  That would be kind of like throwing out the baby with the bathwater! No, it has to be unpacked, processed, and put where it belongs.  Whether that's in the "keep" pile or in the "trash" pile, the concept is the same in the emotional or spiritual as in the physical realm. It's a LOT of work, and the process can be overwhelming.  

Anyway, this morning, to start off a few days of vacation, I decided to join my husband in a little project he's doing - preparing our bedroom to be re-floored.  (That would involve FINDING the floor...) So the de-cluttering project I've been putting off for "another time" got moved forward.  The whole house needs it - but any time I thought about doing the whole house, I was so discouraged that I didn't do anything at all.  Yet this morning, a new thought came to me.

"Start SOMEwhere."  And the bedroom was just as good a spot as any.  

Here's a before and after photo I got HERE

In the short space of 90 minutes or so, working alongside my husband (who was doing the larger projects involving brute strength), I was able to sort through eight years' worth of papers on a desk we were getting rid of (and which had to be demolished to get it out of the room, hence the presence of "my hero"), and turn my attention to the clothing monster. It was amazing how quickly I was able to see more and more of the floor AND the tops of the dressers. I had thought it would take all day!  It was also pretty impressive to see just how much dust had accumulated on some of the areas we'd not been able to reach because of the desk.  Downright scary in some spots. It reminded me of the little joke I heard where the kid asks the mom if it was true that God made Adam out of the dust of the earth, (yes He did, dear) and that when we die our bodies return to the dust (yes, that's true dear) ... so the kid says, "Well you better come quick Mom, 'cause there's someone either coming or going under the bed!"  ;)  


Doing the de-cluttering project WITH someone really helped me too.  One of the things I have always hated about cleaning is that it's lonely work.  Having someone to share it with makes it not seem like such a drudgery.  And there's the satisfaction of the work going faster, and the back-and-forth banter of shared experience and pooled ideas.  

It was almost fun.  

Mind you, it's a long way from being done.  And there will be a lot more dust before it's over.  But before too long, the room will be a refuge, and not a repository of junk - and it won't take THAT much work to keep it that way.  

It's kind of a metaphor for how my emotional life is being transformed over the last few years.

That's the thing about works in progress.  They're never completely done, and they're a lot of work - but you can tell when you're making progress.