Taking Care of Ourselves

I attended a workshop yesterday with twelve women called Awakening the Muse. I knew a few of the women and the others I had never met but felt a kinship as we were all somewhat close in age and interested in bringing change and more creativity into our lives.
We chatted about why we were there, filled out a questionnaire designed to help us get more in touch with our muse by our interests and facts about our lives. That was followed by a guided imagery and making a Muse Box. The facilitators had a table laden with all kinds of papers, markers, glue, glitter to help us decorate our tea cans and turn them into Muse Boxes that will hold anything we desire! Then we chanted to bring the first of three such meetings to a close. I drove away feeling so filled with light and joy!
Next week I am facilitating a workshop on Nurturing Your Spirit. It is a two-hour group to give women a heads up about ways to feel good about themselves.

Women today are SO busy, distracted, stressed and focused on OTHERS that we just aren’t willing or we don’t think it is OK to put ourselves first.
Or just even take care of us after our kids! We seem to just ax ourselves off the list all together or the list is SO long, we never reach US!
But like a blog I read this morning, we need to treat ourselves just like the flight attendants on airlines tell us. Put on YOUR oxygen mask first, before your child’s, that way you are able to aid your child.

I recall my therapist many years ago, telling me that by taking care of my own needs through things like therapy, exercise, positive self talk, that I was setting a good example for my three daughters to follow when they became adults/wives/moms!
Much of this also is the fact we don’t value ourselves. I know in our society we have been raised to be caregivers, be unselfish and put other’s needs first. But it doesn’t work if we are falling apart and also raising children who grow up believing they either need to be taken care of (that is a whole different blog!) or always have to put someone before themselves.
Life is not black and white. It is possible to take care of yourself as well as love your children and partner.
One thing I strongly believe in is don’t do anything for your child (or partner) that they are capable of doing for themselves. That doesn’t mean you can’t make meals for your family or do something nice for them. It means teaching them to take care of themselves is a parent’s main job!!!
We aren’t meant to raise helpless invalids who always need Mommy and Daddy the rest of their lives. Who have to live at home at age 30 or call Dad at ages forty to borrow his credit card when their car breaks down.

My husband and I raised three daughters who had cook nights, did their own laundry, had jobs at age sixteen if they wanted a car, could change the oil and flat tire on said car and grew up to be happy independent women. I am so proud of all three of them.

And I learned to love and take care of my self emotionally, spiritually and physically. I hope my daughters learned to do that also.

Reflections on Life

As I approach my fifty sixth birthday in a few weeks, I have been reflecting some on my life. How it has turned out differently than I expected, not either positively or negatively but just different.
And my expectations/dreams /goals changed as my life played out before me. As a child, I dreamed of becoming a veterinarian, a forest ranger, and owning a dog rescue ranch somewhere in the mountains. Back then there was no practicality in my vision, just dreams. Even in high school, when I had a goal of a college major in English and a future as a writer, I had no insight into how to make it happen. I believe now my low self-esteem and desire to escape my abusive home, led me to make impulsive decisions out of fear.
So my life led me to an early marriage, children, divorce, alcoholism and eventually recovery where I made more practical and realistic decisions for my future to support my children. I became a counselor with financial aid and went down a much different path than I had envisioned as a child.

When I remarried and as a couple we looked to the future, my husband and I didn’t plan on many of the challenges we found in our path to our united destiny. The loss of his family business which we thought had promised financial security, the loss of a child and grieving that loss shocked us both and put a seeming insurmountable chasm in our road.

Amazingly we made it through, raising our children to adulthood successfully and healing our marriage. Many relationships don’t survive the loss of a child as well as financial insecurity. I believe our spiritual life and love/commitment for each other is what saved us.

Chronic illness for me and loss of my full time income were unexpected challenges to both our spiritual and emotional senses as well as my physical health. We have definitely learned the meaning of living in the moment, taking it one day or hour at a time and being grateful for every minute.
In this economic climate, very few couples have the financial security that they had aspired to. So we are grateful to own our home and have no debt even though our retirement savings has dwindled where it has little meaning.

No one knows what the future holds even with the most well laid practical plans so I find solace in my faith and the joy of living just for today. It is all any of us ever have.

What Keeps You Motivated?

I have been in a slump since the holidays ended. Well, to be honest, to us that is just this last week because we had a late celebration with our out of town kids and then our grandkids were here for a few days.
But now that it back to the normal routine, how do I get motivated to be creative, get some exercise and just feel good in general?

One thing I need to do now that we have our schedule back is what I wrote about last week: my regular routine. It may sound boring but my routine grounds me. Every morning I do my daily reading and meditation, my yoga exercises, which open my chakras and I usually, have activities for certain days of the week.
My writing group meets one morning a month, I attend a couple self help groups weekly, get a massage for my fibro every few weeks and have coffee/get together with my close friends who nurture and support me. I also write a gratitude list daily that also seems to keep level and out of depression or self-pity.
I also have a mental /writing exercise I developed while I was a counselor. I published it as one of my first blogs. It nurtures my spirit and makes me feel good. Just reading it feels good.
I need to update that list regularly and read it daily as I always told my clients to do. Practice what I preach!

I am excited for the next few weeks. I was invited to participate in a once a month workshop called Awakening the Muse which sounds very motivating!
And I will be facilitating a workshop myself February sixth on Nurturing your Spirit. Hopefully that will not only motivate me but others as well.

Winter, at least in this climate, can be somewhat depressing with very little sunshine, extreme cold and the three feet of snow we currently have on the ground. So it really helps me to have lots of activities planned to keep me motivated and excited. Writing, reading both fiction and nonfiction that I find stimulating, getting together with friends to talk and share how we’re doing and having art projects planned, helps me to stay up and feeling good.

Spring is always wonderful to look forward to. Making plans for my butterfly and rose garden, looking through garden books and making a design for what I want to change/update also keeps me busy.

If I can’t get outside to walk alittle with the dogs, at least I can do some yoga or dance around to my favorite tunes to keep my body loose and unstressed.
Just being outside to throw some retrieves for my goldens and breathe fresh air keeps the cabin fever away.

If you have any ideas to share that motivate you in the gray winter feel free to comment! I know this time of year serves a purpose. Just as nature needs to rest and replenish so do we. Sometimes we have to get creative and help ourselves.

Dogs and Pavlov Know Best

I would have never thought I was such a creature of habit. I used to be more of a rebel, interested in new things, creative, spontaneous and forward thinking.

But being in the holiday, winter weather (three feet of snow and 30 below wind chill) and husband off work mode has knocked me totally out of balance!
It feels like months since I had the house to myself, time to wake up slowly, savor my coffee before I click into gear and get on with my day. I haven’t felt like “myself” in awhile. Been kind of crabby, out of sorts, just not right.

My husband goes back to his regular work schedule tomorrow after having three consecutive weeks of three- day work weeks. All the holiday company have gone back to their lives, the Christmas decorations and tree have been stored away and college bowl season is also over for another year.
I enjoyed it all but enough is enough. I need my alone time. I need to enjoy my coffee and allow my brain and spirit to awaken from their December static/craziness. My dogs are used to their regular schedule also. They jump up when I awaken, run ahead of me to the kitchen where I feed them then while they make their potty trip outside in the below zero temps, I make the coffee. Then as I sip, read the paper, check my email and Facebook page, I simultaneously throw their toys for them to retrieve. After which, I do my stretching and five Yoga poses that open my chakras while the dogs try to lie on me.
By this time I have some energy and brain cells charging, so we do some clean up (meaning me, the boys watch). Load the dishwasher, vacuum up the dog hair (Gunner has recently experienced an allergic reaction to some new treats and his hair is falling out like crazy) shower (for me) and get on with the day!
Most days involve some outside activity, whether it’s errands, coffee with friends, my writing group or just a romp in the snow for the boys.
Later after a rest or nap, I do some reading, writing , art projects or just watch a movie. In between usually involves some more fetch with Selka and Gunner. Before we know it, time for supper. For them it’s kibble and for us: it depends on to how creative and energetic I feel.

I never thought the Same Old, Same Old could sound so wonderful.

Growing Painfully

I have had a rough last few weeks emotionally and therefore physically due to the stress-related illnesses I am privy to. Coincidentally or not, it has also been the holidays.

So it is now January, my annual self-reflective serenity seeking time of year. I really really need it.

I am feeling sad, depressed, angry with others and myself and probably somewhat in self-pity. This involves many people and several issues I would prefer not to get into publicly on a blog but just so you know: they involve family (several different family issues)and friends and my own sense of self.

When I was younger (say teens, twenties, thirties) I certainly thought that by the time I was in my late (OMG I am going to be 56 in Feb!) fifties, I would be wise, mature and certainly know myself very well and Hey, be close to perfect! Unfortunately, that is far from true.

As sixty gains momentum, I seem to be more sensitive, emotionally wobbly and less sure of who I am and who my friends are. That is not exactly true. I do have a BASIC sense of who I am, both assets and liabilities, and am pretty sure of a small group of people that I know love me and accept me warts and all.

In February, I am scheduled to present a workshop on Nurturing Yourself. Having been a counselor for a long time, I had developed a series of exercises to help women (but it would also work for men, I think) nurture their inner selves and hopefully learn to love themselves as they are. Most of the time, I am pretty good at this myself.


But I seem to have taken a battering over the last few weeks; most of it initially brought on by choices that YOURS TRULY made!
(I am SO lucky my dear spouse does not often say, “I told you so!”)

One of my assets/liabilities is that I have a BIG MOUTH and am also highly opinionated which often gets me into trouble. I end up finding out who exactly disagrees with me and then my feelings are hurt because not everyone likes me! DUH!!! Big Surprise!

So I will be spending the next couple months of below zero temps and several feet of snow, studying, reflecting, learning and hopefully growing into the person I want to be. And practicing what I preach. Therefore also nurturing myself.

And hopefully finding a way to say what I think tactfully, learning to live with the consequences and loving myself enough that when it becomes very evident that some people don’t like or agree with me, I can lick my wounds and go on. Because the truth is: not everyone I meet will like me or agree with me and that’s OK.
I think. As I tell myself: We all are works in progress!