September 5

I have moved through so many different emotions and thoughts this week it is hard to contain them in my head. I don’t feel particularly Son-Risey or enlightened, but in the spirit of sharing my weeks in all honesty, here are some of my experiences.

This week doing the pick-up at Sarah’s school seemed so easy it is hard to believe I was so stressed about it a week ago. It probably helps that I fully understand it now and that it isn’t quite so unbearably hot.

Sarah had a great week. The combined thinking and creativity on the part of her teachers and me helped us implement small but helpful changes to assist her when she gets stressed. I suggested that they give her drinks of water more often and they also started offering her small snacks more frequently. One teacher suggested that when she was struggling she could wear her headphones and listen to music for a few minutes. I bought copies of some of her favorite books and sent them in so she can read them when she needs a break. 

On the drive home one day I gave Sarah a carrot. She started tapping it against the window. I asked what she was doing. “Mom, I’m making thunder on the window with a carrot!” Obviously. I loved it!

After a month long hiatus from my Jenny-Rise bodywork plan due to scheduling complications, I am back in action and it has been beyond wonderful! Sometimes I can think I am imagining how helpful it is and that I must be making it up. No. I’m not. It really is that helpful. I sometimes feel as if some of my cells are running around with crazy haywire energy and when I see J. for a bodywork session then they all settle into peaceful alignment. I had a session on Tuesday and when I woke up Wednesday morning I was able to remember how enjoyable it can be to do things like groceries and chores because it is through these actions that I can express my love for my dear family. I can pack lunches with love. I loved the drive to Sarah’s school because I knew I was taking her to a welcoming and wonderful place. I can fold laundry and wash dishes with love, peace, and enjoyment. What a relief to remember these perspectives again. They had gotten lost in my worry about doing everything right and being all caught up on everything (as if that is actually a thing that one can achieve!) My sense of burden shifted to a sense of opportunity.

After my session with J. on Thursday I felt like I was just so full of love and light and joy that my skin could just burst away and I would shine light everywhere and heal the world. In the evening I then followed J.’s suggestion to put hot stones (specially designed for massage treatments) along my right psoas muscle. Since I didn’t have a client that night but I had a sitter, I was my own client and borrowed a friend’s stones. Lying on my table with the stones along my psoas path and thinking about what emotions and fears were sitting in there, I realized how scared I am on a deep muscular level that if I am really me then people will leave. Saying it makes is so clear that this isn’t true because I know I have deep and continuing love and support from people who know me incredibly well, foibles and all. I feel like I am picking up logs and shedding light where there hasn’t been any, noticing feelings and beliefs that I didn’t know were there so I can let them go, because once they hit the light of consciousness they can lose their power. I had a good deep cry. I also realized how much of a pattern of fear I have had in new situations, starting at least in first grade, being refreshed with a new school in seventh grade, and getting a mammoth surge with college, which is the year I started getting cluster headaches. I love love love noticing these things. I feel such hope that I can clear these musty closets of old fear and thus shrink my cluster beast until it is just a dust bunny to blow away in the wind.

On Friday I had a great talk with M., my Sarah-Rise consultant. This was possibly the last official consultation because even though I still run a part-time program (Sarah gets 6 hours of SR room time a week), I feel like we are in a very different place. It is as if we have collectively graduated. M. has been so immensely helpful over the years and it was wonderful just to share how amazing everything was feeling.

Then I seemed to lose all my good thoughts and new realizations while I slept Friday night.

Saturday morning I felt overwhelmed and grumpy and tight and controlling as I thought about all that had to happen to prepare for camping. I then judged myself royally for these feelings because they were so drastically different from when I felt like a being of light and then somehow because of the difference I felt like the wonderfulness meant less or was less true. Talking with Carl helped me be gentler with myself and perhaps allow it to all be there and all be ok. Overall camping actually went really well and I can even contemplate doing a two-night trip in the future, where so far we have limited our camping-with-kids to just one night. Looking at the fire Saturday night as it smoldered and light escaped through a crack, I felt like I was seeing me and how it has felt with the light just wanting to get out. This noticing led to tears as I found compassion for my frustrations and tight spots. I also noticed how often I frame things around worrying that I am not enough or too much. If I am super busy then I am concerned that I am doing too much and also am not doing a good enough job at relaxing. If I have a super relaxing and restorative self-care day then I worry that that was waaaaay too indulgent and I really need to pull my load. There is not much room to just be me with variability and humanness. Time to give all of that some more thought and notice that I am the one making the rules and metrics. Yes, there is plenty of societal influence but I am the one judging me.

Today has felt rough, rough, rough with a side of rough. My self judgement has been huge, my frustration with the whining of the kids has been immense, I accidentally in my anger put a plate down a bit too hard and it shattered all over everything everywhere in the kitchen, I felt terribly humbled, I felt like a terrible mom and a needy wife. I felt like I had nothing to write because I have nothing figured out and I have never grown or changed or learned anything. With all of this, thank goodness for Carl being an amazing, steadfast, loving, thoughtful, and kind everything. Honestly. I have so many times over the years when I marvel that he is still here by my terribly imperfect and tumultuous side. I did at least glimpse the thought that perhaps I could stop marveling and wondering at it and just accept it and feel safe in it (as I truly do on so many levels already) because if he has been here through it all for the past 19 1/2 years, chances are he does actually love being with me. Perhaps my goal can be to start noticing more of the things I do well rather than picking at all the things I see as flawed. My goal for the rest of the day is to soften. Soften into tears and breath. Soften into it being ok if not everything gets done or if I don’t get my way. Soften around the hard edges of my kids not listening, of them fighting with each other, of them wanting things from me all the all the all the all the all the time! See how well I’m softening just with that last sentence? 

I will also remember that inside we are all incredibly gorgeous, if you were to turn the light on. I recently saw a picture of living fascia. Fascia is the connective tissue that is inside each of us around absolutely all parts of us. I had only ever seen dead fascia. Living fascia is the most beautiful fairy clothing of light and gorgeousness ever. At our core this means we are really all beautiful.

Anyway, I wish you all gentleness and ease and time to breathe. May we all remember that even in the tough moments there is still beauty and the easy, wonderful, light-filled moments are still there and true even when we struggle to feel them.