Powerful beyond measure...

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate – our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” by Marianne Williamson

This is my favorite quote. I read it a long time ago and then couldn't find it but today out of the blue it was on some zen-ish blog that I subscribe to. It is so me. I tend to get quite anxious at times and a little obsessive about worrying...usually about simple, illogical things that totally distract me from the time at hand and thrust me into an uncertain future. I was told one time that it was generalized anxiety disorder which meant that my panic episodes were basically beyond my control. That was a reassuring one.

I recently have aligned these worried times in my life to periods of stagnation. Doing lots of things, none really personally stimulating...maybe more like none really individual to my own personal accomplishments. I am going through the motions of Mom, wife, etc...all very important tasks and special to my heart, but I am failing to do anything that puts me out there. I recently decided in my pursuit to just get myself figured out that I would revisit a therapist. And she asked me a very important question..." If you were on a plane all by yourself flying to a far away place and your next door seat neighbor asked you to tell about yourself, what would you say?" She was trying to get me to realize that there was very little in my life that I could claim on my own. And she was right in a way. My first things to share would be about my kids and what they are like and do...and of course I could share about my chickens and my running, my reading of deep stuff like Thomas Merton and the like. So looking at it from that perspective I do a lot. At first, I thought "wow! I really don't have my own identity. I need to do something personally fulfilling." She even suggested going back to school to be guess what??? A marriage and family therapist of all things! Funny, but I have thought about that quite a bit even before her suggestion. But after thinking about going back to school and looking at the daunting task of taking the GRE, going through the application process and financial aid...then on to the logistics of someone keeping the kids two nights a week, juggling it all, etc...I ALMOST shrinked back in my shell, grabbing onto my precious accomplishments like my half-marathon and my garden and my deep reading and my thinking like a crazy obsessed hypochondriac...when it started hitting me. It's not that I don't do things. I do lots. I love life (which is another of her questions), I really love life. I am so hopeful and energetic and even sometimes fun. It's not even that I don't have gratitude.

You know what my problem is? I do it all in a box. In the safety of my home with my family, in my back yard. I think what I am missing is the "Out there, risking myself in an environment that is not my own" kind of experiences. I am naturally a pretty shy, introverted type person. So being a home maker doesn't force me out there. When I was in school I was forced out there by the nature of being out there. But now I am in here. And sure, I can be PTC president, but I don't really care about that. And I can chair a committee at church, but I don't really care about that. It just seems like in those capacities there is always someone waiting who is more vocal and "busier" than me who really WANTS the job, so my point of view is to give it to them...happily. I really don't "need" anything other that a platform of my own. Just a place to be heard, get a little feedback and rebuild my confidence "out there". When I think about it that way, the panic ridden obsessive voices of my intricate psychology subside. I think those voices just might be my warning whispers when my life is a little out of balance. And this time I am going to listen.

I think it took until now. These periods of what I call my "psychology" started after the birth of Weston, continued after the birth of Miles and have constantly peeped their heads ever since. But they are good voices...indicators of something else. The first therapist who wanted to label them and medicate them was just my first indication that it was something deeper. This time the new therapist was telling me something I really already knew. I just didn't have the confidence yet to act on it. When she suggested Therapy...I looked at her like she was crazy and told her I had thought about that lots of times but thought I was too crazy myself. Then she told me something I already knew again. She told me that I am not crazy. or messed up. or weird. I do know these things, but it is nice to have an almost complete stranger tell them to me.

It kind of makes me think of Tom Hanks in that movie where he is stranded on the island. I think being a stay at home can kind of be like that to some of us. Like being stranded on an island. It's a great island, and my kids are much more company than a volleyball, but there is still something missing. And Moms can guilt themselves for years over wanting to escape sometimes because Lord knows there is enough on the island to keep them busy and even enough on the island to entertain and humor them. But sometimes I think we just need the confirmation that we can build the boat we need with the tools we have to escape if we need to. That's the little bit of the confidence boost we need. And that is enough.

So many things in this world come into my head that fill it with ideas of inadequacies blah, blah, blah! But I am gonna dive in. I am not going to compromise my greatness for a bunch of puny fears of being inadequate. Wish me luck!;o)

stuff...

I have about decided that my main enemy in life is stuff. I am just not good at dealing with it. It overwhelms me. The main struggle in my life is prioritizing the stuff in my house, the stuff in my mind, the stuff that gathers as barriers between people I love...my stuff literally overcomes me and causes me to throw up my hands in defeat. Well, I say that. However, I am not easily defeated. The will is there so I never truly give up which is a good thing because otherwise I might just go over the edge and be featured on one of those weird shows that showcase hoarders or something. I guess the stuff in my life is just my battle for now...the one I fight daily to clean out but never really know how far to go.

What I wouldn't give for a little perspective. How nice it would be to get in someone else's shoes and see how they resolve their battles with the stuff that ultimately binds all of us. Well, I am guessing it does. I am sure there are people who manage things a bit tighter than I, who see things a little more black and white, who have a little stronger guidance in the home. Maybe I could learn some things. Like to get rid of the dadgum hand me downs that I don't even like with out feeling overwhelmed by what I am going to do with them, without feeling guilt at the thought of wasting them, or guilt over the person who gave them to me...what in the world is THAT???? These are not blaring ideas inside my mind, just what causes me to avoid things.

Stuff can even come in the form of not reconciling past dreams to present realities...this stuff can pretty much turn a sunny day quite cloudy. Like hanging on to parenting strategies that worked when the kids were little, but don't really work now at their current ages. That sentimentality of what I could do for Owen and Weston that now would only be possible in some sort of time warp, binds me into inaction.

Or the years into a marriage where layers and layers that used to be purged through so much talking and time together are now just fortified by the opposite experiences. Too little time together, too many misunderstandings, too much to do. OK this sounds pretty doom and gloom. And sometimes it is. Pretty darn doomy and gloomy.

But mainly it is not. Mainly it seems to be a time in life to constantly get up, brush off my knees from the dirt and grime that accumulates when I fall...which I do quite often... and start again. I think that's what it's all about. Seeing the good in the stuff, through the stuff and out of the stuff. That's the beauty in human beings...we've got that little spark of hope and endurance and triumph over the barriers that bind. I will continue to give away the crap, keep looking to new strategies that work in both parenting and marriage and look upward for the internal light that keeps me enthused.

Meanwhile, I seem to like thinking about this kind of stuff, talking about it and muddling through it. The stuff will always be here...taking on different forms as my life changes and transforms. And I will keep sorting it, trashing it, wading through it. you name it. Rock on...

Oh yeah, by the way, I am running and I ran 12.34 miles last Saturday WITHOUT STOPPING!!!! Well, that is something I have NEVER done before and it felt good. Not really the running, though even that is not as hard as my mind would have me believe, but what felt really good is the sense of satisfaction of doing something I have never felt good at. I can do it. Next Sunday is my 36th birthday and I plan on running 13.1 miles the day before in prep for my big half marathon at Disney on March 7!!! Wahoooo!!!

February is a great month

Ok...I am one of those people who write cathartically...I write when I need to get something out. So looking back over posts, I seem to sound as though I may need to delve into psychology some...possible even therapy;O) And while I know I owe no one an explanation, I feel for my own sake, I must defend myself by saying I think for the most part I sail through life relatively sane. That said, here I am entering into my favorite time of the year...February...on that same rough road of questioning where the heck I am going!

Well, February is not really my favorite time of the year, but it does signal some very special events. The first is that Winter is finally coming to an end. Winter stops being cool for me after Christmas, when the fires in the fireplace have lost their newness and the ashes have won over into being a dusty film over the living room, the Christmas toys have now mingled with the resident toys into some kind of unrecognizable clump of mismatched parts and pieces strewn throughout my house, the appeal of all my favorite winter veggies has turned into a begrudging question...oh my god, what old vegetable am I going to roast this lovely evening and finally, the kids are wearing me thin with their energy that has been pent up over the much too short and too cold days!...And we live in Georgia! This is some major insight into why we didn't survive very long in the arctic cold of Denmark. I also like February because of Valentines day...the pink and red combo is just fun and happy and my birthday, which is just my day. I like it.

That said, it's interesting to me that as I get older, I find lots more answers to the questions I have asked over the years...but the questions keep coming...and keep getting bigger. Just as I find the answer to one thing I see a new way of applying it to something else that leads me to a new awareness of some facet of life or God or me. I used to think that as I got to be a grown up I would get to a point of just being me and I would be in this place of OK...I'm done...I know everything and can start living. When I realized it wasn't that way, man, I freaked. Trying to control everything is tough. It can drive you nuts and almost did. Well, I kept learning and I have grown into new understandings of myself and my place in the world. I thought I was "done"...haha...now I have been realizing that I have to change. Sometimes when you are busy growing and realizing, you make observations about your belief systems and you misinterpret the observations as changes within yourself. But an observation is merely internal until you make it a part of your life. As I have grown over the past 5 years, I have made many observations and realizations about my beliefs about kids, how they learn, what they need, I have realized things about God and Jesus and where I think church fits in and how I think I am supposed to respond as a believer in this world...I have even learned the ways I want to react to myself with love and have delved into the ideas of meditation some and living more naturally and holistically...I have made some changes. But not big ones. I think this internal upheaval I am now experiencing is going to deliver the goods. My insides seem to be saying, "OK you have done the inside work Amanda. Now is the time to step out and live them on the outside." This is particularly hard for me, a relatively shy, historically people-pleasing person, who now needs to break out and change schools, possibly change churches and to some degree change the way I live. Not that any of it is bad or even warrants change. That got me for a long time. I thought in order to make a change I had to deem the status quo as bad, without repair or at least relatively broken. Which it's not. It's just that a lot of it isn't me or the direction I am going internally and the friction of that contrast is starting to wear.

Change is hard, but good. Life is a journey and whether you want to be a part of the ups and downs, they aren't asking permission. They are taking you along.