something beautiful: me

oh you guys.  this woman.  she is amazing and gorgeous and talented and strong and brilliant and the woman whose prayers and talks and advice and wisdom saved me on my darkest days (read: years).

she is my mom.  and she has not had an easy life, an easy marriage, or an easy bunch of kids to raise (SIX, might I add).  she has earned every wrinkle, every gray hair, and every twinkle in her eye, so I promised her I would not touch them so you could see her as her truest self.  and I may be showing a bit of favor to this woman, but isn't she the most beautiful creature you've ever beheld? 

Today, I'm not sure I find much to love about myself. I feel weak and sad and empty. But that is just today and I trust I won't feel as bad tomorrow. Usually I can love that I have been making progress in this life. Especially recently life has handed me some unexpected blows, but I can honestly say that the pain has helped me learn and grow. So, I love that I'm able to do that, that I can face the day and move forward. I love that I have compassion. It is a gift that some don't have and I feel blessed to feel it and to share it with others around me. I love how much I love my children, how amazing is a mother's love. Another gift. 

What makes me real? That I have as many heartaches as the next woman, that I long for love, that I find comfort in hiking, that I feel like a mountain top is about as close as I can get to God. I am real because  I have been an imperfect person. I am full of mistakes and faults and good and bad and love and joy and sorrow. I am a human and I live a complex life but I am grateful for all the good and even some of the bad that has been my experience. 

What advice do I have? Love God, love yourself, love others. In that order. Take care of yourself, don't ever dismiss your sense of right and wrong. Listen to your gut. Believe it. Be kind to others. Love your children fiercely. Stay connected with friends - when you least feel like connecting with a friend make the effort to do it anyway. Talk about your struggles, your hurts, your challenges, don't try to get through life on your own. 

How did I overcome my insecurities? I don't know that I have. But I'm better. I realized that I am worth buying a dress at full price.  I realized that I can risk being rejected. I can talk to strangers, I can be alone, I can feel pain and not die. I can be happy. What matters is what I do right now, not what happened in the past or will happen in the future. 

 thank you for being so incredible mom.

I know, I'm the worst blogger ever.

so where I am lacking in consistency I'll make up for in length today.

my apologies.

there's something magical about the beach in San Diego.  something miraculous.  something that happens when you're sitting there with the sand and the waves and the sounds and the kids and the laughter and the breeze.  Combined they cause an unnoticed spiritual combustion that brings the heavens closer and God whispers in your ear.

because of this spiritual combustion I discovered a few things while basking in the sun shade.

I'm a blue-yellow.  mostly blue.  which makes me a do-gooder.  this means that I had to admit to being needy, emotional, self-critical, overly sensitive, unforgiving and that spontaneity makes me stressed.  Ouch.  But it also meant I can be a great teacher.  and that I have a deep sense of purpose and that I am genuinely concerned for the well-being of others.

I like taking pictures of everyday things.  I love capturing the routine.  the face the beav ALWAYS makes when I ask him where his ball is, or the look he gives hubs when he sees him walk through the door after work.  or after going outside for 5 seconds.  the stuff that only gets caught if someone has their phone out.  If I could (and it wasn't creepy) I would follow people around for a week and capture the moments they never want to forget but pass without permission.

the beav is huge.  he does a lot less yelling (his preferred method of communication), and does a lot more signing and lets out a high pitched doh! to show you what he wants or which direction he wants you to carry him.  he wants to be held less and wants to explore more.  he learned to walk a couple weeks ago and has been running ever since.  and I already miss the carrying and the soothing and even the yelling.

my skin takes approximately three days to breakout in a new climate and approximately 3 weeks to recover when returning to its natural habitat.

I like the way my hair feels when it dries by the ocean.  salty and always moist so my waves have a bit of a chance to show off.

my family (me especially) is not perfect.  we have so much fun together and when I'm with them I feel like a piece of my heart has been found that I didn't know was missing.  but we (meaning ALL of us) have issues and struggles that we deal with daily.  and sometimes they are serious.  and sometimes life threatening.  and heart breaking.  and annoying.  and selfish.  and expensive.  and earth shattering.

but I also discovered that everything always turns out wonderful, no matter how imperfect those everythings are.  the way my brother never takes for granted fatherhood.  that I still haven't relapsed in 3.5 years.  that my sister is still the most loving, trusting mom I've ever known.  that we show up every year on that beach together and we still laugh and have dance parties and buy rip-off sunglasses and make 50 trips to the grocery store and bike down the boardwalk.  and watch the boys surf.  and look at my dad and smile that he's still got it at 60.  

so AMEN Annette.

most amazing beach post here.  my family seriously rocks.

making good good and not bad

a huge part of my recovery has been finding time to/for myself.  everyone needs time to/for themselves.  But most people can be okay without that time, for a time.  I have found through experience that I am not one of those people.  


due to my all or nothing personality, this time to myself is vital.  if left to my natural devices, I tend to get a little extreme.  for example, if I do a good deed, like pay for some lady's groceries at the store, it feels good.  I then think, "the more I give, the more I'll feel good!".  makes sense, right?  well, in theory, yes. however, I end up seeking out and taking on every act of service needed single handedly for the next two weeks, run around like I'm missing my head, get frustrated at my husband and blame everything on him and then one day wake up, pull the covers over my head, and want to quit.


leave it to me to turn something good into something bad.  this process of learning is really frustrating for me.  and for the hubs.


so, in order to stay healthy (and sane, and married) I have to do something for me, without any obligation to anyone else, and I have to make a concentrated effort to focus on that one thing.  I have to NOTICE.  this helps me to feel balanced, and as simple as it may sound, with a sweet little beav around, this proves to be a tricky task. 


this is one reason I took on photography.  Let the record show I do not consider myself a photographer.  I take photographs.  there's a difference.  I just learned this, and I don't want any profesh photographers sending hate mail to my blogdoor.


photography helps me notice.  and over the last couple weeks I've discovered that I love it.  objects or scenes more than people and events.  at least right now with my limited knowledge.  if its me time, it has to be non-human (or rather, candid) shots, where I can completely relax and just snap away.


I love learning these things about myself.  and I'm getting better at being patient with myself as I do.


since my photography class is now officially over, I thought I'd share some of my most favorite shots.  all very different.  so now I'm trying to figure out my style.  these photographers are some of my favorites to look at.....maybe I can morph into a combination of them all?  I like to think so.

haven't mentioned this in a while, but I'm still on the road

I remember my mom telling me {what felt like} a hundred times, in a very gentle and concerned way, that she thought I had a problem.  I remember blowing her off because I was just being "healthy".  I remember lying to my best friends.  I remember hiding.  I remember stealing food from my roommates because I never bought groceries.  I remember feeling so completely alone.  I remember trying desperately to stay away from the ice cream in the freezer, and then scraping the bottom of the carton with my spoon.

but some things I'm beginning to forget.  maybe that's just part of healing, but sometimes it scares me to forget because there is power in remembering.

journaling would have really helped me out here, but most people don't think to write about the times they ran to the bathroom after they ate the state of Montana.

A few months ago I read Mockingjay, and I read this passage.  with each sentence I felt a pang of familiarity.

While Cressida and Pollux make fur nests for each of us, I attend to Peeta’s wrists. Gently rinsing away the blood, putting on an antiseptic, and bandaging them beneath the cuffs. 

“You’ve got to keep them clean, otherwise the infection could spread, and –”

“I know what blood poisoning is, Katniss,” says Peeta. “Even if my mother isn’t a healer.”

I’m jolted back in time, to another wound, another set of bandages. “You said the same thing to me in the first Hunger Games. Real or not real?”

“Real,” he says. “And you risked your life getting the medicine that saved me?”

“Real.” I shrug. “You were the reason I was alive to do it.”

{oh this makes me so excited about the movie!!  for those of you that haven't read this book, read it.  the first two at least.}

I remembered that I used to be just like Peeta.  I would have to say to myself what my perception was and then decipher {sometimes with the help of others} if that perception was reality.  most of the time it wasn't.  I remembered the times I played this game after I ate a meal or wanted to weigh myself.  this very game sustained me when I stood at the beginning of the road, looking down a dirt path that went up and down and up and down and even when I squinted my eyes and looked real hard at the horizon, I never saw the sign that said, "recovery road ends in .5 miles".  but I just started walking.  and I played that game a lot for a while.  it was a big day when I had more reals than not reals.  

when I first started recovery, I wasn't like most people.  I was DONE.  done being a liar, done hurting myself, done pretending everything was okay, done feeling guilty ALL.THE.TIME. because I knew deep down this was all wrong.  It always felt wrong.  even when the comparisons told me it wasn't, I still knew it was wrong in my bones, and in my irritability, and in my self-loathing.  I was done, and I was willing to do anything and everything to be done for good.  that's not so different than most people in recovery.  what was different is that I felt that same way on day one, and on day two, and then day fifteen, then fifty, on day three hundred and sixty-five, and then today.  

let me tell you, recovery feels SO good.  its so nice to have the ability to make choices again.  it so good to be able to be closer to that horizon and turn around and see how far I've come.  

but DANG its hard. and I've still got a lot of road left.

ready, set, notice: where i am

Good morning!  Today we're lucky enough to learn from one of the coolest people I know.  Natalie is just making the transition into a family of FIVE kids with one little boy just weeks old.  her husband is a busy busy financial advisor, and leaving for work before the kids wake up and coming home well after the kids are in bed is not a rarity.  she just survived the dreaded school science fair, she's always working on new home makeover project, and yes, she cans her own poultry.  see the picture below if you don't believe me.  if you missed her profile, get to know her a little more by clicking here. Here's what happened when she stepped away from canning and noticed.

(picture provided, without permission, by where i am)

There’s a voice that has moved into my head.  He’s pulled up a chair, grabbed himself a snack and decided to set up camp.  Permanently.  In fact, when Remi gave me the task of ‘noticing’ he started speaking to me more loudly and clearly than he ever has before.  He’s not a voice that I like to listen to but he’s just so loud and obnoxious.  When he is yelling at me he talks with his mouth full, he burps, he farts, and if I could see him, I bet he would have moles all over his hairy back and sweat a lot when he sleeps.  All of those things would be forgivable if his intentions weren’t to be destructive to my soul.  But they are.  And in my assignment to simply notice, I came to know his intentions all too well.

When I embarked on my task of noticing I was excited to see what would show up.  What things would pop out from right under my nose that I could come to love and appreciate even deeper or possibly for the first time. I looked at nature.  Didn’t notice anything different.  Looked at people.  Didn’t notice anything different.  Looked at concepts and tried to conform them into an ‘experience’.  Nada.  Then I looked at myself and the Voice helped me notice plenty.  Plenty of things that I needed to work on.  (yikes!)  As the week progressed he helped me ‘notice’ that I wasn’t enough.  Wasn’t grateful enough.  Wasn’t proficient enough.  Wasn’t keeping up on the laundry enough.  Wasn’t meeting my children’s needs enough.  Wasn’t giving our pet chinchilla enough attention.  I wasn’t skinny enough or pretty enough.  Wasn’t being a good enough friend.  Wasn’t fun enough.  Wasn’t smart enough. Wasn’t being a good enough daughter or sister.  Wasn’t making dinner enough.  Wasn’t grocery shopping enough.  Wasn’t being kind enough to my husband.  The signs were everywhere.  I wasn’t enough.  I just wasn’t.  (enough doesn’t sound or look like a real word when you say/type it a whole bunch of times)  Well, thanks to the Voice I realized that this task of writing about the things I came to notice would be easy.  The voice would write it for me and it would go like this:  “I suck. The end.”  I didn’t have to write anything.  No editing.  No worrying about what I just revealed about myself to the cyber world.  Easy enough.  This voice takes such good care of me that way.

But then another voice started showing up.  The Opposition.  Because I do believe that there is that:  Opposition in all things.  And the opposition: the Opponent, the Challenger, started showing me some things to take note of: to challenge.  And this Voice showed me things in the gentlest of ways.  It didn’t burp at me, yell at me, or sweat in my bed.  It was beautiful, calm, piercing and I knew that what it was teaching me was true.  It didn’t hunker down in my head and stay there.  It eased into my blood and flowed through the deepest parts of Me.  Warming me until I knew that this Voice was the one that I needed to pay attention to, even if it was so much quieter than the voice I had given away my power to all week long.

I was driving to the store late one night.  It was the first time I had left my new baby and was alone.  I was exhausted from the lack of sleep combined with the new, tricky transition into life with 5 children.  I was in pajamas (from the night before), wearing a spit up stained t-shirt, and bandana on my head to cover up my greasy hair.  (You can imagine the hay-day the voice in my head was having with me.) I was listening to a talk on the radio and heard a story recounted.  My Soul Voice quietly told me to listen up because there was a message in it just for me.

It was a true story of a jumbo jet that crashed over the Everglades 36 years ago.  The interesting thing about this story is that the plane could have landed safely in Miami, just over 20 miles away.  But during the final descent of the flight, the crew noticed that a little green light failed to illuminate. The light indicated whether the nose landing gear had successfully extended.  The pilots decided to investigate the lights failure and put the plane in a holding pattern and circled above the Everglades.  All of the crew members were so distracted by the examination of the little green light that no one noticed that the plane had begun to descend until it was too late.  The plane crashed into the swamp below and over one hundred people lost their lives.  Investigators determined that the plane was in perfect mechanical condition at the time of the crash.  The nose landing gear was functioning properly that night.  The problem:  one tiny, burned out, green light bulb.  

When I heard that story I couldn’t help but think about how I had been feeling.  I realized that by listening to the voice in my head telling me over and over that I wasn’t enough, I was focusing on my little green light bulb; my flaws.  If this pattern of thinking continued what would be my demise?  Not the swampy everglades but feeling like a wreck of a mother to my five beautiful children who need me to be happy.  Who need me to love me.  Who need me to lead them by being an example of strength, dignity, grace and joy.  If I kept listening I wouldn’t be letting the voice ruin just me, but all of them too.  The price is too high to give him any more attention.

The next day, I read a blog post written by one of my friends.  I’m sure to her it was just a quick vent to acknowledge and record her day.  But my Soul voice told me to pay attention so I did.  Her post read:

Today I was mean and grumpy and irritable and fed-up (when I wasn't being long-suffering, encouraging, patient, and attentive, because let's be honest, there was some of that, too) and I kept thinking about what Diana used to say all the time to her sister Eliza when they were growing up: "I love you, but I don't like you." Mostly directed (but not spoken aloud) to my kids. 

Here's hoping for a new week filled with liking my cheerful, non-teething, obedient, loving, neat and responsible children! 

When I read that post it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Mr. Moley-back voice said ‘you don’t like your kids either.  You were mean, grumpy, fed up and irritable too.’  But after I told him to quiet himself, I Listened and Saw what I was Supposed to see.  “…when I wasn’t being long-suffering, encouraging, patient and attentive…”  I was those things sometimes too.  When my friend acknowledged her strengths she wasn’t bragging or staking her claim on having perfection all figured out.  Nope, she was just saying ‘I’m not so bad.’  She was listening to her Soul voice, the one who tells her who she truly is.  It made me realize that there wasn’t any harm in acknowledging that in myself too.  I’m okay.  At least parts of me are enough.  

My Soul voice has gently, but pointedly, spoken to me many, many more times this week, each time teaching me to pay attention to the good in me.  Once while watching Little Women, many times while parenting my babies, many other times in being a wife and a friend and a daughter and a sister, sometimes while listening to the radio.  I’m happy to report that the obnoxious houseguest in my head has quieted himself now.  At times he stands at the window knocking and I ask him if he has anything constructive to tell me.  He usually sulks away silent.  He’s becoming more obedient when I tell him to shush.  He knows that my Soul Voice has moved in to stay and she likes to keep a clean house.  And he’s not welcome in her domain. 

So what did I ‘notice’ after all?  That I am hopelessly flawed.  I always will be.  But it is my flaws, my scars, my imperfections mixed together with my kindness, beauty, and amazing sense of humor (it’s true, ask my husband.  I’m one funny lady) that make up the whole of me.  My unique blend of imperfection always leaves room for unwanted house guests to move into my head and set up shop.  It’s my sacred job as a woman, as a human being, as a spiritual being to stop it before it taints my Soul.  You know what else I noticed?  That I am enough.  Being enough doesn’t equate to perfection or that mean that I have overcome all of my weaknesses or don’t have room to grow and improve every moment of every day.  But that my Soul Voice is right, I’m not so bad after all.

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didn't I tell you she is a delight?  and I'm here to second the motion by Natalie's husband that she is indeed, one funny lady.  

thanks Natalie!