"Depression"/"Saddness"/"Isolation"/Holiday Season?

Marie , I know that writing things down will help gain more clarity for me -hmm...what is screaming at me from deep down inside me, is not to play out old strategies that aren't serving me now? How do I move in my world now? Do I just do nothing or is it time to engage? Am I aware of what they are, and do they still serve me?- what is coming up in me, is the strategy of "depression" and how that served me in the past. What it allowed me to do, and what it allowed me to avoid, not do... right now, today, I am paying attention, and for some reason, especially at this time of year when I placed a lot of expecations on myself, and I am sure on my immediate family - and, let's not forget all the culturally conditioned stuff - some warm memories and other memories that deep down inside me I want to scream - NO WAY!!!! As I am going through my day right now, I am awake to the "sadness" or "avoidance" - how I wanted to detach myself from the rest of the world, especially to my own husband and son who I love very deeply, yet, still knew that I wanted to be a part of them and a larger collective, and allowing "that" whatever was inside me to paralaze me - isolate me... and then in those times, I would withdraw, collapse and silence myself, with my only hope for the season to pass, and January would bring a new beginning? ...and all would be okay again? That use to serve me, of NOT allowing myself to be who I am potentially becoming... I would go so far and then would stop myself...today, I am silent and gentle with myself moving through my minutes/hour/and on with the day. Funny how that sadness is mine, wasn't my husband's, nor son's and how that I blamed everyone else - and how right it was for me to continue, in silence, to carry on with "saddness" and too, I am amazed on how strong a hold the intellect can have on me if I allow it to... In the past, I spent days, weeks and you guessed it, even years of day dreaming about how i would like my life to unfold, and today I ask myself the question, "Is my life unfolding the way it fulfills me, is it moment to moment meaningful to me, yes, ME? ...
I know there is an urgency and a deep roar that is deep inside of me to wake up and live a life that is meaningful to ME - not to my husband, not to my son, not to my love ones, FOR MYSELF! It is not about trying "harder" "faster" and maybe right now to give myself permission to let go of the things in my life that aren't serving me anymore. How do I just be? What is this chaos all about, yet, I know that it is fine and all I need to do is relax into it and continue to engage, engage, engage. In these past six months I am choosing to move through my world differently. I am very grateful and humble for the people that have come into my life this past year and to see my world from new lens!

Is It Possible, More Then Two Things Can Co-Exist?

Here it is, an early cold wintery morning - all is quiet and peaceful, and I know that today, in a couple of hours, I can choice a very busy, hectic, stress-out day or move though my day more mindful and meaningful - yes, I am wanting to get ready for the festive season, and somehow I am continually being pulled to a different way too choose- at this time of year, there are many events and celebrations in my past that hold a lot of meaning to me - the music at this time of year resonates with me, snow falling in the woods, the warmth in the home of the wood-buring stove, people getting together and laughing, and the just-hanging-out-doing-nothing - hmm, I'm just sitting back and forgetting about all the things I didn't like about my life, and what brought a lot of joy to my husband and myself, was we both love to sing, and were in choirs together and also different choirs. Also, in its own way, when I hear the fiddle being played it exemplfies a sense of belonging to a group of people "Maritimers" (Sea side) that has become part of who I am, and who both my husband and son identify with who they are. Even though I am wanting to go forward with my life, I recognize that the time I lived in the Maritimes, is of great value to me - it is also part of me - i miss the ocean, and don't know what that is all about. Yet knew that every once in awhile it was important for my husband and I to take a drive to the ocean when we lived in the maritimes. Oh, just those gray days, it was always mystical for me to see for miles over the horizon, listen to rough waters, the angry sea, sounds of the waves crashing, that use to draw me to it, especially at this time of year - it was also a time when no one was around and I could walk for miles without seeing another human being - hmm, it was like it was healing - before, in my life I use to think that I had to give up what I had, in order to carry on - what if now, I can hold on to what is meaningful and continue to move through my world, enjoying what the new region has to offer, and yet enjoy what was meaningful for me from before? hmm...

Not Alone Anymore

Somehow the title I thought up in my mind, "not alone anymore" resonates throughout my entire body. For the last year, and who knows of the other times in my life, I have felt that I was the only person in the world that felt so alone. Somehow, I pushed on and believed that there was a 'light at the end of the tunnel' only to continue to lock down in my body those 'tragic', 'go-through- them-by-myself times', my father's death, the moves I made when the military 'told' us sometimes at a days notice that we would be moving to another province or out of the country, my husband going away to sea for weeks and months on short notice, and somehow everyone saying to me that it was a choice I made, ...those comments only help me to silence myself i believed at the time, no where else to go but inward, lock down and oh...wow... my sister's death. A sister that was more like a mother to me... I am from a family of twelve - she was the oldest in the family and I am the fifth child. Kathleen was always there for me, with chats (the one sibling that consistenly called me long distance whereever I was), always lots of encouragement and fun to be with. Is it no surprize to me now of what I have learned in the past year that she died of cancer, at the time she was an assistant bank manager and told one of her friends from the bank that "the big boys don't want to play".

Today, I stand at a very different place. I am grateful that I have allowed myself persmission to open up and receive. Maybe this past year, is all I did, received, and that is okay because I knew that I was willing to die when my husband and i moved to Ottawa last Sept 2006. We have moved from the Maritimes to Ottawa, my husband 'retireed' from the navy, our son moved away to university (i will talk about that in my blogs to come), truly valued myself only as a 'mother' and I was diagnosed 'diabetic' two years ago. I have suffered from 'PMS' all my life, and I remember the many jokes especially from my mother and younger sister when I was a teenager and up to just recently that silenced me. I wonder now, if my monthly cycle was the only window of opportunity I allowed myself time to express 'anger', the stuff that I now know that propelles you forward. Funny how culturally conditioned I was because I had the belief that good little girls were always to be good and pleasing...and the next thought that flows from my mind is subservant. hmm...

'PMS' has left me...i no longer even have the thought run across my mind... the 'problems' I was experiencing with my periods over the course of many months this year - most people would head to the doctor because I was anemic when I arrived last fall, and this spring I had so much blood lost during my periods that I even had one person say to me, "just go and get a 'hysterictomy' and get that plumbing out, you don't need it anymore anyways". I live in gratitude because I knew in my body i was experiencing something different then to run to an 'expert' - how for me, it was more important to listen to my own internal self. I am here not to say that 'experts' are good or bad and I am grateful for their knowledge and experience - I am here to say that i knew in my own body that it was meaningful to me to pay attention to what was happening to me. I am no longer experiencing those 'heavy' periods - as I look up at the title, I am not alone anymore - sweetness is coming back into my life....this has called up a lot in me...and this is an invitation for you, to give yourself persmission to notice what is rumbling around in you right now, breathe into that impulse and who knows where the next breathe will take you ...talk soon...