A moment to myself

This morning I awoke with Luka at around 4:30 and just never made it back to sleep once he did. So I took the hint and rose at 6 to meditate. This week was good for that, i made a promise to myself that I would meditate each day, and considering the circumstances i did very well -- 4 days out of 7 I sat for at least 5-15 minutes, and this morning I sat for a whole 1/2 hour!! Mornings seem to work better for me, and I did get a lot out of it this morning. I tend to pray more, to take more time, to be less restless in the morn, but you never know how it's going to be really. SO many emotions were sticking right on the surface this week, since opening the can with my mother about the past. Her emails to me were very disturbing at times, and I think this was some of the first times in a long time I have felt actively hurt by my mother -- as if she intended to hurt me with her words. Of course she would probably scoff at this but I don't think she has the self-awareness to really know.
One of the most hurtful things was when I confronted her about not listening to me. She started saying that she is a
master listener" and that other people in her life acknowledge her for her supreme listening skills, etc. One of the things that I feel most missing in my life is my parents acutally listening to me. I remember once I confronted my father about not listening or communicating well, and he retorted with an almost exact defense as my mother, only he said something pertaining to the fact that communication is his forte because otherwise he wouldn't be as successful as a business man. This conversation being repeated by my mother is very hurtful to me, especially because it seemes to confirm that she really wasn't listening and then it brought back this old pain again.
My mother also criticized my relationship with Andy and openly voiced her speculations about him, comparing him to my father and calling him abusive. That was a hard thign to take and I dismissed it mostly -- it is sd that I often dismiss many of the things my mother says. Is that what it means to not relate?
So I let it rest for a while. I didn't respond to my mother's last email because it was too hard and I think I went through enough last week. I was in an incredibly awful mood most of the entire week, lots of stuff floating to the surface, muddying up the water.
Baby awake

what do I need to write?

Commonplace Book: Annie Dillard
3/15/2005
From “Write Till You Drop”:

Why do you never find anything written about that idiosyncratic thought you advert to, about your fascination with something no one else understands? Because it is up to you. There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?

more from mom

Heidi,

Thanks for writing back and sharing more. I, too, want to be closer to you and to know you in a deeper way. I, too, want to contribute to your healing.

If you re-read my last e-mail, I was literally answering the question that you asked ... or I was answering a portion of the question that you asked which was "how did I teach you to be healthy and kind to yourself".

"How did I teach you to be healthy and kind to yourself when I was in an abusive relationship" is your entire question.

But perhaps what you are wanting to know is how long does Heidi tolerate an abusive relationship and protect her son in that situation while still allowing her son to have a father/son relationship with a father who might be abusive in the future as a result of his mental illness. Perhaps want you want to know is how can you be "better" in the relationship.

Perhaps you are wondering what you can do to protect Luka from the uncertain conversations, from the impact of the conversations that come from someone who is manic depressive that you've had to adjust to.

Perhaps I showed up for your father as someone with a "mental" illness. I certainly showed up for him as someone who did not have enough "faith" in God, or someone who couldn't heal through prayer. And he constantly made me wrong for that.

He expected me to heal you children with prayer. Perhaps I was unrealistically expecting him to heal you all through prayer. I use to think in my younger days, well maybe this is the way healing happens. Maybe I just am not good enough to make it happen. Your father has been at this longer than I have, maybe he does know what is "best".

Then as I got older I stood my ground and said, "I'm not going to be a Christian Scientist any more because this doesn't work for me." I thought in that I could get at least freedom from his yelling at me about not going to church and not healing through prayer.

I have no doubt that his parents thought I should be a Christian Scientist. I went to live with them and studied the Bible and Science and Health the last two months of my pregnancy. I was suppose to have a home birth because his mother had a home birth. I also had my own fears about being in a hospital because my father died in a hospital just two years before that.

Nine months after Chris was born I went to a week long class to learn more about Christian Science.

Some times we say the things that we have heard other people say. If it occurs to you that no one is listening to you, then you would be looking for how people are not listening to you.

There is no "trying harder to listen".

Your father's ongoing complaint that he expressed to me over and over again was that I didn't listen to him. I listened to him yell at me all the time about how I wasn't good enough, that I didn't listen enough.

So I have gone and gotten myself trained in listening. I am acknowledged everywhere in my life for how I am a master listener, and I am a master in teaching people how to communicate, and I have a lot of people in my life who provide a listening for me when all I need to do is have someone to talk to.

Your father would come home from work and start to yell at me about some thing. It would start with one complaint. It could be some simple thing. Why hadn't I done the dishes. And I would listen to his complaint about the fact that I hadn't done the dishes. It didn't matter if I responded or not, the response was never "enough", because according to him "I wasn't listening".

Then while he had my undivided attention and while he was on a roll with his yelling, he would then go to complaining about something else. It could have been how fat I was, or it could have been how I didn't sell enough insurance, or it could have been how I didn't take care of the children, or it could have been how I didn't go to church. It could have been anything.

Your father's style of communicating while he had my undivided attention and while he had the floor of yelling and criticizing me, was to go into a littany of complaints. He would just go from one complaint or criticism to another. After I did the Landmark Forum, I finally would say to him, "Ralph, you have now gone from one complaint to five complaints. I have listened to you for 30 minutes express your complaint. I am now going to end this conversation and leave the room."

That was the way I ended up handling your father being in the state of mind that he was in. It was no less frustrating to him. I was not going to yell back at him. I was not going to try to answer his endless why questions. Because it didn't matter what my answer was, it was never the "right" answer.

And I would be upset after being yelled at. But that was how I tolerated his criticism.

Why did I tolerate it? Because I was committed to marriage "lasting for ever"? Was that a childish commitment? Was that an unrealistic expectation? Was that some thing I thought I "had" to do? Was that some religious expectation? Because I was afraid to leave? Because I had to meet up to some societal expectation that we were suppose to be man and wife, through sickness and health, till death do us part? Because I took a vow for life?

Perhaps he was just an unrealistic perfectionist, and he expected me to be perfect. And I kept trying to be perfect for him. Why was he driven to be perfect?

Could it be that your father was simply replicating what he witnessed in his parents? Your grandpa Kim said he left his wife, your Grandma Jeanne, because he couldn't take the criticism any longer, and that her mother had been that way.

I had learned that when your father was in this state of mind of yelling at me, that it was probably best to just let him yell. Because if I would have yelled back or talked back too much, I might end up getting pushed around or threatened. Or he might yell or spank you children. And I lived in constant fear of that.

Perhaps I showed up for your father as someone with a "mental" illness. I certainly showed up for him as someone who did have enough "faith" in God, or someone who couldn't heal through prayer. And he constantly made me wrong for that.

I use to think there was something wrong with me. I ongoingly thought there was something wrong with me. I kept trying to be this "good" wife, I kept trying to fix my communication style, I kept trying to be perfect in relation to whatever complaint or expectation he generated next.

I have no doubt that there was something in what I was saying or not saying that he was reacting to. In my Landmark courses I have realized that in conversations with people, they aren't responding to me, they are responding to the noise that is going on in their own head.

Your father was mentally triggered by something, and we, his family, were the cat that he got to kick when he came home.

We were all that for each other.

I would come home from work and be frustrated by the house being a mess, or too many children in the house, or worried about whether my children were safe or not, not knowing exactly where they were, feeling the pressure of needing to make money and wondering if I was taking care of my children sufficiently. Was I being a good enough mom or a good enough wife.

And what were the societal expectations of being a super mom that was having an impact on me? What was the ripple effect of that on your father?

As families and as individuals we are all like mobiles. We are in balance for a while, then something comes along and upsets the mobile and sets the mobile in motion. Then everyone in the mobile is in motion and/or upset. But after a while the mobile settles down again and gets back in balance.

Now you can listen to this as me being defensive. Or you can listen to this as my sharing my experiences and conversations with you as how they occurred for me, and the interpretations and stories that I put on them. And the ways of being that I took on that I thought would "fix the problem".

This is how I responded to the conversations.

This is only how life occurred for me. It is not how life occurred for others.

What was missing in your life? Perhaps I was suppose to be a stay-at-home Mom and be there when you guys came home from school and sit down quietly and patiently and listen to each one of you, how your days went.

When I was in elementary school, I was a latch key kid. Only they didn't have latch key programs. My mom was a single mom. She worked as a secretary. Laura and I would walk to and from school carrying our books. I even carried my glockenspiel to and from school on the days I had band practice.

My mom use to give me a nickel every morning so that I could go get some penny candy at the little store next to the elementary school I went to which was St. James the Less on Oakland Park Ave.

We would stay after school and help our teachers clean and decorate their classrooms. Because all we had to go home to was an empty house. I can remember in fifth grade helping Laura's sixth grade teacher decorate her classroom.

We had best friends in the neighborhood we played with. We hung out with them in their homes or outside depending on the weather.

As a general rule, my mother trusted us and didn't worry about us. She didn't usually yell at us. We pretty much came and went after school with our playmates.

But I remember the day that she yelled at me and slapped me because I didn't come home when she was expecting me to. It was very out of character for her. I knew she was upset about something and at that young age I knew it was probably about something else and that I was just the cat that was being kicked. So I forgave my mom and still loved her.

I wonder what it was like for her when my father came back into our lives and took us away from her every weekend or every other weekend. And what was it like for her when between 7th and 8th grade we chose to go live with our father and stepmother for good. I was just a child operating as a child. It wasn't until my children came along that I got a sense of what that must have been like for her.

And what was it like for me to be in a courtroom trying to describe to a room full of people how at the time when my stepmother was picking me up from my mother's house to go to move in with my father that my mother started to yell at Theresa. That Theresa was smoking a cigarrette and rather than listen to my mother yell at her, she rolled up the window of the car and threw the cigarrette out the window. That my mother thought Theresa was trying to burn her with cigarrette. That the two of them got into a fight. I don't remember today if my mother hit Theresa or not.

But I was on a witness stand trying to tell a court room of people what happened, because for some reason Theresa had filed charges against my mother. I'm trying to be calm and be a big girl and describe what happened. And I'm using the words Theresa and Dorothy. And the attorney asked me, "Do you always call your mother, Dorothy?" I was so ashamed and felt like I was turning agianst my mother. I just started to cry. Because Theresa had been a part of my weekends and my life. And I was a child appreciating her love and affection.

It was emotionally upsetting to me to be in that courtroom. It was emotionally upsetting me to constantly being asked to choose between living with my mother or my father. It was emotionally upsetting to me to leave all my friends in the neighborhood where my mother lived to going to the neighborhood where my father lived.

I didn't know when I made that decision that it would be so hard to make new friends at the new school. I didn't know what it was like to try and fit in. My life style changed dramatically when I lived with my father compared to when I lived with my mother.

I didn't know that when I made the decision to go live with my father that I wasn't going to get to see my mother any more. It was until later in my adult years that my mother told me that she didn't think she could continue to stay in touch with us, and that when she did call to talk to us, I would cry on the phone to her, and she thought that she shouldn't call because my father told her not to call us.

How was I as a child suppose to work through my grief for my mother? We didn't have counselors. My stepmother didn't want us to be in communication with our mother. When our father died she asked us not to tell our mother that he died. It wasn't until about a year later when I reconnected with my mother. At that time she told us that she had read it in the paper.

Do you think my mother didn't go through a time of grieving when we left her?

Do you think that wasn't a huge adjustment for her? How do you think she worked through that? Glen was a very quiet man, but when we reconnected with her after my father died he referred briefly to the fact that my mother worked through it, and he was concerned about the impact it would have on her with us coming back into her life.

Every time I thought about leaving your father, I was afraid that he would take my children away from me. And tolerating his behavior was easier than trying to figure out how we could both somehow be apart from each other and still have our children in our lives.

I have no doubt that your father operated out of similar fears and commitments above.

It is the isolation of the family, the fear of turning to our community for help, the geographical distance of families, the expectation that we are now an adult, and that we should know how to do this alone, etc. that stops us from learning how to make it work, that stops us from getting the community support we need.

Heidi, I acknowledge your courage to keep asking and your commitment to have these conversations. I have shed many tears while writing this.

Love,
Mom

the thread

The whole conversation:
Mom,

You are forgetting the whole reason I started this conversation in the first place. My goal is to understand the root of my self-destructive behaviors so that I can end them for good or have a full awareness of them so as not to need them anymore for comfort, relief, etc. . . and i am doing this for myself so that I can have a healthy relationship with myself and therefore with my son and so that i can be a more fulfilled individual with a healthier life. I did not start the conversation to examine what you did or didn't do as a parent, but rather to find out what was missing in my life that I needed to turn to drugs, alcohol, sex, food, etc for the things that I wasn't finding elsewhere.
One of those things I have discovered as an ongoing issue for me is not feeling heard, not feeling listened to, and not feeling like I have truly been able to process the traumatic events of my upbringing.

There were certainly many wonderful things that you have given to me, tools that I have used and enjoyed and loved, and i am very appreciative of them. Thanks for being a fantastic mother to me, and for going through so much. I know the questions I am raising are not easy ones for you to face.

But I am exploring the roots of my own self destructive behaviors with the intent that in finding those roots, in finding the things that I seem to be missing in my life, I can learn to nurture myself in new healthier ways so that the addictions will not arise again in difficult times in my life.

One of the ways that you can help me on my journey, if you choose, is to try to put aside whatever defenses you may feel arise and just deeply listen to what I have to say rather than formulating opinions while I am speaking/writing, etc. If someone says to you "I don't really feel like you are listening to me, and that hurts me" then you might try harder to listen. This is what I am asking you to do, for my healing.

Maybe it is too much for me to ask you to go down this road with me. But I think in the end you will find peace from it as well. There is nothing wrong with processing the pain of the past, it can only help you move though it.

I care to know these things because I love you very much and I wish to be closer to you and to myself and to truly know you in a deeper way.

Love,

HEidi










----Original Message Follows---- From: Diana Howes To: Heidi Howes Subject: RE: Consider... Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 17:04:47 -0800 (PST) How did I teach you how to be healthy and kind to yourself.... Did your and my doing the mini-triathlon at mingo and riding bikes together to Portsmouth set an example for how to include sports in your life? Is that being healthy? Did you father taking on being a coach for the softball teams teach you how to be athletic? Was taking Katherine to gymnastics lessons a way of teaching taking care of oneself? Were those opportunities/examples for how to be a part of team, to go for what you want, to try your all, to be physically active and have fun? Aside from the dogma, the religion, and the stress about going to church, was going to church an opportunity to explore the spirituality side of our humanity? Did my going to yoga classes provide you an opportunity to see that yoga was a good thing to do? Was having music in the house an opportunity for you to be expressive in your creativity? Isn't singing, being in a choir, playing the piano, cello, or the guitar a way to "take care of yourself"? Would you not call that "music therapy"? Didn't we set examples for all of that? Did your father and I set an example for you by not smoking, not drinking, not doing drugs? What would life have been like if we did do those things at home? I don't know the "right" answer or "the truth". It's just a thought. Just an inquiry. Love, Mom
Heidi Howes wrote:
Mom, I think you might want to think on this theory of yours for a while. How did teach us how to be healthy and kind to ourselves when you were in an abusive relationship? Did you set an example of how to take care of ourselves when you really didn't know how to do this for yourselves or each other? Did someone else say this to you, because it sounds like something you just shot from the hip without really thinking about it. Love, Heidi
Original Message Follows---- From: Diana Howes To: Heidi Howes Subject: Consider... Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 22:28:49 -0800 (PST)
Heidi,
Consider that you and Chris both took drinking, smoking, and pot as a way to get back at your parents. What better way to get back at your parents who did the best they knew how and wanted you to have a great life than by not having a great life, by not following their instructions about how you could be healthy. Love, Mom

conversations with mom

This is an email I received from my mother today:
Heidi,
Consider that you and Chris both took drinking, smoking, and pot as a way to get back at your parents.

What better way to get back at your parents who did the best they knew how and wanted you to have a great life than by not having a great life, by not following their instructions about how you could be healthy.

Love,
Mom

I am having a very emotional response to this theory of hers. Anger being the main emotion. Mostly because it feels like she really hasn't listened to me about my addictions, and I know that she hasn't truly delved into her own addictions to understand them so perhaps it isn't all her fault. The point being from my perspective that she is overlooking the fact that their patterns of behavior in their relationship and their lives were completely unhealthy and unconcious. How could we have learned anything but self-hatred? This email sounds to me as if one of her friends may have suggested this or something . . . I am always suspecting that my Mother is shooting from the hip out of her Landmark dogma and I find myself angry and resentful that my real mother the real person she is doesn't come out because of all the masks she puts up.
But the fact that my parents haven't wondered why we have self-destructed or researched why we would just makes me further feel that they don't really care to know or help. But perhaps they can only go as far as they can go based on where they have gone . . .
some thoughts in the middle of the day

letter to Lisa

Dear Lisa,

Thanks so much for last night, it was a very much needed conversation for me. I can already see how this is really going to help me towards my dreams, and I did meditate for 10 minutes or so last night. My horoscope this week says to listen to my body. I am so excited I will be going to African Dance class Friday night, and my friend Abby will be in town so we will be doing yoga (she's a yoga instructor in NYC, my best friend since 7th grade). I think I am finally in a place again where I can reconnect with me -- oh! And last night my recurring dream shifted quite a bit and something new happened. I have always listened to my dreams but never in my life had one that recurs like this -- and this has been going on since I got pregnant and my life seemed to crumble. It has been very confusing because it involves my college boyfriend with whom I had a very difficult relationship and you might call him my "lost love" because all my dreams with him ended up not working out after our 6-yr relationship. Much of that time I was heavy into drinking, drugs, so I wasn't really present in my life and I have always felt that I really screwed it all up, and often have thought about "what if". Of course they say this is common in pregnant women to reminisce about past men in their lives, but my dreams have been so emotional and gripping and sad and compelling -- all about wanting his approval and love. In the dreams he is gorgeous, untouchable, etc . . . and I despreately want him to love me and be my friend. I am always searching for him and when I wake up I am so sad. I thought I was over him when I got together with Andy, so imagine my surprise when this kept happening. I have deduced that it has a lot to do with my loss of youth, and my feeling of not being heard or liked . . . any insights? I'm sure there is much more . ..

BUt last night in the dream, my ex warmed up to me and we hung out and he didn't leave or run away -- it was wonderful, and we talked and laughed and it was great! So you can see why I feel it is about me reconnecting with myself . . . it was such a relief to have this shift in the dream!

Wonderful work, just wanted to let you know how you have helped me release some things already!

Love,

HEidi

Making Headway

I had an excellent first meeting on the phone with life coach Lisa Evans. It was very relieving to talk to someone who obviously relates to my transition into motherhood and also has a lto of perspective plus total objectivity into my life. I think this is the beginning of a very beneficial relationship. She suggested I read Buddhism for Mothers: A Calm Approach to Caring for Yourself and Your Children by Sarah Napthali, and I think I shall. There is another Buddha Mom book I need to get: Everyday Work: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting. I am really feeling energized in my own self lately, and have been putting energy back into myself so that I feel more empowered and ready to move forward with my goals and dreams for myself. It of course coincides with spring and this move we are planning. I like a change of scenery. My assignments for this week are to meditate each day, write on Thursday night, and to think about how I am going to work music into my life. It is so helpful to be accountable to someone else, adn I think she is going to be good at motivating me. Yeah! I have sooooo needed this.

Finding the way to the truth of the Heart

Some amazing conversations with my mother have been leading me closer to this book. It feels like a hunt for the little melody I hear faintly in the background of my life -- this call I am beckoned by. It is becoming more and more clear. It is true, if you step towards that song, it becomes clearer and clearer. I have been slowly steeping towards it, and wondering how to approach this difficult memoir I know I must write. Today my idea stretches to a memoir of interviews with each family member, beginning with my mother, which I think is very appropriate because she gave me life, because that bond which began at birth and was severed many times over or distorted with distractions and our own gaurdedness or our own fear of getting closer, that bond is still there. I can feel a gentle healing taking place as I contract and release in my heart while talking to her, as I tense and then relax again with each wave of emotion that we pass through in this dark unknown territory of sharing. My mother has hardly shared with me the map of her own heart, the trials of her own life and her own fears. She acknowledges this, that she has never revealed herself to us because that is what she believed was the right thing to do. Her worst fear was that crying in front of us and opening up to us would somehow harm us, when in fact the opposite is the truth, and her disclosure of herself to us would in fact bring us closer and help us to know ourselves better while knowing her. What a revelation!!
I remember as a child and young adult always wishing to know my parents, to understand why they did the things they did, why they were who they were. Those answers were never given to us, and we in turn never processed the many traumatic events that took place in our lives. This is what my mother and I are attempting to do now, to process the events that shaped a family, and I am very proud that she has decided to venture on this journey with me to unlock these secrets as much as possible, to seek the truth in our pain, to unleash the dam on all this love. (Good title? "All this Love: Conversations with my Family")

loneliness

Loneliness rears its head in strange ways as a parent, in a family, in a relationship. I have asked my mother to write an account of her marriage, and she has become consumed with my request. It is going to be very tough for her, and I think I cannot even imagine how tough it is going to be for me. Why have I asked for it? Why go into the past? Because I want to know, as an adult woman, as a new mother, what my mother's life was really like, and why I have struggled my whole life to love myself. I long to delve deeply into this emotion right now, to this need, but my creative and healing spurts are interrupted always by the cries of baby -- nonetheless, my own feelings must be addressed and heard, my own need to understand the unconcious patterns of my heart.

writing my family story

I believe I am being called to write my family's story. The skeletons are knocking at the closet doors, and wish to be heard. Or perhaps my grandmother is pushing me to do this from beyond. Interviews with all family members, my aunts, my cousin, my aunt Emily, my grandfather while he is still living, my grandmother's journals, my father's testimony . . .more thoughts on the emotinal legacy of a family

The Search Continues

Here is a lovely little thing my brother wrote called his "Leaders Compass". It is so sweet, and it really shows me how he is maturing this year. I must say he is reminding me much of myself:


Who I am, What I believe, What I value by Lewis Howes

• I am a self-governing individual who values a higher sense of right in order to make decisions in life.

• I am an individual who values honest, passionate, and unconditional friendship, always wanting to improve the friendships I have, and gain trust and respect from the people I do not know

• I understand that I am created from a more powerful source than man, and therefore I strive towards exemplifying a spiritual basis and awareness with every waking moment.

• I am constantly growing, learning, discovering, and becoming more developed as an individual daily.

• Every day I succeed. There is no failure. My seeming failures are actually moments in time that help to expand my thought, enabling me to become more aware of my surroundings, which leads me to success.

• I am constantly changing; adapting to the demands of everyday life. Each moment my body is different than the moment before, so is my thought. This is true because it is always a different moment in time; therefore everything has already changed from the previous moment.

• I am a loving, warm hearted, giving, selfless, hard working, passionate, competitive, unique individual, and at the same time a part of the one spiritual connection throughout all thinking and thought.

• I do not hide the fact that I have many faults, and in no way shape or form am I perfect. I have definitely lived a life of greed, selfishness, hatred, anger, disrespect, betrayal, lust, and dishonesty. These things I am not proud of, but at the same time I appreciate, embrace, and value them as much as anything else. For without these mistakes and faults, I would not be able to understand how amazing the life of a higher standard or value is. For I would be in the middle, never feeling anything, no pain, and no love, just a mediocre feeling of nothingness. I would much rather be aware and have experienced what hurts my friends, the society, and myself over never knowing, and being mediocre.

• I believe that every individual has an endless amount of potential. All they need is someone or something to help direct their path towards finding their greatness.

• I value God, Family, Friends, Teachers, Coaches, Education, Honesty, Unconditional Love, Respect, Accountability, Hard Work, Dreaming in the seeming unattainable and attaining it, the inspiration I receive from successful Dreamers, and the small moments in life that create warmth in our hearts.


My Leadership Goals

• Be Willing To Grow
• Work Harder and Smarter than anyone else
• Always be Grateful
• Always be Selfless
• Never be Satisfied
• Love Everyone and Everything
• Live right Now
• Give my Best at all Times
• Think on Spirit, not on Matter
• Believe in God, not in Man
• Always look inward and upward, not outward
• Believe in the power of an idea
• Trust and know that all is well
• Never give up on in
• Live the Dream


“Always strive to lengthen your stride. If you stride so that you are comfortable, you will never improve. You must stretch yourself. The secret to accomplishing much is to reach beyond your grasp! If your reach exceeds your grasp, you will enter a daily fight of self-discipline and self-denial. Start every day with the intention, determination and commitment to do what others are unwilling to do.”

There are three truths in life, “the truth we think, the truth we want, and the truth that is.” We will always be able to believe that the truth we think and want exists, but this will never occur without unceasing persistence, proper direction, a genuine love for self- others- and life, honesty, moral courage, and a passion for what you are doing. When this transpires, the first two truths will no longer exist, because what you think and want will be what is.

“Not all progress is change, not all change is progress, but you can’t have progress without change.” --Stuart Jenkins

Follow your heart; be passionate about what you do and why you do it. If you can’t be passionate by leading yourself, you will never be able to lead others. And you are only a leader if you have someone following you.

Think on principles, and use leadership to better mankind. Be in service for others. Stay focused, and reaffirm your meaning and purpose daily to reaffirm this vision.

Always stand for something. If you aren’t standing for something good, you will probably give into something bad.

steroids wake up the dead

I have hardly ever gone to the doctor when I was actually sick. Usually I just suffer through whatever symptoms I may have for as long as it takes for them to go away . . . and that can be a very long time. But having a child and watching him suffer through his first bouts of sickness, however minor they may be in annoyance, I have certainly dragged him to the pediatrician countless times in his first year. We have been to the emergency room 3 times!!! And of course nothing was really and truly wrong each time we went, mostly precautionary visits because we were really afraid and erred on the side of caution because neither of us is knowledgeable about anything medical. First time was his second day home, he seemed to be drying up like a prune in our house and his cries just sounded really hoarse to us! The ER doctor practically laughed in our faces, and said with a guffaw "How could you possibly know what his normal cry sounds like if you just got him?" Looking back it makes perfect sense, but we really thought he might be sick.
Neither of us are hypochondriacs either. We have just had so many things go wrong in the past two years (if you don't want to judge it you can use the word "challenges"), we tend to err on the side of caution. Then he fel off the bed and cracked his head, promptly passing out and I was freaked so off we went. Again, he was resilient. The last time we went was so awful because they kept trying to stick the thermometer up his butt and he was forcing it out with his precious little butt muscles, the whole while being held down barely by myself and his father -- his will is very strong! I couldn't help thinking this was going to come out later on in therapy as a repressed memory. I sure hope not. At least we didn't have the poor boy circumcised, that I could not forgive myself.
So Luka and I are both sick, and I am on prednisone, and he is also on some baby steroids. I have to admit I was extremely weary of them, but I am really feeling better This whole medicine thing is kind of cool. You actually get relief when you are feeling crappy! You don't just have to suffer! I felt the same way when they finally took Luka by cesarean -- like, wow, I didn't know I would ever again feel better after 2 days and nights of sheer agony! The only draw back to the steroids is possible weight gain and I will be quite upset if that happens because I have been so good about losing again over the past 2 months. Haven't been to jazzercise in 5 days -- hope I can make it tomorrow. Anyhoo, I am getting pumped up.