Who, Me? Yep. You.

It's so easy to be affected by what's going on around you. It's really easy to be affected by those whom you've chosen to take your ques from. And it's super easy to fall into negative thought patterns affected by both of these and neither of them actually...care. 

Sucks, huh?

Well... get ready to take full responsibility for what is going on in your life.  

Get ready to be the most powerful person in your life.

It all started a week ago Monday. I emailed my three ladies I needed references from. Of course C answers back:

"[is this the] career that is 'exceedingly, abundantly above all you could think or ask', is NOT at the mercy of any capricious or uncertain external power, but according to the power that works within? So, since your future is entirely within your own control, go get your dream job Ann!"

Um, huh? 

I sat staring at my computer. Her question was looming at me. I simply hung my head in shame. No. Absolutely not. This job was absolutely not the abundantly above and beyond. In fact I haven't even given the above and beyond a second thought. Above and beyond?! I just needed a paycheck! GAH!!

This wasn't me. This isn't who I am. How could I have allowed myself to get to this place? Believing that money, a paycheck, is more important than the very depth and breath of living the life I was created for? Or that money was my ultimate goal, for that matter?

So what if I kept getting feedback "you need more time and experience"?! Then what about having the 'above and beyond while getting more time and experience job' while still pursuing the dream job?

I'd completely lost sight of my potential, my purpose, my power. 

  

How am I getting it back? OK... I won't keep you hanging. I was secretly considering leaving you wondering until tomorrow, but I'm just not that cruel :) 

Said conversation was on Monday and it took through Friday to finally wake up. I had the interview and it was everything I loath {we're not going there}. I got home that afternoon feeling complete despair. Wanting to wallow in self pity and sort of feeling comfortable there. I decided to do one of my favorite things and take a bath... I picked up my O Magazine and commenced reading my most favorite authors. 

The theme? "10 Things" to apply to every aspect of your life you can think of for the the next 10 years of your life to continue your success {or, you know, something like that}

I got out of the tub and I was completely renewed. I felt pumped up. It had reminded me that I was the only one in control of my destiny. I opened my email and C had emailed me "How was the interview?" I hadn't even emailed her because I was so disappointed. This was my response: 

"I just read all my O favorites from this month and I feel so inspired. I've got all kinds of outlandish ideas going through my mind from "interviewing random people in E************ about what they feel their overall life's emotional temperature is and submitting an article to our local newspaper to advertise myself as a therapist" to paying for a front page spot with my picture saying "See this face? She needs a job and wants to work for you!" HA!

Either way, it's getting my emotions to shift from feeling so hopeless to laughing and not taking all this so seriously! I am going to do something different every day this week than I have been. I'm going to get myself up early, exercise, go to our local coffee shop, write, study my lessons, go to the library and read some inspiring stories of people, blog, just not pursue a job whatsoever.

You know what I thought about before I got into the tub tonight? I remember all my friends saying I'd find the man of my dreams when I wasn't looking for it. I feel the same is for a job -- If I surround myself with contentment, joy, peace and all around positivity, it HAS to come to me!!!!!!!!" 

It's the truth. I'll tell you what I've been doing, the challenges I face and how it's been working. There's so much more. I hope you'll join me.

why have I not been driven to drink?

You know how they say doctors are the worst patients? No? Well, they are. I might add add 'counselors make the worst clients'. We are educated and skilled at seeing through the surface stuff, analyzing and conceptualizing the inner stuff and spitting out fabulous, optimistic and empowering ideas.

But when it comes to doing this for ourselves? Not so much. 

October 2009. As you may or may not know, I lost my job 6 1/2 months ago. Honestly? I didn't belong there. I knew this and so on my way home that same evening {I'm not exaggerating} I said to God, "I know there's a purpose behind all this. I know there's a reason and I'm ready to learn and progress forward. I'm actually excited!"

I filled out unemployment that very evening, searched for other positions available in the area and started making calls within a few days to volunteer while I looked for work. In addition to this, my house got a very thorough Spring cleaning in the Fall, my closets were finally organized to my liking and my husband now had a full-time secretary. Life was good. I was positive. I just knew this was going to be a great journey.

Fast forward to February.

No job. No hopefuls. No license. No. One. Cared. I started getting lost in despair. My life was coming to the end as I knew it. There was simply no hope of ever being the professional counselor I'd once, long ago, dreamed of. Lessons learned? What lessons? SCREW THE LESSONS! I may have a flare for the dramatic. No? 

March. I get my license in the mail. I celebrate. My husband even gets it framed for me. I have an interview for the first time in 2 months. This seems like a dream job. Life is looking up. Enter T-boy. Hopes for the job are dashed. Emotional chaos commences. T-boy takes over my every through and emotion. T-boy leaves. Emotions continue. I have more interviews with agencies that I walked away thinking, "Was that for real? Are they pretending to run a company or am I just crazy?" What about the dream job? Not on the radar at this point as certain things just won't line up. GRR!

April. Is it still April? Oh. I thought it was May. This month is like taking forever. There are times I sit in my house for 3 days straight. I can see depression setting in. Not. Good. At. All.

C and I communicate often. She is a complete inspiration to me and we are very much on the same page when it comes to world view. Of course as my mentor, I've shared all of this with her. Every time I'd email, I'd read back over the email and be completely disgusted with my negativity, but hit send anyway. Of course her responses always line up with what I believe, but I've been a bad client. I can have a good talk and yet my walk is completely non-existent.

But I woke up and now I'm running. 

Want to know what I'm doing? How am I being empowered during such a slump? Why am I acting as if I have everything I want?

Stay tuned... I'll be back tomorrow. Promise.

i love women {et-hem}

I love women. I love their hearts, their emotions, their metaphysical make-up, their silliness, their beauty inwardly and out. I love being a woman. I love feeling my emotions and witnessing the result of paying attention to them. I love the relationship women share; the conversation, the body language, the facial expressions that need no words. I love the understanding women share without having even met. Blogging is a perfect example of that.

This is starting to sound like my Love Letter, but it's not. It's about you as a woman.

You may be wondering "what's your point?" My point is I'm on a mission...a bandwagon...an undertaking...a revolution... I'm calling it Release Me

Release meaning:

Let go of

                                             Liberate

                  Free

                                                                                       Discharge

                            Let Loose

                                                                 Make Public 

Again, C has inspired me with a quote she sent a few days ago.

"All any feeling wants is to be welcomed with tenderness. It wants room to unfold. It wants to relax and tell its story. It wants to dissolve like a thousand writhing snakes that with a flick of kindness become harmless strands of rope."

Author Geneen Roth in the book "Women Food and God: 

An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything." 

America isn't very forgiving of feelings, whether our own or someone else's that has been put on us. We grow up in homes where crying is hushed, anger is repressed, excitement is squelched, laughter is quieted, and frustration is explained away. As the quote says "All any feeling wants is to be welcomed with tenderness..." It's time to welcome our feelings and be OK with them regardless if those around us are or not.

Too often we dismiss our feelings. Not giving them the proper environment to be heard so we can heal and move forward stronger. Whatever the reason we repress them--fear, embarrassment, timing, reasoning, denial, protecting someone else--it's time for us to know and feel comfortable expressing our feelings. 

We hold our feelings in for the sake of sparing others their feelings. Yet, in turn, whose feelings are being sacrificed? Why is it that we believe someone else is more important?

Feelings aren't right or wrong/should or shouldn't - They are what they are; feelings... and they have a right to be expressed and heard and responded to with kindness.

I'm not sure how this mission is going to play out... but it will be played.

I need your help, your ideas, your vision and your amazing, womanly passions.

Ladies... will you join me in Release Me?

excuse me while I dramatize my life

To say that I've been emotionally overwhelmed is like standing on the seashore, seeing a tsunami coming toward you and casually stating "I think we're in trouble."

I can't tell you all the details as it doesn't fully involve me and I'm not at liberty to publicly spill the beans. 

But I will tell you this: There was an incident in our home and T-boy is no longer with us. He has now been taken to juvenile detention and we are devastated. We've been through all sorts of emotional states... disappointment, frustration, anger, regret, guilt and yet we come to the other side understanding we can't control anyone's behavior or choices. Period. 

We will go visit him this weekend and make sure he knows how much we care about him and that we still love and support him on his journey of life. He's 14. He's not a monster. He's not a horrible, terrible, not good person. He's a child, a boy... who is in a lot of pain. 

We may not have what it takes to heal his pain, but we have to control his behaviors or heal his pain, but we do have the gift of love and that's what we will give him. I will continue to update you on his progress and what happens from here. Just because he's not in our home does not mean we won't be involved in his life as much as is possible. Thank you for all of your positive words and feedback.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I have a husband who also needs a lot of TLC - While he is very much a manly, Marlboro man... he's got some deep wounds of his own and I feel like I've been an emotional nurse for 3 weeks. Can you hear the sound of my deep sighs? 

*****SIGH*****

But don't worry... I may have had 1  or 2, or 19 of these in the last few weeks to help.

 

 I'm kidding.*

I digress from my dramatization... 

More fun, witty and serious posts to come!

Have I mentioned how much I've loved returning to blogging!?

*Seriously. I'm such a lightweight. I can't have more than one drink in a sitting. Ever. I get sick and my heart does weird things. It's such a bummer.

T-Boy

Have you ever heard of taking your "emotional temperature"? That is what I'm doing to our home this morning. It's not been 48 hours since our nephew, I'll call him T-boy, has moved in. Here's the low down:

• He's 14
• He's suspended from school indefinitely
• He has several legal charges against him
• He's a danger to his grandmother
• He's a danger to himself
• He's smart
• He's hurting
• He's starving for acceptance
• He wants love even more

Since the time T-boy was 1 to 2 years old, my husband has wanted to take him and raise him. He's bought him motorcycles and taught him to ride, he's given him Busch Gardens season passes and taken him there, T-boy has stayed whole weeks with him in the summers, he's taken him to work, to sports events and other recreational activities. All until about 2 1/2 years ago.

The story is tragic.

It's heartbreaking.

I cried in the shower this morning.

I don't know how long he'll be here; 3 weeks or 3 years, but either way, while I have the chance, he'll be loved.

The emotional temperature in our home is "pensive". I feel like I'm mourning the death of a child who is still alive and well.

I'll tell you why tomorrow.