Lady Heather's Domain: My life in a Nutshell

I long to be loved deeply and appreciatively by my daughter.  I wrote a letter today and sent it to her to show her how much I love and appreciate she is my daughter.  I also showed that same deep love and appreciation to my son and husband. 

What I want most in my life today is to enjoy being a mother.  My life mission is to help others find peace, happiness and enjoyment with their families. I will direct my energy to being positive with my daughter and enjoying every minute of being with her, through that I can help others work through their problems with their family and help them find positivity and peace. Update: My visit with my daughter went really well.  Being positive and peaceful and filled with joy really allowed us to have a great visit.  I now feel like I am able to bring that experience to others.

My three experiences that make me feel good: Sitting at the beach and listening to the ebb and flow of the ocean. Cuddling with my hubby - in his arms listening to the rumble of his deep voice. Walking among the redwoods and listening to the life around me. My three thoughts that bring me peace: Knowing that I am loved deeply by my hubby. The thought of living or being by the ocean. The thought of being part of energy in the world.

Reality begins with imagination.  This is what I am currently imagining to be my future reality and what I am working towards. I will live along the coast of northern California, near the redwoods and the ocean.  I will live in a community, city or town that is not suburbia but more off the beaten path and yet close enough that I can live the rest of my years there and be close to medical care. My hubby and I will enjoy our time taking walks and our home will be like a vacation home. I will work but it will not really be work as it is my passion.  I will run or be part of a nonprofit clinic that aims at supporting all aspects of a family dealing with traumatized children that struggle with attachment issues or early childhood trauma.  I am beginning that with www.riversidesupport.org . I will travel to see my children and grandchildren and yet have my home so it would be a place they would want to come.  I will travel when I can and live life to the full...

What I most fear in life: I fear I will not be a good therapist. I fear I never will be able to lose weight. I fear that I will never get healthy. I fear that those I love will leave me. I fear that those I love can never really love me. I fear that I will never be successful. I fear that I am really a fake and someday it will become obvious to everyone else. I fear that I will never be financially stable. I fear that I will get hurt again. I choose to accept these fears, to integrate, learn and use them to become a better me. I will use my fear of not being a good therapist to check in with my clients, and be willing to try different things if what we are doing is not working.  I will meet those fears head-on by being open minded and truly listening to the client, this will allow me to be the best therapist I can be for them. I will use my fear of not losing weight to push me to continue to change my eating habits and to exercise.  I can use it to remind me th...

Today I want to experience health, peace and happiness. I made the decision that despite not having walked for the past 2 days and not feeling super great that I would go ahead and still walk.  I did walk and I felt so much better.  Then I spent a wonderful day with my hubby really just soaking in relaxation.  I started to organize my office and the house but focused on spending time with my hubby as we both need to keep the enjoyment in our relationship so that we both have energy to face new challenges.

Full Snow Moon is the 2nd full moon after Yule.  This moon is called snow moon or ice moon or storm moon or famine moon.  Normally sometime in February this moon is a bit early this year because of the timing of the lunar calendar.  Since the first full moon after Yule came right after Yule, everything is nearly a month ahead. This time of year is a time a hunger, coldness and introspection.  In my personal life right now this fits.  This winter has been colder than usual.  Also financially we have been starting to scrape the bottom of the pot. On the plus side, this is just before the weather starts warming and spring starts coming and thing start happening.  That is also what is slowly happening with my life.  I have a new job which will be building my practice as a therapist.  So the potential is starting, it will be slow, like the thawing snow and the warming temperatures, but if I focus I will be able to get it come to fruition.

Negative things that run through my mind on a daily basis: I am not getting enough done. I should do more. I am not earning my keep. I am not a good enough mother. I need to lose weight - I am too fat. My health is poor. I have no self-control. Everyone sees how lazy I am. I am not smart enough, There must me something wrong with me for not easily getting a job. My mom is right, I am always making mistakes and just don't make the right choices. I am writing these things down in order to let them go for the day. Update: Today I worked hard to just let those negative thoughts and feelings stay on this blog.  I did a pretty good job.  I relaxed and tried to enjoy things today as I had a fever.  I kept reminding myself that I am a better person if I take care of myself and I am worth taking care of. I felt pretty peaceful and positive today and when my hubby came home he confirmed that I made the right choices.

One of the legacies I wish to leave is helping families understand and help heal trauma.  To move closer to that legacy today, I will focus on updating my website with more resources and designing my brochure for my practice.  If I focus on the legacy I wish to leave then hopefully it help me find the path to connect to those who need the help and support.

1.  I am grateful to have my health. 2.  I am grateful to have my hubby who cares, loves, supports and believes in me. 3.  I am grateful to have my son who is such a creative and talented young man (and good looking too!) 4.  I am grateful to have my daughter, who has challenged me to be a better person in every aspect of my life - I am who I am because of her. 5.  I am grateful to be the person who I am at this exact moment and grateful to have the opportunities to continue to work towards bettering myself. 6.  I am grateful to have a roof over my head and many of the basics that I know I take for granted such as clean drinking water, food, the ability to provide an education to my children. 7.  I am grateful to have a new career and new opportunities to expand my knowledge and awareness and to help others. 8.  I am grateful to have a wonderful, supportive, loving and caring family. 9.  I am grateful for the laughter that people brin...

Reaping what I sow.  I have been on this quest for 22 days.  I actually had started before this but not with a well defined road map.  Today I got to see the benefits of positive thoughts being replaced by negative thoughts.  During the holidays, a place that I volunteer for as a newsletter editor\board member, needed to do a membership drive which meant sending out about 1700 envelopes.  I do not celebrate the holidays (24th, 25th) the same as others as I celebrate Yule, so I offered to stuff the envelopes so we could meet our deadline.  When I mentioned I was unemployed, one of the other board members told me to call him on Monday about a possible job. While I was stuffing envelopes my son reminded me that I needed to call the guy about the job.  At first I thought negative thoughts and told my son I didn't want to be rejected again.  My son (smart kid) made me call him, I put positive thoughts in my mind and called him.  The board member...

The emotions that I frequently experience are fear (anxiety), anger (frustration), happiness and excitement.  The fear (anxiety) originates from the feeling of lack of control.  The anger (frustration) originates from the situation not working out as I want it to be - other controlling it and making it different from the way I want it. The happiness and excitement originates from feelings of personal accomplishment, or that I was able to control a situation or I liked the outcome.  When I do feel peace I notice it originates from going with the flow and focusing on my own self and what I can control and letting go what I cannot control. These negative emotions used to dictate my mood for the day, but I am now learning to change them during the day.  Sometimes the negative emotions land me in bed, on the couch or overeating, but not nearly as much.  I still struggle with the overeating. I do not show emotions to a lot of people because I stuff them so m...

Realizing that the average person thinks about 60,000 thoughts per day and I know after talking with people, my mind is a lot busier than the average person so lets say about 80,000 thoughts a day for me.  If those are negative thoughts like so many of them used to be, no wonder I constantly struggled just to keep my head above water and struggled with my self-image. Now I have been working to turn negative thoughts into positive thoughts.  I certainly am not there yet but I am making progress.  But I can now understand how much my mood has changed.  I took a beautiful walk in Redding, listening to motivational music and just felt so peaceful and happy.  I have definitely noticed a change in my life now that I am changing my thoughts to be more positive and working to stop the negative thoughts.

I can choose every thought I think.  When I think about good things and just hold onto those thoughts and really let them flow over me as if I were sitting underneath a waterfall of these good thoughts my body and mind become peaceful and I have more energy and feel warm from the inside out.  I am starting to see when I do not feel like this I have allowed stressful thoughts or negative thoughts to be part of my self talk.  When I notice this I CAN change them by choosing to thing positive thoughts. I can choose every thought I think. I can choose every thought I think. I can choose every thought I think. I CAN CHOOSE EVERY THOUGHT I THINK.

Today I will work to simplify my life.  The one thing I will change that will simplify my life is on Sundays I will sit down with my family and discuss our schedule for the week, who will be home for dinner, and what we are having each day for dinner.  This will make the Grocery shopping easier on Monday and will also make it easier to plan for how many and get dinner going. The biggest thing though it will simplify is the question of what should we have for dinner and the frustration I feel when everyone says "I don't know" or "whatever".

I practiced breathing deeply, finding the quiet space inside of me and filling myself with good things and the thoughts of the type of person I want to be remembered as.  This helped because then I had therapy over the telephone with my daughter.  I was able to stay positive and understanding and yet honest with her.  It was a good session.  After the session, I took time to find peace and warmth in my soul and let it fill me. Then I went peaceful and calm and cuddled with my hubby before he needed to go to work.  It helped allow me to be who I wanted to be.  So later in the day when I started my walk and noticed smoke, I was calm and ran to help while I was calling 911.  I was not wrapped up in all kinds of stress about my daughter or my life but instead able to be my real self and to think quickly and try to make sure everyone was safe. I am going to continue to find calm, peace and happiness within so others can see it when I interact with the...

I have been really listening to my internal dialog, my self-talk, my thoughts and I find it is getting more positive.  I still have negative thoughts that are intended to be self-defeating or self-sabotaging, but as I hear them I am working to change them. This morning my throat was scratchy and I found myself thinking that I was probably getting sick.  I realized that was what I was thinking and told myself that I am not sick and that shortly after a bit to drink my throat will be better.  Later when I was trying to get ready for my walk, I realized my thoughts were trying to make excuses and I told myself no excuses that this is how I am going to make myself better and stronger. During my walk, I suddenly became afraid of falling.  I even tripped while I was obsessing about the fact that I might fall.  I caught myself on my trip and said to myself that I am NOT going to fall and just to enjoy the music.  My brain so often sabotages myself.  I am ...

Today I closed my eyes and thought about how wonderful it feels to be snuggling in my hubby's arms.  When we snuggle, I can almost see the love and healing powers swirling back and forth between us and then I warm inside to outside.  I find such peace, calm and healing in his arms and he says he feels the same way.  Together it is like we could fuel the whole worlds love, it just seems to grow and grow. I find that after even thinking about this (and even more so after doing it) I truly feel more healed and like a physical change has taken over me. I then feel like if I hug my son or touch someone in a loving and gentle way that I can actually give them some of that healing, peaceful and loving power.

Today, I forgive my daughter for the physical, mental and emotional damage she has caused.  I wrote her a letter that I will read to her in therapy on Thursday that says I forgive her for any and all negatives.  I want her to know I love her and forgive her so hopefully one day she can forgive herself. I also forgive myself for not always living up to who I strive to be.  I want to heal and to not hang on to negativity. 

As I continue my quest for peace by working through this book, I am finding it easier to find peace and calm and to let the drama go.  I am starting to live life more fully and looking forward to each step I make.  I am now walking farther and faster than I have in years and no longer fear falling. Each little accomplishment makes me feel more alive and stronger and more willing to make more positive changes.  Today, I actually chose to take my walk after my hubby was up, instead of feeling like I should hang out with him and not do the walk.  The reward, I was able to beat my old time at walking and feel more fit. He didn't feel sad that I chose that, I didn't feel sad that I chose to walk as I had feared - instead I felt inspired by the change.  My walks are giving me peace and time to just live in the moment.  I come back happier and more peaceful which allows me to interact with others in a more peaceful and loving manner. I finally feel that I am...

Today I am going to enjoy every little thing and have fun with it.  I enjoyed my walk and encouraged others on their journeys.  I am going to have extra snuggle time with my hubby and have fun with my son and his friends.  By me being light hearted and fun to be around, others will hopefully also have fun and be in a good mood and spread the joy.

The one thing I can do today to bring to others my peaceful healing self is to be positive when my son asks for something. I accomplished this when he asked me if he could do something with his friends when we had planned to have time this evening together.  I realized this was an opportunity he would not normally have so I told him that was fine and did not guilt him at all and actually teased him about what he was doing and have a good time doing it.  It was so nice to have a peaceful and positive interaction with my son.

My actions in life today are indicative of my desire for peace, love, and healing.  I am usually acting and living in ways that are leaving the legacy that I desire.  At times I lose my way but I now easily spot when I am not going the right direction and correct my actions.  I am becoming today who I hope they will say I am tomorrow.  I still get caught up in things that I shouldn't, but I am becoming the person who I really want people to see me as more and more every day.  I feel a difference in how I act and react in the past 10 days.  Looking over the past 9 entries I feel less defensive and more open.  I am slowly getting better at everything and learning to find that place of peace.  I look forward to working even more, even when it gets challenging.

I am suffering the loss of the daughter that I dreamed of.  I am suffering the loss of the dreams for my daughter.  I am suffering the loss of what I wanted to happen and the control I perceived I had which I never had.  I am suffering the loss of financial well being and stability.  I am suffering the loss of my children's childhood as they are nearly adults.  I am suffering many things but each bring me a challenge that makes me a better person.  Each time I suffer one thing as I move through it I learn more and become stronger and better equipped to handle the next challenge and bout of suffering.  I find after a good cry or time of feeling sorry for myself that I am ready to accept the challenge, to gain my strength and courage and move forward again.  I have too long suffered physical issues due to my Parkinson's, some of them self imposed suffering due to trying to avoid dealing with it.  Now though I feel I have the courage to face i...

During this time of year transformations come easier as it is the way of nature.  I have been taking this time to start with transforming my internal dialog.  I am trying to replace negative and unhealthy self-talk with positive and healthier self-talk.  I am making changes to my life from the inside out. I am seeing the results.  I am willing to ask for help.  For example when I was told by the foster care system my daughter did not qualify for MediCaid, I contacted her AAP Social Worker and asked if she had any ideas and she pushed her agency and through AAP my daughter now has MediCaid - which is really helpful because without it, her dental work would have cost our family over $1100 even going through our private insurance.  I am feeling more confident.  Yesterday I had an interview and I feel like I am getting a lot better because I have confidence.  I also felt confident enough to contact the person I interviewed with December 27th and t...

I can actively love myself by taking time for myself and exercising and meditating when I need to.  I can continue to unclutter my home so my mind feels uncluttered and I feel more peaceful.  I can do things that I need to be healthy happy and peaceful and not put them on the back burner because I feel less worthy of love than others around me. I can actively love myself by prioritizing me!  I am important and worthy of attention and loving myself is realizing it and giving myself a higher priority than I have been.

I am so lucky, when I met my hubby just over 6 years ago, he was very into being touchy feelly.  I struggled with being held and touched as much as he liked it.  At first it felt confining and I was so uncomfortable.  As time went on I realized that the reason being touched so much bothered me, it is hard to have a loving touch so much and stay emotionally distant.  Over time I started to love being touched and learned how much it could calm me.  Even today, before my interview, I was all ready and I got into bed and cuddled with my hubby for 10 minutes before I left so I could feel calm and secure.  With touch I am able to calm my mind, sooth my anxiety and often realize my fears not that overwhelming and I can face them.  I now give and receive loving touch freely.  Touch is safe and healing for me. 

I long believed that I was choosing to live focusing on health but I realized over the past week, I was allowing fear and not wanting to face my illness to actually cause me to focus not on living but on hiding from my illness.  I now see that I can truly live life if I choose to live life and deal with my illness (Parkinson's) but if I choose to ignore and hide from it, then I am caging myself within my illness. The more you avoid, the more you live in fear.  I spent the past few years doing less and less walking for fear I would fall.  The less walking I did the more unsure of myself I became.  I am reversing that trend and working to live life more fully. 

How interesting today well before I read the entry in the book, I found myself constantly paying attention to how I handled things and the choices I made - whether it was a choice that would bring peace or a choice that would not. My hubby's grandfather had an emergency.  While my hubby waited for information, I knew there was little I could do to control the situation except to bring as much peace and comfort to him as I could.  So I cuddled with him and focused on my breath and calm and peace.  Later on when the emergency was over and everything was fine, I found myself trying to use that as an excuse not to focus on my peace and health.  I re-centered myself and went on my 1 mile walk and focused on how peaceful and rejuvenating the walk was. After seeing the results of calm in our family during a time that could have been drama filled and stressful, I will continue to work to see what kind of energy I am putting out and intentionally make sure it is calming...

Today I tried to meditate and focus on my breath and visualize myself healthy at home but I kept getting distracted.  But I did go and get a spa pedicure (in a massage chair) and I was able to focus on my breath and focus what the healthy me would be like. I think my biggest struggle is trying to feel I am worthy of taking time for myself and not doing something to prove my worth (cleaning house, projects, etc).  I am able to start visualizing my health because I am proactively making changes.  I walked a mile today and I can finally think what a nice trip to Disneyland would be like when I can enjoy myself and have energy.

                                                   Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Calorie Counter On Wednesday evening I read my friend Sylvie's Blog and it inspired me to want to go out and walk.  The problem was it was dark and in my neighborhood walking after dark is not a good idea.  So on Thursday I read it again and this time it was not dark yet so I walked around my block 1 time (just over 1/2 mile) and I did it in 12 minutes.  I felt a bit sore but had a great feeling of accomplishment.  So today, Friday, I searched through my closet to find my Reebok High Tops and to walk again. After once around the block I looked down at my stopwatch and found I did it in just under 11 minutes and still felt good so I wa...

I feel that I am living in a late summer/early fall season because I am learning much of what I learned in my spring and I am also harvesting what I have planted.  I want to be in late spring and early summer but in truth I probably need to be in mid spring - I have much to learn in my new career and finding myself to use to really grow. It is hard for me to switch back to the beginning of a new career when I was senior and had a lot of knowledge and was looked up to in my old career.  I do think though it will rejuvenate me internally and it will be helpful and make me healthier. Today I did a little better at quieting my mind.  I was able to catch myself more often when my mind started wandering and refocus on my breath.  I am hoping with practice I can learn to quiet my mind and find peace a little more easily and stay focused on my breath longer.

Today I was talking to my mom and I had to hold back tears as I expressed the wonderful thing my hubby got me for my birthday.  Rewind to a few years ago.  I had gone grocery shopping and picked up goat cheese (anyone who knows me knows I love cheese).  My my maternal grandfather had introduced me to goat cheese and it was something that I shared his love of.  He would slice it up and put it on toast or crackers for me and then we would sit and talk.  It is a memory that is very dear to me.  Well when I got home from buying the goat cheese and put some on a cracker, I found it didn't taste or look like I remembered.  My hubby walked in and he asked why I looked disappointed.  I told him that it wasn't the same as I remembered.  We talked and when I expressed what I remembered the cheese being like he seemed to understand and said there is a Scandinavian goat cheese that he knows of that seemed more like the one I remembered.  This made...

I struggled to focus on myself and quiet my mind.  When I tried to focus on my breath I would find my mind wandering.  I believe this is going to be a tough thing for me. I am going to try to focus on meditating and focusing on my breath each day is this seems to be something that is very hard for me.  I will try for 5 minutes each day to focus on nothing but peace and my breath.

As my hubby pointed out last night it has been 10 months since his first and most major lower sexual reassignment surgery.  First off I have to say that I hate the term sexual reassignment surgery since he has always been male in my eyes (he transitioned over 12 years ago and I have only known him just over 6 years) so even though he is having lower surgery he already transitioned in my eyes. So the surgeries have been a lot of ups and downs.  Even though they gave us a timeline reality did not set in on how long it would take and because of scheduling issues there was a more than 2 month delay on the last surgery and there had been complications there is still at least one more surgery to go for this round.  So where are we?  Well in a couple of months we will be able to schedule his next surgery which we figure will be around May 2013 and then probably a couple months after that he will have one more minor surgery (August 2013??) and then he has to wait at leas...

I forgive myself for not taking my health more seriously. I forgive myself for putting one child's needs before anothers. I forgive myself for not living up to everything I could be. I forgive myself for not believing in myself. I forgive myself for not loving myself. I forgive myself for not trusting myself. I forgive myself for my past failings and for the mistakes I will make in the future. I forgive myself for the real and imagined infractions I have done to myself and others. I accept myself for who I am, an imperfect person who is working hard to better herself but will make mistakes.

Well another calendar year! I try to remind myself that it is unwritten and I can fill up the calendar with my own accomplishments, dreams and events.  I listen to this song to really remind myself.  I had a wonderful birthday with my hubby who is very kind and caring and gives simple and yet extremely thoughtful gifts. I look forward to the new year and making my dreams come true.