Lady Heather's Domain: My life in a Nutshell

I have learned a lot from this book and am finding myself filled with more joy and peace than I ever have.  The biggest positive is that I am able to accept love and really know I am loved.  I now know I am worthy of love and deserve it.  I am working on learning how to stay in a place of peace more often and it will take time - I know my quest will be eternal but I sure like how I am living and enjoying life now.

My relationship with my daughter does not work.  I need to work on allowing myself to love her unconditionally and letting her make her own mistakes and choices.  I can continue to advocate for her best interests and try to limit suggesting what she should do.  She has to walk her own path as much as it breaks my heart to see her struggle and fail, it needs to be her own choices and consequences like my choices and their consequences are mine.

Today I give myself permission to be loved and accept love. A simple yet tough statement for me - one that I am making more and more progress on.

Today, was a good day to practice being quiet.  My son was gone and I was able to relax.  Everytime a negative thought or feeling came through my mind (that I realized) I worked on making it positive.  If I thought of my frustrating relationship with my daughter - I thought how lucky I was to have met her and have become a much better person because of my relationship with her.  I felt more and more peaceful throughout the day.  I know there will be days that I cannot do this - but I know I am in charge of my own thoughts and feelings and don't have to let someone else take my power away from me.

I am willing to let go of my controlling behavior today.  I am learning to accept that I am not in control of others and am willing to give up that ugly part of myself that tries to control what others do.

I "believe" my being a good parent to both children completes me.  I try to hold onto my relationship with my daughter no matter what even when she wants to pull away.  It is going to be hard work but I am slowly trying to imagine myself without the relationship with my daughter.  The thought brings me great sadness and yet a bit of peace.  This is something I have been working on slowly over the past year - allowing myself to be a mother and not always having the relationship with my daughter that I cling to.  I am finding being an advocate for her is helpful, but I need to learn to feel ok about myself even if the relationship with my daughter goes away.

The only real conflict I have is with my daughter.  Today I wrote a letter letting her know I love her.  I am trying to remind myself that it does not have to be constantly a conflict.  I can let her make her own decisions whether they are destructive or not and let her learn from her consequences. I love my daughter and I need to work harder to bringing peace to our relationship.

Most often when I feel my emotions rise in relation to another person it is when I am dealing with my daughter.  I know what is being spoken is my daughter's truth and not mine, because I love her it hurts when she says mean things to me.  I know why she does it (out of fear of getting hurt again) but I still allow it to hurt me.  I have started to take a stand and not be a victim anymore by limiting my interactions with her when I am most vulnerable.  I also remind myself she is speaking her truth from the lens of fear so it isn't anything personal - it is just because of her circumstances.  It still is hard and I need to continue working on this aspect of myself so I do not allow myself to fall into the victim role.

One truth I hide out of fear is that I am a lesbian and my husband's a transsexual.  I know from the past people reject or judge us - so we hide the truth.  I have been more honest with more people though about it if I determine it would be safe to do so. The one truth in others I often reject is that I am lovable and a good person.  I fear getting hurt so I try to reject them first.  I have been working on this. I am living my truth as much as I can and am finding it easier and easier.  My house is now decorated in my beliefs and so is my office.  I do not hide who I am - I am just not always open about it.  But I live my life and no longer live a lie to please other people.

I had to modify the statements to work for me but they do. I allow myself to experience the presence of My Goddess's love. (I stop, close my eyes and put my hands out - I feel Her love) I allow myself to feel the warm of My Goddess's affection. (I stop, close my eyes and place my hands on my heart - I feel Her warmth emanating through me) I am open to the power of healing in myself through My Goddess. (I stop, and feel my power and My Goddess's power swirling within me - healing any darkness that has come upon my soul) I am worth and valuable and loved. (I stop, Breathe in and Breathe out, and feel my worth, value and love to my core) I feel so much more peaceful and ready to deal with the day after I have done this.

Yes. I learned to take responsibility for me in December 2006.  It has been exciting and hard.  The benefit is I get to truly feel good about my accomplishments.  The hard part is being responsible for my mistakes but on the other hand I learn from my mistakes now because I take ownership of them and learn from them - when you do not take ownership or responsibility for your mistakes you really cannot learn from them because you do not learn what you need to change at your core to keep the mistakes from happening again. Today I will re-create my sanctuary, my space and my organization that I have gotten off track with. Today I will smile and laugh and give myself permission to feel joy and let others see my joy which should allow everyone to not have so much negativity around (especially the negativity that was from me)

I struggle with staying focused and not multi-tasking.  Being bi-polar I have a million things running at any given time in my head and it is a struggle to just follow one thought without being distracted by others.  Throughout my life I have learned to follow several at the same time (although this has caused me to not remember lots of things) but it gave me some unique abilities in my old career.  As an IT professional it was a wonderful ability - something goes wrong and my mind could simultaneously follow several possible solutions to their conclusion and I was able to determine the best course.  I enjoyed the benefits. The negatives though is I struggle to pay attention to a movie and remember it - I joke that I can pick up a book or movie and it will always be new to me even if I have read it or watched it before.  As I am changing careers to become a therapist - I am working hard on focusing myself even more.  I have taken steps to doing that by pu...

I have been struggling for years - ever since I can remember - with trying to please other people.  I know pleasing others has caused much of my own heartbreak and grief.  It has been a long journey so far and I know it will continue for sometime.  My hubby is helping me heal this way.  I have finally learned that I do not always have to worry the moment he is in a bad mood that I need to please him or make him happy in some way.  He has helped me see that I have earned things on my own and accomplished things on my own that deserve their own rewards and I should enjoy them and not set them aside to try to please someone else. It is a slow process since I still look for affirmations outside of myself, but I am getting better.  I now follow my path and do not apologize if someone doesn't like it or change my direction because it would make someone else happy.  I am now working on making myself happy and slowly learning what that means.  I acknowl...

As I sit quietly feeling the peace and energy within, I find my thoughts wandering to finding a way to come to peace and terms with my daughter and my love for her.  I find I keep getting held back by past hurts and not allowing myself to just fully live in the moment of love with her.  When I talk to her and visit with her, she tries to hurt me to keep me away, I know she is afraid of love.  If I back away from that love how will she ever learn that you can love even if there is pain.  I feel a warmth and peace settle over me as I say my daughter's name and that I love her.  I find myself opening up to peace and happiness at just loving life.  I will try to keep reconnecting like this so that I can focus on love in the moment and not hurt of the past.

I resist losing weight.  I am not really sure why.  I give up too easily.  I know my eating plan - I know what I should do but instead I end up stuffing my face instead of dealing with the discomfort of changing my eating habits.  I like certain foods that are not good for me and I struggle to limit the amount I eat. I recently made excuses not to walk.  I need to start walking again and to get back on a healthier diet. I am resistant to change especial eating my comfort foods.  I am going to plan to start walking and eating properly again.  I will not try to put my head in the sand any longer.

For me this was an easy assignment because I have already done it.  I have already ended my negative relationships and let go of hurt and anger.  I do have some relationships that are not as healthy as I would like, but I have changed them so they are as positive as they can be and I have limited my involvement level so I do not get angry and hurt anymore.  Some of these are just relationships that are close and I need so it is worth working on them and dealing with them at a different level. Several years ago I started "cleaning house" of my negative and unhealthy relationships.  It was tough to do, but I found it freeing and then worked on having more positive relationships and I found I was not held back anymore. Since then I have worked to always let go of relationships that are no longer positive.  I believe people come into our lives for a reason and for some, when that reason is gone, the relationship needs to end or it becomes toxic.  Others, we...

I work hard at being present for my son.  I try to stop what I am doing and just talk with him and focus on him.  I am lucky enough to have him in my life - 16 years ago he was almost taken away from us. I try to always do a bedtime routine when he is home and we try to laugh a lot. Lately he has had some tough times to navigate with friends and relationships - I try to listen, give some advice but really see things from his perspective and help him see lessons that he and others can learn. With my daughter, I try to be the most positive roll model possible for her since she is struggling so much.  Parenting her from afar as allowed me to be her cheerleader.  I try to focus on the here and now and not the hurt of the past. Today, I listened to my son and enjoyed some time with him.

Today, I virtually extended grace to my daughter.  Even though I did not see or talk to her, I took time today and really thought about how much she is struggling at this moment and how much her past is effecting her behaviors today.  I extended her grace so that when I talk to her again, I can come from a place of understanding that at this time she is doing the best she knows how to do.  I can only expect her to do her best and at this time this is the best she is able to do.

In the past year, I have really learned that letting go can be very positive.  I am by nature a very controlling person, so letting go is not easy for me.  I have found though over and over in my life that if I can let go of the pain, the hurt, and the control, I can create room for healing, happiness and peace.  I am now able to distance myself from the hurt and pain of things in my childhood and in many of my relationships.  I am instead able to look at the challenges and lessons I was able to learn and realize that all of that was necessary in order to have a wonderful relationship with my hubby.  Being able to learn to not see things through the lens of my past all of the time, has allowed me to open up and feel a deep love and peace.  I would not be the same person I am now if it had not been for the pain and hurt I had in my past.  I love who I am and I only became that person through my experiences.

I really only have one person I am in conflict with and she is teaching me through our relationship so many things.  I am learning understanding and patience.  She is my daughter and it is probably the relationship that has helped me grow the most because I am constantly striving to better myself as our relationship brings to my attention the things I still need to work on.  This relationship has challenged me in everyway possible and when I accept those challenges and work on myself, I like who I become.  When I get carried away with the negativity, I quickly find that i do not like who I become.