SURVIVAL & HEALING
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The Day of My Birth
Birthdays! For the past few years I have made an effort to quietly let my birthday slide by unnoticed. As if being in denial would stop time and keep me at a young age! My brain tells me I am young but my body begs to differ! It’s amazing how age creeps up on us when we least expect it. We feel so young and able to do everything we have always done physically and then we lift our grandchild and twirl her around in the air and the soreness kicks in for days after! What the heck??? I go to the gym, lift weights and try to remember to…
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Shannon The Riveter
I can’t remember what it was the other night that reminded me of this, but for years I have always tried to fix things around the house on my own before I call in the professionals. Sometimes it works and sometimes it is a disaster. My ex started calling me Shannon The Riveter. This trait (or fault) of mine stems from my second marriage where I was alone at home a lot. I would try to tackle the leaks and issues on my own rather than admit that I needed help. DRIP, DRIP, DRIP One night I walked down to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and since…
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Horses and Chickens
Sometimes life gets the best of us and stress takes over. I truly believe that laughter is good medicine. If I find myself being bogged down with life I try to step back and notice life around me. There just might be that brief moment where something funny can help get me back on track. Here is a journal entry from years ago. Friday, September 15, 2006 Just at the moment when I need something in my life to make me laugh…. I was having dinner with some friends last night on their farm in Prospect. It’s a very beautiful part of town with a lot of land. The whole…
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Homelessness And the Man At the Waterfall
I KNOW I SAID I WAS TAKING A BREAK UNTIL JUNE BUT I COULDN’T RESIST. I MISS WRITING. So I am going to share an old journal writing that still affects me when I think about the two instances that occurred that inspired this entry to be written. Homelessness is on my mind. The Boy With the Sad Eyes There are moments in my life that stop me cold and my heart hurts. During those moments I start contemplating my own life and how I could have helped someone and maybe didn’t. One of these moments was a few years ago passing through a Taco Bell drive-thru window. I…
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Mental Abuse and Doormats
Here is a past journal entry from July 2007. My eyes were finally starting to open to the mental abuse around me from everyone I love. It still amazes me how I allowed myself to be treated this way. What happened to my sense of self worth? Before My Eyes Opened Monday, July 9, 2007 “Doormats” Doormats! Handy little things. They just lay around outside through all kinds of weather, getting stepped on, mashed, beaten, kicked. Then having to deal with everyone’s crap being wiped on them. Just so that person can enter into their nice clean environment. Leaving the doormat to deal with the dirt!!!! There is a question…
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Reading Past Journals And Seeing How Far I’ve Come (Empty Nesting)
Journals From The Past I pulled out an old journal and started reading my entries from past years. It’s incredible to see them again and to realize how far I have come and how much I have grown since these writings. I suggest that all women have a journal and write all of their thoughts in it. Some are sad, some depressing, some happy and some very funny. I am not sure I could have come through to the other side without having had the outlet of writing it all down as the feelings arose. I learned this from my Mother. She has many many journals. Some she will share…
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FORGIVENESS Is The Key
A Key Element I have realized over the years that forgiveness is a key element in staying healthy and happy. It’s important to be able to forgive and move on. It is healing for the soul! Life is so short. It passes with a blink of an eye. Why waste one minute of it being angry at someone and not letting the past go. I stress this to my loved ones all the time. My belief is that we were put here to learn unconditional love and to learn from our mistakes. I believe people are placed in our lives to help us learn these lessons or to help us…
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Great Book Suggestions
This isn’t a post about current top ten books or the best new books on the shelves. It’s about things I have read in the past that helped me in some way, whether it was to transform me to another place and help me forget the problems I was having in real life, or to help me get through those real life issues, or to just be entertained. There are a few books from my past summer reads that really helped me with my self worth and my female empowerment as well as during my spiritual searching. A few of them were so powerful that I long to read them…
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The Creative Spark
The creative spark inside me is growing. It’s been 9 years since my divorce. Nine years since I’ve stepped into the art studio that I shared with my ex. I need my creative space! I need a studio where I can go to put my hands in clay or to paint. Here is my checklist that I have already started following in order to create this space for myself: Get my tools back from the old studio – (My ex husband was very sweet and saved all of my tools for me. He knew I would be there to get them one day) Purchase clay so that I am…
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The Breaking Point
There were a few events that led to my moment of awakening. Signs of emotional abuse are easy to ignore or dismiss. A black eye or broken arm can awaken the point of walking away but how do you know when enough is enough after subtle emotional digs, over and over? When is the point where you say enough is enough? We start thinking that something isn’t right, but our minds go straight to only the good times. When we start thinking we are gaining the courage to really look at what is happening, floods of memories pour into us and blind us to the truth. Silent Treatments are Abuse…
