I couldn’t sleep last night. I’d fallen asleep but a hissing noise pulled me out of slumber. I woke my husband with the question, “What’s that noise?” only to discover, the steam shower had sprung a leak. He went downstairs, turned off the water, came back to bed and promptly fell back to sleep.

I was not so easily lured back into dreamland.

I got up. I read. I surfed the Net. I watched the river flow past.

In my meanderings, I remembered the videos from the inaugural Circles of Hope conference held last November had been posted on Youtube.

Alexis and I have been talking about writing a book about our healing journey together. I wasn’t sure where to begin but seeing as I couldn’t sleep, why not go back to our presentation and start there?

Working on that presentation together was not easy. Alexis and I had to risk delving into the broken places. We had to be willing to hear one another’s pain, and not try to own it, or fix it, or pretend it was all okay. For me, as her mother, there were times when I wanted to call it quits so that I wouldn’t have to hear her words, see her pain, know her anger.

We kept pushing through it. We kept trusting that the tears, the anger, the fear and sorrow were nothing compared to the joy and love we shared.

This is not an easy story to share. I’ve shared it many times. By myself. But working on it with Alexis I realized that while it happened to me, it also happened to my daughters. They too were on that road to hell. They too felt the fear, the horror, the loss.

The story of our journey into hell began with a man who drove up in a red Ferrari. He promised us happily-ever-after and then, like a magician making whatever is before your eyes disappear, he swept away the world as we knew it and turned our lives inside out and upside down.

For my daughters, that journey came at a seminal time in their lives. They were about to embark on their teen years. He promised them a life of ease and fun and laughter. He never warned them about the pain.

On February 26, 2003, 4 and a half years after he drove into our lives, I disappeared from their lives. It would not be until three months later that they learned what happened to me, or that I was even alive.

Healing from the darkness of those days has not been a straight line of that was before, this is after. It has been a journey into pain, sorrow, anger, fear, hurt. Amidst the laughter and joy, there has been blame and shame and sadness and regret; the full gamut of human emotions. And yet, no matter what appeared before us, there was always the thing that flowed between us like a river and carried us through those years to today. Love.

Healing from that relationship has taught me many things. It’s taught me to never give up on myself. To never let go of Love. It’s taught me to speak truth even when I want to hide from it. To be real and present, even when I want to close my eyes to the pain I see in the eyes of those I love. And it has taught me the value of being vulnerable and the healing grace of forgiveness.

I am blessed.

Once upon a time, I did something to my daughters I never imagined I could. I deserted them. Through forgiveness and grace, we have woven the circle of love that is our family back together. In the scars that bind us, beauty shines. Love grows.

I had no plan to become a mother. No preconceived idea that this would be the penultimate experience of my life. Mostly, I was terrified of the thought that being a mother meant passing along my foibles, faults and follies to an innocent child.

Why would I want to do that?

In fact, if asked whether or not we wanted children, my then husband and I would reply an unequivocal, “No.”

And then it happened. The thing doctors had told me probably was impossible, wasn’t. I became pregnant.

In my newly formed precariously pregnant state my doctor told me I needed to go to bed. For three months.

My friends laughed at me. Is your doctor crazy? No way can you go to bed for three months. You’ll be miserable.

It was the first of many life lessons my unborn child taught me.

No one decides how I go through each experience of my life, except me.

I had no choice about three months of bed rest. I did have a choice about how I experience it.

I could choose to be miserable.

Or…

I chose to fall in love. To lie in bed and savour every moment of new life growing within me and to cherish life around me.

In a journal entry from that time I wrote:

I think about you often. I wonder, what will you be like? What will you do in this world?

You’re very quiet inside me. Your movements are graceful and serene. I imagine your tiny arms and legs, your body suspended, floating in my waters. Yet, sometimes, I can feel you soar. I can hear your body as it ripples across mine, quietly evolving, experiencing the joy of life, protected within my womb.

I can feel you. I am with you. You are with me, where ever I go, whatever I do. We are one in this journey. As you grow and develop, my body grows and develops. As you move, I move. As I move, so too do you.

I mold myself around you to protect you yet must leave you room to grow. For grow you will and I shall have to let you go.

Yet, this journey we share now will bond us for all time. For I am your mother. Mother to you, child of my body. And though I shall never own you, you will always own a part of me.

That was 1985.

My first daughter was born on June 19th, 1986.

I have been a mother for almost 32 years. (And a grandmother for 3 months.)

I would not change a thing. I would not erase a moment, turn a different phrase or take a different step, no matter how painful some of them were.

In this journey of my life, I have done things I want to remember forever, I have done things that, no matter how hard I’ve tried, I cannot forget — and ultimately do not want to because, regardless of what I have done, I have been and will always be, my daughters’ mother.

Being a mother is at the heart of my being present in this life.

Being a mother has taught me what it means to truly, madly, deeply love another, unconditionally, without any expectation of their loving me in return. Loving another is not about getting love back. It’s about creating an enduring circle of love and choosing always to stay in its flow, in darkness and in light.

Being a mother has taught me to trust in the power of my own body to create life and to be life-giving.

It has shown me how deeply I can love, how completely I can surrender, and how absolutely powerless I am over another human being. It has taught me humility.

On June 19th, 1986 I became a mother.

Being a mother has been, and continues to be, a journey into the heart of what matters most to me; to know myself, in all my many facets, and to love myself in every way I am present in this world so that I can be present for those I love, in love, always.

Thank you Alexis and Liseanne for giving me the gift of being your mother. You have taught me that love is always the answer because in your lives I have found my heart’s song. It is a song of Love, forever and always.

I am working on changing a habit.

It’s hard.

I like sleeping on my stomach. It’s something I’ve done most of my life, even after a C-Section!

My back hates it. I mean really hates it.

Sleeping on my stomach is a sure way to give my sciatica free reign.

I need to change the habit.

Problem is, I often roll over in my sleep only to wake up when the familiar deep ache in my lower back gets so painful, it wakes me up.

Rolling back over isn’t easy. I need to move with care to ensure I don’t A) scream out in pain and awaken C.C., Beaumont and Marley the Great Cat.  B) my lower back doesn’t lock up.

So, I’ve devised a method to keep myself from rolling onto my stomach while conscious and asleep.

First, as I get ready for bed, I tell myself how much benefit there is sleeping on my back or side. I do this for a long time. Every time the critter sneaks in and whispers, “But you can’t go to sleep if you’re not lying on your stomach”, I face him square on and say gently, “It’s okay. You’re just afraid of change. I can do this.” And then I do it. (Yeah my team!)

Second, as I get into bed, I turn on the heating pad and place it behind my back — the warmth keeps me in place and helps me fall asleep. (My heating pad shuts off after half an hour. It’s the perfect gateway to falling asleep.)

Third, when I wake up during the night, and find myself still on my back or side, I turn the heating pad back on. It’s preventative.

So, why am I telling you all this?  Because changing a habit in one area opens the door for other changes too.

And if you’re like me, there are areas of your life where some of your habits don’t really add up to a whole lot of positive influence on your happiness and well-being.

Like, playing Spider Solitaire every night when I get into bed. I’d much rather be reading a book, but I’ve acquired this habit of reaching for my IPad…

Time to apply some habit changing karma to my night time routine. Because, quite frankly, if I can change a lifelong habit of sleeping on my stomach, some piddly little thing like Spider Solitaire is a piece a cake.

Eons ago, Socrates wrote, “The soul, like the body, accepts by practice whatever habit one wishes it to contact.”

And that’s the thing about changing a habit. Our minds, bodies and souls are engaged in keeping the good, and the unhealthy ones, in place.

To change one, we must begin with putting it in contact with something different — like my heating pad for my back.

For me, beginning with a habit where the stakes are high (I dislike being in my body when my back is out) has given me the momentum and the courage to start looking at other habits that, while perhaps not as debilitating as my stomach sleeping habit, are not having a positive effect on my life and well-being.

In shifting my stomach sleeping habit, I have proven to myself, I CAN do it. I can take on a hard task and make change happen for the better.

I’ve also shown myself that changing a habit from ‘bad’ to ‘good’ reaps benefits — my back is not as sore in the mornings and it’s much easier to get out of bed too!

Do you have a habit you need/want to change? What’s your secret to making it happen?

Richard Rohr writes in his daily column today that psychologists have determined that there is no such thing as ‘an infant’. That in essence, it is an infant/caregiver. For the first several months of life, the infant only sees the world as mirrored through their caregivers eyes. They are one and the same.

Rohr, quotes historian, Morris Berman, who writes in Coming to Our Senses, that our first experience of life is not merely a visual or audio one of knowing ourselves through other people’s facial and verbal responses; it is primarily felt in the body. He calls this feeling kinesthetic knowing. We know ourselves in the security of those who hold us, skin to skin. This early knowing is not so much heard, seen, or thought. It’s felt.

Last night, my beloved and I shared some Facetime with our grandson, Thurlow. At almost two months of age, he has grown considerably (almost double his birth weight) and is much more alert and active as he moves further from being a preemie to infant state. When he was born, my daughter and son-in-love spent lots of skin to skin time with him, reassuring him of his connection, imprinting his belonging into his body knowing.

I am in awe of my daughter as she moves with such grace into this place called, being a mother.  I am also in awe of the transformative power of love. It isn’t just that Thurlow sees the world through the eyes of infant/caregiver, it is that my daughter is seeing her son through the same eyes and they are one. In their oneness is the magnificence of our human condition shimmering in the divine essence of our human nature and its natural affinity to Love.

No one human on this earth is born separate. We are all born of our mother’s bodies. Yet, many are deprived of experiencing the mystical power of oneness of those first few months of life on earth.

A host of human afflictions can circumvent the infant/caregiver bond. Poverty, war, abuse, trauma, the turmoils of life in a divisive world, all of this can play a role in our not experiencing the body knowing of oneness that is foundational to our feeling the truth of our identity: We are beloved. Cast adrift too soon, separated from our oneness with the one who carried us into this world, we flounder, bereft, searching for a way to heal the brokenness we cannot name because we never experienced what it meant to not be separate in those first foundational months of life on earth.

I watch my daughter and son-in-love express their love and oneness with my grandson last night. I am in awe. I am grateful. No matter what turmoil, hardship, roadblocks, or strife life may put on his path, he will always know, deep within his body, the truth of his identify; he is beloved. And while his journey will include necessary separateness from his parents, the deep knowing of his oneness will always sustain him, always bring him home to the truth.

What a beautiful gift of life.

_______________

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I unpacked some more this weekend.

I didn’t want to. I want it done. Finished.

The only way to get to ‘done’ is to do the work.

So I unpacked.

My studio space downstairs became the repository for the movers to put all the boxes not marked ‘living room, master bedroom, kitchen, or dining room’.

There were a lot of boxes that fit that bill.

Since moving into our new home on March 12th, I have continually entered the soon to be studio space in search of mis-labelled boxes that might contain things I wanted. Like my Cappuccino machine, frying pans and other kitchen items. In the process, the boxes got moved about, partially unpacked, somewhat dishevelled looking.

This weekend, I decided to tackle the job.

It is a big job, which I kept putting off every time I entered the back room.

Ugh. My mind whispered. This room is overwhelming.

And I’d turn and walk away.

Not only does the room contain all the not yet unpacked boxes and pieces of furniture for which we have not yet found a home, it also contains some of the contractor’s tools, the old kitchen cabinets which I’ll use in the studio and extra wood from the renovation. As this room has a finished concrete floor, he used it for cutting and sanding wood, painting doors and other building activities.

Which means, though the contractor did sweep it out before the movers came, there is still lots of dust on the floor and pieces of wood lying about.

Yesterday, after completing everything I could upstairs and spending some time reading, walking Beaumont, and walking Beaumont again, I had no more excuses. I had to tackle the job.

I have begun. After working on it for six hours yesterday, the room looks a little less overwhelming and a lot more manageable.

In the days leading up to finally getting to work on the room, I let the size of the job overwhelm me. I looked at it in its entirety and didn’t see the possibility of tackling it in small, chewable steps.

Yesterday, though I worked on it for six hours total, I did it in three trenches of time, taking mini-breaks in-between each segment. In fact, my first stint at working on it was for an hour and a half. When a girlfriend came over for tea at 10 am, I took a break.

When she left at 11:30, I worked until 1:30 when Beaumont and I had a walk date with a neighbour.

By the time I returned to the room an hour and a half later, I felt refreshed and re-energized to tackle the job. I’d already made some headway and could see progress. It felt less daunting and I felt less overwhelmed. I counted the boxes I’d emptied, took out the garbage and packed up ‘the giveaways’ and reminded myself that organizing this room is a process of creating my studio space, a space in which I love to spend time.

And therein lies the secret of cleaning up the basement — it’s not about tackling an ugly job. It’s about creating a space for my creativity to have its voice. It’s about stepping into the task with an open heart and mind, knowing that it is all part of the process of creating my soon to be studio space.

I have begun to create the space for my studio. It is an exciting process. A process where I get to be part of designing the space that will be home to my creative expressions.

I am letting go of the angst of ‘cleaning up the basement’ and diving into the joy of building a space where I will feel free to explore my creativity and express myself.

I am loving the shift in attitude and perspective.

Which just goes to show, if you’ve got a big job to undertake, changing your glasses can give you a whole new outlook on getting it done!

No matter how much I forgive myself for the things I’ve done that have hurt the one’s I love, the thing I struggle with the most is forgiving myself for not being perfect.

It’s a not so subtle force, this desire to be perfect and to make the world around me perfect. Its constant yammering to do better, be better, make better of myself and everything I create in the world leaves me feeling dissatisfied and sometimes defeated by myself. Its constant wailing pounds away at my peace of mind, upsetting my sense of being at ease in the world.

In its strident calling out for justice, in its insistence that ‘this’ or ‘that’ do not belong in the world, in its labelling of human suffering and misdeeds as ‘wrong’, in its endless battling against one foe versus another, it denies the inescapable truth — everything belongs. It is all part of our human journey.

I cannot change the world. I can change my world by letting go of anger, fear, denial of what is, through acceptance of all that is when I accept, it all belongs.

Acceptance doesn’t mean I give up working towards change, towards justice and truth. It just means I stop railing against things I label as unjust and stand instead in all the imperfections knowing we are all perfectly human in all our human imperfections, and it’s all okay.

There are many ways to quieten my need for perfection; meditation, exercise, dance, creative endeavours, being in nature, yet still, it raises its persistent voice whenever I fall into the belief that I am separate from the world around me.

Fact is, my need for perfection keeps me separate through criticizing, condemning and blaming myself and others for what I have deemed ‘not belonging’ in the world.

It is in those moments that I must stop, breathe deeply, relax and forgive myself for my imperfections so that I can accept, it all belongs in my world, it is all okay.

It is in forgiveness I find peace within a deep sense of belonging.

What about you?  Are you continually judging yourself and the world around you, creating separation through striving to find perfection in our perfectly imperfect humanity?

Have you tried forgiving yourself in the beauty of your human imperfections?