Love Walks In

"There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved. It is God's finger on man's shoulder"...(Charles Morgan). How do you know that you are in love or someone loves you. You just know, you feel it. Love gets confused and convoluted in arguments, complaints, blame and negotiations. There are certainly different types of love. You can love someone but not be "in love" with them and vice versa. Being "in love" however is unmistakable and it requires no analysis. The problem with love is that often people already know how they feel, they just talk themselves out of it or don't feel deserving of something so simple and pure, love. I see it all the time in counseling individuals and couples. People tell me stories of walking away from the loves of their lives because they were scared or thought all relationships would be as easy. They are not. Relationships based on a real heart connections are easier. Without the heart connection, you end up battling to feel understood, never feeling like they really know you or love you for who you are. Couples battle all the time because they picked each other based on what they wanted the other to be, not for who they really are. Often people don't truly accept themselves for who they are. It's difficult to attract or sustain a true love connection if you struggle with your own self acceptance. Until your internal battle is settled, you will attract people who treat you the way you feel you deserve to be treated. True love is a gift. It needs no defining. Movies and stories depict the beauty of true love. It is a deep soul connection. Time does not matter. You can live with someone for 25 years and not know or truly love one another and yet with true love, you can be together for months and feel like you've been together forever. Here are some inspiring quotes about true love. "Love has no desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving"...(Kahlil Gibran). "The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread"...(Mother Teresa). "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love"...(Albert Einstein). "Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit"...(Peter Ustinov). I have witnessed some heart warming love stories recently in counseling. One divorced client told me that she had never been in love with her spouse. Now that she is "in love," she is experiencing real love for the first time in her life. Another client had experienced a separation from the person he loved for a year. During that time, he realized how he pushed away the one person he truly loved by hiding his feelings. Now that they are reunited, he is much more willing to be vulnerable. He says that life is much "more fun and exciting" by having her in it. He knows that she brought him back to life. Love brings out the best in you and needs no analysis. Defenses however need to be looked at but love....it's so simple that if you just allow yourself to feel it, it's unmistakable and divine.

Ghosts

"Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower"...(Hans Christian Anderson). Well, it's never a good sign when you find yourself in the emergency room of a hospital and you are actually praying that they admit you. That's what happened to me last Sunday. I had surgery several weeks ago and about a week post Op, I started having signs of an infection. The doctor started me on a round of pretty good antibiotics and I went home hopeful that this would clear up easily. Each day I continued to feel worse and symptoms were not improving. By Sunday, I felt so sick and was starting again with severe chills and nausea and all signs started to point to Emergency! Just to be sure, I called Dr. Mom to get her opinion. We call her doc mom because she lives by the Merck medical manual and looks every symptom up on google. Her advice... Go to the hospital! A doctor friend backed us up on this. So there I was in the ER, so out of it that I prayed to be admitted. The culprit of my symptoms, a very bad infection that was moving fast, that I picked up from surgery. Of course they admitted me and started me on the Cadillac of antibiotics. Monday was quite a blur to me, except I remember the very nice nurse trying to care for me and throwing up everything in a pink bucket next to my bed. I want to find that nurse and bring her flowers. She was a tough cookie and very old school, but she knew what she was doing and she kicked the doctor's behind to get the meds I needed. They drugged me with much needed pain meds, gave me several doses of anti-nausea drugs (which didn't work) and kept pumping me full of antibiotics. I was miserable and couldn't even keep sips of water down. The message of the day, my body is at war, close my eyes and let my body fight. I knew I was a bit in trouble when I saw spirits parading around my room whenever I closed my eyes. I was in an altered state. On Tuesday, I woke up so incredibly thirsty yet couldn't drink anything because I'd throw it up. It is the weirdest feeling to feel like you've been walking in the dessert for days and yet you cannot drink one sip of water. They let me shower eventually, even though I could barely stand, but let me tell you.. A shower never felt so good. Sometimes, the simplicity of things are so appreciated. I did not have shampoo or any of the usual niceties you have with showers. I had a bar of soap that I even washed my hair with. I honestly did not care. I hot shower, a clean towel and a fresh hospital gown, those were the things I came to appreciate while I was in the hospital. On Tuesday, I could finally hold food down and get a tiny bit of strength back. The weather looked gorgeous outside, yet there I was, lying in a hospital bed praying to get better. I didn't care about the weather or what I was missing, I was completely and utterly in the moment, hoping my body could win the battle over the infection. I continued to drift in and out of consciousness, too weak to even listen to my iPod. It was an interesting position for me to find myself in. Suddenly, I was not the therapist, the mother, the friend.....I was a patient in need of others to care for me. For the first time in a long while, I had nothing to offer anyone. I could not dispense good advice, cheerlead others efforts, be there with a shoulder to lend, or take care of anyone but myself. It was about survival at that point. I remember receiving the message to just let go and let my body fight. The other message, let others take care of me. Interesting to note that I even received some texts from clients asking for advice while I was in the hospital. The plea's for help quickly turned them into the helper as they received word that I was in the hospital and many clients sent me prayers and blessings via texts and e-mails. In fact, I received word from family and friends as well, sending me much needed prayers and good thoughts. As I always say, thoughts are energy in motion, so all of the healing thoughts sent my way were music to my soul. I needed the help. I could barely muster the energy to pray myself. A huge thanks to all of you who sent healing thoughts! I appreciate it more than you will ever know! By Wednesday, I was getting some strength back and just to stretch my legs, I did some laps around the unit, wheeling my IV next to me. I witnessed many people suffering in pain in their hospital rooms. One lady yelled "help" continuously for hours. They released me yesterday to continue to heal at home. My lessons were numerous over the past week or so. No matter how bad you have it, as they say, there is always someone who has it worse. I send many blessings to all of the people in hospitals right now, battling illnesses, injury and diseases. I learned that there is only so much you can control. The rest you have to leave up to god and fate. I appreciate the fresh air more than ever and send love to my body for being a pretty amazing vehicle in this life. I know I need to just slow down, listen to my body more and let it heal properly. The biggest lesson, to let others be there for me. I felt more loved over the past week, than ever in this life. What an amazing gift I received from being so sick. When I closed my eyes while I was semi conscious, I saw ghosts, people who had passed over while they were in the hospital. Whether you believe in that stuff or not, does not matter. The parade of ghosts are a sign that life is short and a huge reminder to make the most of this life. "Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't"...(Richard Bach). "When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me"...(Erma Bombeck).

My Ten Year Pin

"Scouting rises within you and inspires you to put forth your best"...(Juliette G. Low). I received an e-mail today asking if anyone had an inspiring story to tell about a girl who had benefited from the experience of being a Girl Scout, who may not have been able to have those opportunities if it were not for scouting. I went to delete it until a wave of emotion went through me, reminding me of a very inspiring Girl Scout story. The main character in the story is me. I started Girl Scouts in the 1st grade as a Brownie. I went up through the ranks for the next seven years, becoming a Junior and Cadette Scout, ending my Girl Scout years in the 8th grade. Those seven years as a Girl scout were significant and scouting played a very positive role in my life. Coming from a home where my mom had been divorced twice and was a single mother raising three girls on her own, I felt pretty lost and alone most of the time. My mom was either working or gone and my father was literally out of the country and out of my life during those seven years. I remember incredible loneliness, poverty and doing a lot of things by myself, even finding a way to get to the meetings on my own. Being a Girl Scout was a saving grace for me. Those weekly meetings gave me a sense of belonging and sisterhood. I needed the guidance that scouting offered and learned so much about myself throughout those seven years. I was taught to value myself through scouting and to find my own unique capabilities that I could contribute to the troop. To earn patches, I learned about cultural diversity when my troop was taught cooking and dancing traditions from other countries. We went on numerous camp outs, picnics and field trips to skating rinks, hikes and movies. My mom could not afford to send me to summer camp, so thanks to very generous people who donated money to the Girl Scouts, I was able to attend a Girl Scout summer camp on Catalina Island on a scholarship. I learned so much during those years as a Girl Scout, things that I would never have had the chance to experience if it were not for Girl Scouting. Scouting also taught me the value of leadership, working together and of helping others, since community service was a big part of my scouting years. Those years impacted me so greatly that when my daughter started school, I wanted to give back to the Girl Scouts by becoming a leader and starting a troop. I am now completing my third year as a Girl Scout leader and am proud to say that I have earned my 10 year pin, for having been a part of the Girl Scouts for 10 years combined with scouting and leadership. I cannot even begin to express my gratitude to the Girl Scout organization, the leaders who volunteered their time and to the numerous other volunteers who made scouting possible for me. Girl Scouting made a huge impact in my life. There are many little girls out there just like me, who continue to benefit greatly by being a part of the Girl Scouts. "My purpose... to go on with my heart and soul, devoting all my energies to Girl Scouts, and heart and hand with them, we will make our lives and the lives of the future girls happy, healthy and holy"...(Juliette G. Low, founder of the Girl Scouts).

Coast to Coast

"All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on"...(Henry Ellis). When I moved from California to New York City almost 20 years ago, I was starting a new adventure in my life. My car went into storage along with the contents of my apartment and I embarked on the trip across country with one suitcase and lots of dreams of what it would be like living in New York City. My first job in Manhattan was at a video store called Champagne Video. I was a glorified assistant manager, meaning I had the title on my name tag but essentially I was a clerk and cashier. I've always loved movies, so working at a video store was a great job to just make some money while enjoying NYC. Yeah, there was some pressure to make something of my life but I needed to find myself first. I was just so excited to be living in a city and state so far away from where I grew up. That was a life lesson in itself. I've met so many people who have never ventured too far from where they were born. There is something freeing about experiencing life outside the safety of where you've grown up. The first year in a new place is an adjustment. I made new friends, took art and drama classes just for fun and spent a lot of time by myself hanging out around the city. Looking back, I kinda felt like the main character in the book "The Alchemist." I had left the safety of what I had known to head into the unknown. That first year in NYC, I had to confront my own insecurities, fears and doubts. While I felt judged by others, I had to face that the only reason I was so aware of other people's perceptions was because I was my own toughest critic. The friends I made were equally hard on themselves. There was this undercurrent of pressure we all felt to somehow "have it all together" yet none of us really had it together. Some were just better at pretending than others. That theme has never shifted. The pressure to have it together in your 20's just transformed into careers, marriage and kids as time marched on. Now that I am in my 40's, I observe more people allowing the facades to crumble. I know that I grew tired of pretending. What I learned the most from moving so far away from where I grew up was to allow myself to break out of who I thought I was to become what I always wanted to be. Who we think we are is usually based on old perceptions and other people's expectations. When we break out, we shake loose those old restrictive labels and allow ourselves to evolve into who we want to be, not who we think we should be. I lived too many years living my life based on who I thought I should be until I just couldn't do it anymore. What I have learned about myself is that even when I was pretending, my heart was always ready to guide me. I just had to start listening. I'm listening now and so incredibly grateful for learning the toughest lesson of all, the repercussions of turning my back on my strongest attribute, my heart. My journey is heading in a new direction as I now plan a move from East to West. The twenty year journey to find my way back to the essence of who I am has been illuminating and rewarding. Like in "The Alcemist," the journey has been my reward and has helped me grow into the person I am today. Now I will proudly yell, "I don't have it all together!" I'm just me....taking life one day at a time, learning, growing and sharing this journey with some very special souls. "All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better"....(Ralph Waldo Emerson). "Fortunately analysis is not the only way to resolve inner conflicts. Life itself still remains a very effective therapist"..
(Karen Horney).

The Birth of a Mother

"Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body"...(Elizabeth Stone). You always wonder and certainly idealize, what kind of parent you will be before you have children. In your fantasy, you imagine all of the wonderful moments ahead of you. Thank god for healthy denial, otherwise nobody would ever have children. The truth is, parenthood is hard work! As my babysitter said today in a card to me, "Holy crap, motherhood is hard...thank you for illuminating how rewarding yet challenging motherhood can be." My own mother did not have an easy road to travel as a parent. She had her first baby at 17 years old, practically a baby herself. Living in a small town in middle America in 1960 meant that there was a lot of pressure to marry my dad to make things right. So, right before their senior year in high school, they walked down the isle. Not surprising, six years later after many ups and downs, they decided to divorce. Their union started with a surprise pregnancy and ended with a surprise pregnancy. That's where I come in. They were starting to separate when my mom discovered she was pregnant with me. I guess you could say that I slid in under the wire. I was born two months early and spent the first weeks of my life in an incubator. At 23 years old, there my mom was with two young children, going through a divorce. I would say that she was initiated into motherhood quite suddenly, with lots of family pressures around her as she was still trying to grow up herself. It certainly explains a lot. Many young women are going through that right now. I learned from my mother's journey and decided to have children when I was older. I did not want to struggle as much as she did. I had my first child at 34, so I had the benefit of more security and maturity before I had children. Before I had children, I would silently observe parents and say stupid things to myself like, "I will never let my kids get away with this or that." Yeah well, you can be the best parent in your head until you are actually raising kids. You find yourself doing lots of things you said you never would. I love this quote, "Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories"....(John Wilmot). I have more compassion for the difficult journey my mom had raising kids while she was still growing up, because even with waiting until I was older, I was amazed after my oldest was born, at how absolutely exhausting and overwhelming parenthood could be. Now 10 years later and with three children, I have many amazing moments mixed in with countless moments that push your patience to the breaking point. My favorite moments are watching them grow and learn about themselves. Of course my heart melts when they give me a handmade Mother's Day card, that they are so proud of creating. They have taught me the importance of valuing how incredibly unique each and every one of us are. I've allowed them to be themselves, not some projected image that I want them to be. In giving them space to uniquely express who they are, I have learned to value myself as a mother even more. I had to learn to let go of a script I had in my head of what makes a good mother and find my own way. It took practice and patience with myself to go against society, family or friends versions of parenthood. I had to trust my intuition, allow myself to make mistakes and learn from trial and error. I hear women all the time, being so hard on themselves about every perceived error as a parent. If your heart is in the right place, children don't really notice that you may have forgotten to go to the market or made them pancakes for dinner because it was easy. Those things make you human. Tomorrow on Mother's Day, I will be hiking with my kids and will bask in every moment of being with them, even when they fight. I am just so incredibly grateful to have these three beautiful souls on this journey with me and couldn't be prouder to be their mother. “The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom"...(Henry Ward Beecher).

Misperceptions

“The divorced person is like a man with a black patch over one eye: He looks rather dashing but the fact is that he has been through a maiming experience"....(Jo Coudert). Breaking up any relationship is a messy matter, complicated with two very different perspectives and a whole heap of emotions. I understand how movies like "War of The Roses" is not always far from the truth. How do you go from saying "I do" to not trusting each other, not really knowing each other and lots and lots of hurt. I look at my own wedding pictures and remember back to how naive I was. Sometimes the goal to get married is the central theme, not how to stay married. I was hopeful way back then and thought that we had what it took to defy the 50% divorce rate statistic. I was wrong. It's no body's fault really. Oh sure, like all couples, when the emotions get stirred up, the blame game begins. The blame game is completely draining and such a waste of energy. Hurt is hurt, no matter how much finger pointing you do. It could probably be traced back to the beginning for the both of us and some major short sightedness we had in ourselves at the time. We can only blame ourselves for the break down of the marriage and ultimately learn the valuable lessons each of us needed. I am a therapist and yet I could not even fix what became so broken between us. I am also in awe in how very different our perspectives are on just about everything that has ever happened. I observe it all of the time in sessions with couples but to experience it first hand is sobering. You would think that he and I literally lived two different lives based on how each of us would describe our perception of the relationship. That goes back to the point I have made that each of us paints our own version of reality. Again, neither of us is really wrong or right, we're just very different. I cycle through peaks and valley's of mourning the loss of what was and what I hoped it would be, excited about a new path and trying to navigate my way through the present moment. In my family, divorce was pretty much the norm and I decided years ago that I would never get divorced. That was a lot of pressure to put on myself, to carry the burden of fixing an issue that was pervasive throughout my family system. I also had no tools as to how to honor myself enough to navigate choosing a partner for the right reasons. That is an issue many people are guilty of. We do the best we can at the time with the emotional tools we have available to us. As we get older, our emotional tool chest broadens and we shift and change, which is why relationships go through growing pains or just break apart eventually. Sometimes, two people begin to hinder each others growth and staying together would just create more pain than letting go. I am human and sometimes the emotional mess is just plain overwhelming. How do you grow as a person, yet deal with emotional fallout all at the same time? You step very carefully, make mistakes, reflect, learn and keep moving forward. I have a long list of positive things that I have learned over the past 18 years and I have grown as a person enormously. In the end, I just think that we never really understood each other. Many divorced couples could relate to that statement. The best gift from the marriage is our three amazing children whom make life absolutely magical. I watch them and am so sure that they are the best of my husband and I. They are the miracle that came out of this broken marriage. As we move forward, forgiveness will be our lesson, so as to not hold each other hostage to pain and anger the rest of our lives. "Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is therefore the means for correcting our misperceptions"...(Gerald Jampolsky).

The Beauty of Intuition

"All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know"...(Alexis Carrel). Tonight I watched one of my all time favorite movies, "August Rush." It is a little known movie that has more heart than most movies released these days. It is a touching story about something I repeat often....following your heart. The movie is about a boy who feels the music and he intuitively knows that the music is leading him to his parents. It is also a love story and shows how sometimes adults can lose their way. It is about gut feelings and an inner knowledge that the "energy" is guiding them. I suppose you could say that the movie is very metaphysical in nature. Have you ever had an intuitive moment that guided you to call someone or to head in a certain direction? Most people have. Often though, people dismiss their intuition in favor of logic. Seems to me that intuition is very much as real (if not more) than what is concrete and logical. We are all actually very telepathic but it is like a muscle that needs to be stretched. With practice and continued awareness, your intuition can get stronger. "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift"....(Albert Einstein). Intuition attempts to give us messages all of the time if you just begin to quiet the mind and listen. Intuition is relentless however and if you keep dismissing it during waking hours, you will be bombarded with intuitive messages in your dream life. Even if you are in touch with your intuitive self, our dream life is another venue for receiving guidance. In counseling many individuals, more people than you might expect have disclosed to me "wacky" moments where intuition was guiding them. Often people are afraid to tell others because they fear seeming crazy. From men and women I hear story after story of synchronicity, messages and dreams showing them the way. You might be surprised to know that some of the most logical guys have secretly told me that they have had intuitive moments. Intuition is an energy that cannot be seen and falls into the realm of spirit. It is our souls way of getting our attention. It comes from the depths of who we are as well as the unseen all around us. It's like when you are heading in one direction and there comes such a strong pull to take a different road. You follow the intuition, just knowing that it "feels right." Later you discover that the new path led you right where you were suppose to be. When it just feels right, even when your logic is sounding alarms, you know that intuition is guiding you. It takes practice in faith and trust to really begin to follow your intuition. We live in a world that honors the rational and logical, so many people are on their own in trying to navigate life using their intuition. The positive side however is that you are not considered too crazy these days if you talk about messages, spirit guides or intuition thanks to shows like John Edwards, Oprah and numerous psychics with books on the market or shows on cable. I received a message in a dream while on vacation that I was going to be pulled over on my way home from the trip but that I would just receive a warning. The following day, I remembered the dream and I made sure to follow the speed limits pretty faithfully. At dusk I was distracted with the kids and suddenly realized that I had missed my turn, a turn I have never missed in all of the years I've been going to Lake Placid. Just at that moment I noticed a police car flip around and turn on its lights. There it was, I was being pulled over just like in the dream. I was actually smiling when he came up to the window because I already knew that he was only going to issue me a warning. He told me to slow down and directed me back to my turn. Once I took off and turned back around to take my turn, I noticed that he had pulled someone else over already. Several minutes later on down the road, several more police cars went speeding by with lights and sirens. Apparently, the next person he pulled over was not just a warning. The lesson was that he needed to pull me over to be in the right place at the right time to pull the next guy over, who was clearly someone who needed to be detained by the police. The dream was intuition giving me a message to not sweat it when I got pulled over. I was also not suppose to avoid it (and couldn't any way), so I played my part beautifully. Intuition offers us a gift every day, the gift of divine knowledge and opportunities to tune into a deeper meaning to life. Honor the intuitive in you and begin to wake up to the guidance it can offer you. "For whereas the mind works in possibilities, the intuitions work in actualities, and what you intuitively desire, that is possible to you. Whereas what you mentally or "consciously" desire is nine times out of ten impossible; hitch your wagon to a star, or you will just stay where you are"...(D. H. Lawrence). "Intuition comes very close to clairvoyance; it appears to be the extrasensory perception of reality"...(Alexis Carrel). "The only real valuable thing is intuition"...(Albert Einstein).