Twistin' the Night Away

I’m a very light sleeper.  I toss and turn all night and the littlest noise wakes me up.  It gets very frustrating some nights as I also can’t turn off my brain.

I’m currently reading Geneen Roth’s book Women, Food, and God.  It’s a really good book and as I read it before I go to sleep I tend to ruminate on what I’ve read and turn it over and over in my mind as I drift off.  The title of the chapter I have been reading is “It’s Not About the Weight but It’s Not Not About the Weight”.  It delves into the why’s we eat and how we might be upset about our weight but that it's really a deeper issue that's going on and that it's not really about our weight.  She states we use food to fill a void in our life.  Just like alcohol, sex, and drugs or whatever other choice of self-sabotage you might use to cause problems in your life. 

Roth also talks about how we have to learn to put the past in the past.  One very interesting concept that had me thinking a lot was when she wrote about adults who have problems with their parents or upbringing and feel that their parents owe them something, whether an apology for how they were raised, or some other unfinished business from their childhood.  How they blame their current issues on whatever happened to them as a child. Her contention is that you are now an adult and as an adult have to realize that your parents are older too and that the dynamics are now different and the apology or changes you needed as a child isn’t the same as what you need, or don't need, from your parent’s now.

It’s funny that I read that last night and how appropriate it was for a situation I had at work today.  I always post the current month’s birthdays on a readerboard in the office.  One of my co-workers came in and asked me to remove his name.  He said that when he was 13 he was so excited that he was becoming a teenager and couldn't wait for his birthday.  But he went on to say that it was also the first of many times that his parents forgot his birthday.  He told me he doesn’t like to celebrate it because of that and asked me to remove his name which I did.  He said that he lets his wife and daughter celebrate it but otherwise wants it to be just a normal day because he has bitter feelings towards his parents due to these past experiences.  

What popped into my head first of all was why are you still allowing your parents to define how you celebrate your birthday?  This is not a young man.  He is in his 50’s.   There is no way that his parents can now go back and ever make up to him the fact that they missed several of his special days.  But he can and should now move forward and have the most rockin’, outrageous birthdays he can.  He needs to make himself feel special and to celebrate himself the best he knows how and not look back.  

It also made me realize I need to fill the empty spaces of missed birthdays (metaphor here), low self esteem, self doubt, longing for a relationship, etc. with joy instead of food for whatever I feel is lacking in my life.  There is no blaming our history or our parents.  There is only the present and how we treat ourselves now and how we regard the future.  I want to follow Louise Hay’s advice and look at myself in the mirror each morning and say, “I love you”.  And I want to have a rockin' good time doing it!  That would definitely be Joylicious!

Dream a Little Dream of Me~

This is an excellent article by David Kessler titled "In Your Dreams".  It is from the Oprah.com website and I thought it was worth sharing.  Joylicious!!!

In Your Dreams - Dreams and Grief

Dreams come in many forms and provide insight into your greatest hopes and fears. But David Kessler explains that your subconscious could also be the key to helping you through your grief about the loss of a loved one.
Here's one woman's story.

Catherine and her husband, John, sat at dinner. John pulled back from the table with sudden pain in his chest. His wife immediately said they needed to go to the emergency room.

John disagreed. He jokingly told Catherine it was probably indigestion, with no negative reflection on her cooking. John was determined to wait it out, hoping the pain would go away. After a half hour, his loving wife had had enough. Catherine practically pushed him in the car and took him to the hospital.

They arrived to a packed waiting room. John, still convinced he was suffering from indigestion, started nagging Catherine about returning home. Though the ER was chaotic and crowded, a nurse tended to John immediately, as patients with chest pains are brought straight to the back for observation and testing. Catherine was left alone in the waiting room, unable to follow John into the back.

Catherine sat patiently outside as she saw the ER grow even busier, one ambulance arriving after another. Then she heard someone yell, "We have a gunshot here," as they brought a patient back. She reluctantly went up to the busy nurse at the desk and said: "It has been 20 minutes. Can I go see my husband now?" The nurse looked up with a puzzled look and said no one was allowed into the back until the ER calmed down.

Almost two hours after arriving, after many visits to the front desk, a social worker stood before Catherine, explaining that John had a massive heart attack and died. She apologized for the chaos and busyness of the night and told her that not only could she not see John, but they were so in need of beds that he had already been taken to the morgue downstairs.

Catherine, in shock, drove home to find friends and family already gathering in response to the news. Catherine sat very still in a chair while family members cleared the dinner plates from earlier.

The phone was ringing nonstop with friends who'd heard the news. An unexpected call then came in from the social worker at the hospital. She told Catherine that she had made a horrible mistake, possibly the worst of her career. She had mistakenly told Catherine that John had died, when in fact it was another patient who had died. Catherine held the phone to her ear with more tears flowing down her face. The social worker went on to say that John was quite upset that Catherine left, as his chest pains turned out to be nothing more than indigestion.

Catherine, of course, said she was on her way back to the hospital. The social worker stopped her mid-sentence to say that an ambulance driver who heard about the incident was already bringing John home.

Catherine put down the phone, trying to comprehend what had just happened. John, on the other hand, was sitting in the front seat of an ambulance, listening to the kind driver telling him that mistakes are often made in medicine, but at least this mistake had a happy ending. As they turned the corner to his home, the driver, for fun, reached down and turned on the lights and siren.

John stepped out of the ambulance like a rock star with sirens blaring. He walked toward the overjoyed Catherine, who jumped into his arms. The family engulfed the couple as Catherine and John seemed to hug for an eternity. After a few minutes so, Catherine began to feel annoyed with the noise and looked to the ambulance driver to have him turn off the sirens. But then she realized the siren was the sound of her alarm clock. It was time to wake up for work. It had all been a dream. John was gone from the living and her life was forever changed.

Dreams often make promises they can't keep, an aspect of our psyches that brings with it a fleeting feeling of reconnection. Many people say that regardless of the outcome of the dream, they are grateful for even a few more moments with a deceased loved one.

Dreams sometimes give us glimpses of other worlds. We may never know how real they are. Some dreams are crazy, others hard to figure out, and some may turn out to be real. We do know that dreams are a natural part of sleep. They symbolize everything from our hopes to our deepest fears.

Dreams can provide us with information about what is really going on inside us. Our dreams can demonstrate the inevitable lack of control we feel when we are grieving. Dreams may serve many purposes, including a distraction from pain or our soul grappling with the reality of loss.

Dreams help us deal with overwhelming feelings while we sleep, an aid to the grief process, as the unconscious mind cannot distinguish between a wish and reality. We may not realize how much we work out psychologically in our dream state. All of us dream every night, but only a small percentage of us are aware of our dreams after we wake. Dreams can become a meeting place between the world of the living and the realm of the deceased.

During grief, our dreams often change. Messages are usually much more to the point and contain signs of reassurance, continued existence and emotional support. When our deceased loved ones appear in the dream world, it provides a respite from the current world of pain and loss.

When people dream of a loved one, they often report feeling a sense of peace afterward, a reassurance beyond words. Some have pangs of pain when they realize it was only a dream, but eventually, the dreams will begin to subside and become less frequent. While they are still happening, they often represent a form of communication, reassurance and emotional support.

The dream vision of a loved one can also represent unfinished business, giving us the chance to complete something that ended all too soon.

Our dreams show us that our loved ones are not, in essence, the sick people we tearfully said goodbye to in the hospital. Neither are our loved ones the bodies we saw at the funeral homes. Our loved ones are healthy and intact, the people we knew and now long to see again.

Who and what are you dreaming about? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

David Kessler is the author of Visions, Trips and Crowded Rooms (May 2010), as well as the co-author with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross of On Grief and Grieving and Life Lessons. Visit his website for more help and resources.

Day 1 - And So It Begins

Today is the first day of my new diet. I went to the hour long meeting last night and we were given an info packet that was about 10 pages thick plus a zip drive with 300 more pages that include the diet founder's book, recipes, and instructions.  Yikes!  Lots of reading.  But what was fabulous was the instructions for days 1 and 2.

The instructions read verbatim, "You MUST gorge yourself and eat as much food as you can throught the day. (This overeating will only be done for the fist two days.)"  And the food list for the two "loading days" as they are called include some of the following:  chocolate, pastries with whip cream, sugar, fried meats (particularly pork), eggs, bacon, mayonnaise, bread, thick butter, avocados, nuts, seeds, coconut milk and oil, olives, cakes, cookies, custards, creams, pastries, cream and cheese.

This is the first diet I've ever been on where I could order a pizza with all the works, cheesy bread,  AND dessert and tell the waiter it was because I am on a diet!  They would look at you crazy!  But believe it or not, I'm only into 1/2 of the first day and I already feel yucky!  I'll be glad to get to the cleansing, low cal part of the diet after these two days are over.  This should be every woman's dream.  Who knew eating so much junk and fat would make you feel so cruddy! 

I'm hoping that this diet works for me.  It is based on my giving myself shots of a hormone each morning that will reset my metabolism.  And, yes, I actually did it this morning.  The shot didn't hurt at all but the alcohol swab stung like a son-of-a-gun!

I'll probably gain 3-5 pounds in this two-day loading period but hopefully it will come off quickly and I will feel fabulous in the process.  I'm on my way to a new start of another joylicious adventure in my life!!  Stay tuned!!

All You Need is Love

I received this quote in my email today from Mama Gena, “Love yourself first, foremost, and always.” 

Why do women find this simple statement to be so hard to follow?  Me included?  Women put their children first.  Their husbands, lovers, and friends first.  We give and give until there is nothing left.  And, in addition to neglecting ourselves and not nourishing our souls, we can be our own worst critics.  Thinking we are a bad mother, a bad friend, etc.  What kind of role model does this show our children?  We love too hard and too much.  We give so much to others we empty ourselves out.  We can lose self respect for ourselves.  We get depressed.  Especially when that love isn’t returned the way we want it to be returned.

I am guilty of loving someone too much.  Of putting my daughter, family, or friends first.  Of taking care of others while neglecting myself.  But, and I’ve talked about this before, how can we adequately take care of others when we don’t take care of ourselves?

I was in a relationship a couple of years ago where I gave so much to someone who didn’t appreciate it.  And they didn’t respect me for it either.  I was always feeling lonely even when I was with him.  I needed to learn to love myself first before I could love him back and do it in a healthy, mature manner.

Of course the relationship ended badly.  And my heart was broken.  And I thought, I’ll just change myself into this great person and he will want me back!  And he did…for a minute.  But the old patterns started again and I realized in the end that I needed to change for myself not him. 

I needed to learn to love myself first to understand and set proper boundaries to have someone love me in return. And now I want to find someone who will appreciate that I feel good about myself and live joyliciously so he will want to be part of that joy and love!  It’s still a work in progress but I’m getting better every day.  I’m finding that I am starting to like myself again.  And to be able to look in the mirror each morning and say, “You are ok.  I love you. You matter to me.”

A few years ago I got a tattoo of a heart on my shoulder to remind myself of just that.  Maybe I’ll show you someday!  Joyliciously fun!!!

Charlie

Last night I was flipping through reading random blogs when I came across one that made me stop and read. It wasn’t all fancy with tons of pictures or a colorful background. All it had was a date and then the author starting writing. What caught my eye were the first two sentences. They read, “I’m in agony. I hope I did the right thing.”

The blog then proceeded to talk about dealing with advanced diabetes, medical procedures, medicines, and trips to health facilities. As I read my heart went out to this woman. But as I read I began to realize what she was talking about was that she had put her beloved pet cat down the previous day. She talked about lying with him for hours crying at what she knew was the impending end. Of him sleeping between her and her husband each night and the love she felt for him. She talked of her sadness at knowing it was the right time to put him down but the hardest decision she ever made. And the self-doubt as she drove to the vet with him beside her in the car that one last time.

I had tears running down my face. But what really got me was as I scrolled down the page a picture of her wonderful cat appeared. It was the twin of my dear kitty Charlie. And I had just experienced a similar loss only 8 months before. Oh how I could identify with her emotions. I still have a hard time talking about Charlie. I want to someday write about his personality and antics but for now the loss is still too fresh. Even after all of these months.

How is it that we become so attached to our furry little friends? They are our other children. Their constant and unconditional love for us. Their need for us and us for them. They provide companionship in good times and bad. I originally got Charlie to help me with empty nest syndrome when my daughter went away to college. I had him for 15 years. He was my buddy, my baby, my angel kitty.

My heart goes out to the woman whose blog I read. I wish I had saved it and sent her an email. But I was so shocked when I saw the picture and crying so much I had to close my computer and go to bed for the night.

Cherish your pets. They are here for us when we need them. To comfort us and make us laugh. To fill us with exasperation and amazement. Enjoy them while you can.

To my furry angel kitty – Charlie! Love you always. Joyliciously~

My Vision and Mission Statements

As most of you know, I was one of 7 finalists in Dr. Pat's Holistic Makeover (http://transformationtalkradio.com/).  I feel very privileged and blessed to be part of this process and sharing my stories with you.  In winning this makeover we were each challenged to come up with a Pay-It-Forward project.  Thus began my blog on learning to have a joylicious life after suffering loss and grief.

Recently Dr. Pat asked all of us to write our vision and mission statements for our Pay-It-Forward projects.  She also asked us to post them on our blogs.  Here are mine.  I would love any feedback or suggestions on how I can make my blog better or future items or stories you would like me to share or discuss.  Thanks so much!  Have a joylicious day~

Vision Statement: I envision women reaching their full potential by learning to embrace loss and grief as opening a path to a new hopeful, peaceful and joylicious life.

Mission Statement: Using my writings, blog, and speaking engagements I will inspire, coach, and enable women to see that they are special and that their stories matter.  That all women can experience a joylicious life after suffering adversity.

Aloha~

In a recent issue of AARP magazine (yes, I’m a member), I read the following: “When Vacation Isn’t 62% of those 45-54 have used their paid leave for caregiving.”

At the time my stepmother became ill with ALS I had over 1000 hours of sick leave available to me as well as 4 weeks of vacation a year and 8 furlough days. And I used all of them to help my father take care of her and then to take care of him when he was in the hospital. I would do it again if called for but I now know, looking back, that it wasn’t healthy for me to spend all of those hours as a caregiver and not take care of myself in the process. And that is why I struggle with good health now.

I think too often women, in particular, give so much of their time and energy in service of others that they can damage their health. Our kids need us, our parents need us, we feel a commitment to our job, our church, our friends. And it is hard for us to say no.

We love our family and friends. We don’t want to disappoint them or feel we are letting them down. But I think we better serve them and ourselves if we set boundaries and expectations and then hold ourselves accountable to those very things. I constantly have to ask myself, “what good am I if I’m so tired or not feeling well that I’m not taking proper care of myself or my father”? If I can’t give 100% to whatever task at hand, no matter how lovingly or willingly we do it, I think we need to ask for help.

And that opens up a whole other issue. Asking for help. I’m the worst. I think I’m superwoman. I can do it all. And I want to do it all. But I have to know my own limitations and not let my pride get in my way. I have to look at is as I’m giving a gift to the people who want to help too. I’m making them feel better by letting them know they are needed and wanted too. That they can contribute as much as me and as well as me. It’s a validation of their worth too.

Let’s all try and take some time off. A true vacation. Even if it is only one day to cherish and pamper yourself. Nurture yourself. It will make you feel better. Then you can pass on those good feelings to everyone around you and it’s taking better care of you and your loved ones in the long run. Joylicious!