Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that I think some of us forget what it is truly about.  I am the first person that will tell you it is my favorite meal of the year!  I have many health issues with food but this is the one meal of the year I just truly enjoy it! But thanksgiving is really an opportunity to give thanks for all that we have in our lives.

Giving thanks is something that may not be easy for some or may not come to mind in our busy lives.  But if you remember how precious life is and how short it is, giving thanks is not only a gift we give others it is a gift we give ourselves. 

Live is so short.  Tomorrow is never promised.  And many of us are so focused on the future and our dreams and goals that we forget to actual live for today. 

But giving thanks and having gratitude allows us the opportunity to slow down and actually look at the amazing things that has been brought to our lives.  And doing this just because we can is much more meaningful then doing it because we soon may not be able to do so.  Don’t wait for live to give you a reason to give thanks, do it because you can give joy to those that bring that into your life.

I am thankful for my family.  I cannot express into words how much I love them all and how grateful I am to be a part of them.  I am thankful for my friends. They are the family we choose.  I am fortunate to have the most amazing friends.  I truly believe I am a better person for knowing each and every one of them. 

I am grateful for my relentless undying hope.  At times it has been a frustrating trait to have especially when it seems there is no hope to have but I believe that someday it may be my greatest attribute. 

I am grateful for being able to provide for myself.  It has been a humbling struggle this year to do so but that makes the accomplishment all the more valued and appreciated. 

I am grateful to do what I love in work and in life.  My job affords me the opportunity to be able to do both.  I have been able to find myself and take pleasure at being able to work in something I am passionate about, helping others. 

And I am grateful for humility.  It is a special thing that is hard to embrace but if you can find the strength and wisdom to do so, it opens the door to finding the secrets to your soul.

And finally I am grateful for life.  We lose so many loved ones each day.  And with each loss we lose so much of our lives.  But by death we are given the gift to appreciate life.  It is a reminder to just how special each day can be for us and the ones we love.  Live each day.  Squeeze everything you can out of each day because you can.  And if you don’t know why you should, just look in the eyes of someone that has lost the one they love.

Until next time,

Christy

Reflections of a Heart

They say the things we seek are a reflection of what we are missing from ourselves.  If we are confused, we look to others thinking they must surely know the answers.  If we are looking for happiness, it surely must be on the other side of finishing that certain task or accomplishment.  And if we are looking for love, it surely must be with him or her. 

And when these things elude us we tend to think we need to try harder.  Read another book or ask another friend.  Climb the bigger mountain.  Or it must not be the right person and start dating someone new.

But I have been taught recently to look at life differently and understand that what we seek is really what we feel we are lacking within ourselves.  Our first thought is that everything we seek must be outside ourselves but in fact it is not.  And we are so focused on finding what we seek that we seldom try unlocking what all our seeking means. 

I seek love.  And despite dating some wonderful men in my life, love has eluded me.  I am still single.  I do wonder why at times and am sad that I haven’t found someone to spend my life with.  But until recently I never thought to look inwardly.

I never thought that my seeking of love in this world could be a mirror to where I needed to work on myself.  I forgot to ask myself, did I feel loveable?  And did I love myself, with all my qualities and especially with all my flaws?  These kinds of questions seem to make us feel embarrassed or defensive and ones we seem to avoid but they are a key to unlocking the love we seek. 

It was very hard to admit that if I was brutally honest with myself, I didn’t.  A quote really hit me: “We can become masters at climbing the mountains of the world instead of breaking a trail to the center of our woundedness.”  I never thought that the reason love with a man hasn’t worked out for me yet was because I didn’t love myself. 

Somehow I had let the scars of my life change my love for myself.  I had felt abandoned by love and then abandoned my love for myself.  And I had lost faith that anyone out there really would love me as much as I wanted him to. 

I became fearful of the thing I wanted the most. I was so afraid if he really saw who I was, he wouldn’t love me.  From this wounded place, I built a house of walls.  I was alone but didn’t realize it was from my own volition.

I had masked my fear in bad relationship choices and decisions but the reality was I was afraid to be loved even by myself and especially by another.  And recently that fear cost me one of the most important things in my life.     

For me it took that painful experience of loss before I realized what I was doing to myself and not doing for myself. And I began to see how my lack of self love was affecting all aspects of my life.   From this humble place, I realized I needed to love myself again. 

Seeing myself now so raw and exposed, I could see who I was before all the scars formed and all that I have grown since them.   In this new vulnerability, I found compassion not judgment for my mistakes.  And from there came a willingness and openness to love myself again. 

You cannot give more love than you have to give.  And you can never receive more love than you are prepared to receive.  These words helped change my life. 

Love doesn’t take faith. Love is real. Love can be held, felt, nurture you, and learned from. Believing in it is what takes faith.  I don’t think I really knew that before or clearly saw the difference.  And I am eager now to see what this new perspective will mean to my life. 

Until next time,

Christy 

Breaking the Jar

Sometimes you read something that resonates with you or where you are in your life so much so that it feels as if you wrote it.  Or it happens to be the words you need to hear the most and somehow it finds you at the time when you could use them the most.  That happened to me today.  I will share it with you.

A man raised a baby swan in a glass jar, but as the bird grew it became stuck in the jar. The man was caught now, for the only way to free the thing was to break the jar, killing the swan.  - Zen Saying

This parable speaks powerfully to the clear containments we set about the ones we love, never imagining that who and what we love grows.  What we set up as parameters, out of fear or arrogance or even out of the best intentions of protection, can suffocate the very thing we hold precious.

Even more devastating and subtle are the ways in which we jar ourselves.  If our mind is the man raising the baby bird, then the swan is our heart.  Too often, in an effort to protect ourselves from being hurt, we place our soft and growing heart in a clear jar of distrust, never dreaming that the heart continues, like the baby swan, to grow.  Too often, we contain our way of being within our way of surviving. 

This is how we can wall in our hearts over time.  And even the most unassuming and cautious of beings can find themselves having to break their hearts – their way of feeling in the world – in order to free themselves of their hardened clear resolve.

But many of us simply live within the hardness, if we can call such a constraint living.  With such suffocation of heart in mind, Rachel Naomi Remen wisely asks, “Is it possible to live so defensively that you never get to live at all?”  At the heart of her question and this little Zen story is the difference between surviving and thriving, between existing and living, between resignation and joy.

As human beings, our distrust builds a hardened resolve over our innocence, the way that silver tarnishes when exposed to air.  Only the quiet, daily courage to be can let the air soften our hearts again.

                Mark Nepo

I think we all have done this to ourselves in our lives, put our heart in a jar.  It seemed to be a natural thing to do, an instinct to survive after getting hurt or to avoid getting hurt.  I never realized it had a cost though. 

At first you feel relieved and your courage seems to grow.  But then the cost starts to be exposed.  You are safe in the jar but you can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you while you are protected in there.  Without touch you cannot feel.  You may have wanted to stop yourself from feeling the bad feelings of sadness and pain.  But now you can’t feel the good feelings either since you are protecting yourself from allowing someone to try and touch your heart. 

And that is how it starts; you have contained your way of being.  You become an image of yourself looking out at the world through the glass.   The glass is meant to protect you.  But it also affects your vision of the world and those living in it which so easily can become unclear and hazy now when the glass becomes dirty.

You slowing begin to change without realizing it.  And as Mark says so effectively, you begin to survive at the cost of thriving, exist at the cost of living and give into resignation instead of seeking joy again.

It does become possible to live so defensively that you never get to live at all.  You now live in the protection you have built but it is a life of constraint and isolation.  And without realizing it you have broken your own heart.  You stopped the way you felt in the world, that unique way only you can. 

Protection’s warrior was clear resolve.  And that resolve took the innocence of my life.  It armed me with distrust.  And with distrust as my armor I became tarnished over time because I was just surviving, existing and gave into resignation.   

But today I realized if I stay in the jar, I am stuck in here with only my past as my life’s companion.  As long as I stay in here there is no change, no new memories and no chance of new love.  And as much as I cherish the past memories and feelings I don’t want that to be all that I have to look back on after living the rest of my life.  That is too high of a cost.

Awareness is the hammer that broke the jar.  And now I hope I can find the daily courage to be unprotected again.  Find a way to mend a broken heart, a heart that I had to break to love again. 

Until next time,

Christy

Butterflies

We all know that sensation of having the butterflies for someone.  But have you ever really thought about them?  Where do they come from and what do they mean?

There seems to be two sides of them, one being when you feel them.  They seem to come without your control and you don’t really know why they happen but they do.  They can be exciting, fun or nerve-racking.  And as much as we don’t know about them, many have decided to trust them to mean something about how we feel for another person. 

But I ask why do we put so much emphasis on them as a teller of our feelings?  Why do we desire them so much?  Why do we end up making important choices from them? And are they really an indicator of our feelings for another or of our fear and nerves about them?

An interesting point I once read stated “Why is it that in most areas of life, people believe in free will, infinite possibilities and our inherent, natural-born freedom, yet when it comes to relationships, they believe that some are meant to be?”  That stopped me dead in my thoughts.  It was so true yet I don’t think we realize we do it.  We make our own choices and use our free will in all areas of our lives but so often don’t with relationships and love. 

We wait for a feeling or a sign like the butterflies.  We don’t actively look because we wait for fate to jump in with a serendipitous accident to meet someone.  We even get married with an “I do” instead of an “I will”.  Doesn’t “I do” indicate that it is something that is just happening to you verses “I will” which is your choice? 

Many don’t actively make choices about love because of our romantic notions of a greater source controlling or pushing us together.  But how strange is it of us to take one of the most important things in our lives with that approach?  It’s as if we want to believe in things like fate or meant to be and butterflies as an indicator of such so badly, that we don’t make our own choices and take responsibility for our own happiness.  Or is it, if something else is in control we don’t have to take full responsibility if it does or doesn’t work out?   

Throughout my years I have trusted those butterflies and made decisions based solely on them.  Most of the time, I ended up with the wrong man or went for the “bad boy” because of them.  I even knew they were wrong for me but I felt the butterflies around them and decided to take that as a sign, feeling, or reason to stay with them regardless of the facts because let’s face it, facts aren’t romantic are they?  

Looking back, I now realize how foolish or irrational I was to make decisions based on them.  I discarded my wisdom, my feelings and my reason all for the sake of butterflies.  Each time I knew the man wasn’t right for me.  We didn’t get along, we didn’t have anything in common, we argued too much, I didn’t respect his character and so on and so on.  Each time I knew but I stayed because of those butterflies, wanting to believe in the romantic aspect of them.  As if they might know something I didn’t and we were fated to be together because I was feeling them.

There is also the other side which is not feeling them.  I walked away from some men before really giving them a chance because I didn’t feel the butterflies.  Again trusting what I thought that sensation meant instead of looking at and weighing the wonderful qualities that they had, how well we got along or how happy I was with them.  This is how much I think we want to believe in that kind of fated love or the meant to be.  I did. 

Years past and so did many unsuccessful relationships including an engagement because of my naive way of choosing men.  But before actually getting married I realized he was not the right man and I was with him for the wrong reasons.  I made a choice to do the right thing and ended the relationship. 

After that, I decided I would stop trusting those butterflies as an indicator of my feelings for another and begin seeing them as just a way to let myself know of a feeling I was having that needed to be explored more to find out what it was and why I was feeling it.  I realized that they could and often did represent other feelings I had and that my decisions in choosing men should not be made from having or not having that one sensation.

Now I could see that sometimes the butterflies were telling me to be caution with my heart.  Other times I had them because I really like this man and didn’t want to make a mistake.  And other times it was because I knew that I shouldn’t be with the man because I wasn’t really myself with him.  It helped me see as well that not having them sometimes was just as important and a good thing because it meant I was really comfortable with that man and I was at peace when I was around him.  I wasn’t questioning anything when it came to him.  That the absence of that sensation can actually be a good sign.   

With this new understand of my butterflies, I began to stop putting my faith in them and start putting my faith in myself. I began to see that relationships were not meant to be; they were a choice to be. 

When I began to date again, I decided to look more at who the man really was and to trust my opinion on that as to if I would choose to have feelings for him.  I made a list of all of the things that was important to me to find in a man and it helped me ask valuable questions I should have been asking.  Did I respect him?  Was he a good person to everyone, not just to me, his friends and family?  Did we get along and like to do things together?  Did we challenge each other to grow?  Were we good for and to each other?  Did he bring out the best in me? Were we comfortable around each other enough to be our true selves?  And did we have fun? 

And because of my new focus I did find someone that I could answer yes to all those questions.  It was the first time in my life I chose the right man for the right reasons.  That was a huge difference to my past behavior.  I had changed for the better.

This man had so many of the qualities I was looking for.  A character I admired and I really respected how he treated others.  He was kind, pensive, funny, humble, smart, and wise.  He was laid back, caring, hard working, carefully adventurous, had a sense of wanderlust, and an appreciation of the simple things.  He always tried to put himself in other people’s shoes to be able to see both sides.  And he valued family, doing a good job, being a good friend, the importance of time and to choose wisely how you spend it.   

We liked to do the same things but more importantly I enjoyed spending time with him even doing nothing.  We had many laughs, much fun and a sense of ease when we were together.  And one of the best parts was we were friends first.  We had been for years.  But when I changed my focus, defined what was important to me to find in a man and had finally matured more into a woman than a girl, I saw him in a new light and realized just how wonderful and amazing he was.     

I became a better woman because of him.  He helped me see I could be and was too stubborn at times and I needed to let go of my fear to trust and not try to control things in a relationship.   I was challenged and grew from our experiences together.  As he helped me see that showing the softer side of who I was didn’t mean I wasn’t still a strong woman.  He even taught me the meaning of compassion and I was capable of giving it especially when it was hard to do but most important at those times. 

And in addition to all of that, the icing on the cake was I was attracted to him more then I had been for any other man.  We had amazing chemistry.  And I began to realize that chemistry was greater than I had felt before because it didn’t come from butterflies, it came from the time we spent getting to really know each other, trusting him and opening up to him because of who he was as a person and how much I did respect him.  After finding a man like that and hearing how wonderful he was, I hope you can see why I felt like I was the lucky one. 

I looked at my list and saw for the first time that everything was checked off.  I had found that man by deciding to make a better choice and by trusting myself.  The feelings that followed after getting to know him…the butterflies would even be envious of and in comparison they began to look more like moths to me.  That is how much better it felt falling for the right man for the right reasons.  That feeling felt better than any amount of butterflies I had ever felt in life. 

You might ask, why would I write about this now after the relationship is over?  To remind myself when I am down and especially because it didn’t work out, that I should still trust myself.  It is so easy to begin to doubt or question yourself when you are sad and have faced such disappointment.  But I did learn to make a better decision.  I did learn that love is a choice and not just something that happens to you.  I can pick a good man and did for the right reasons. Even though it didn’t work out, I became a better woman from it.  And maybe because before you can move on, you have to truly appreciate what you had. I hope it helps me find courage for the new road ahead. 

You might also ask, but why didn’t it work when I found the man I was looking for?  I don’t know if I can answer that.  All I do know was he said he didn’t feel for me what he thought he should.  Ironically, he was waiting to feel butterflies.

Until next time.

Christy

Moving On

Today is a hard day for me. I found out what I needed to be able to move on. I faced what I should have long ago and the goodbyes have been said and the many tears have fallen. I let go and also told him I can’t be friends as he requested.

It is the first day of moving on. The irony is that it was a very successful day, bittersweet but successful. My head knows this. Now I just need to have my heart get on board.

I think the false hope I had recently, was just my way of trying to protect my heart from the pain. Feel it in stages in an attempt to have it hurt less. It didn’t. I wish I would have felt it all when it happened at the end and I could have saved my heart from so much grief now.

I write in hopes it can help release the emotional pain. Words on a screen…can they even represent a fraction of the emotion from a broken heart? I think that depends on the reader, if they have felt it, can relate to it and have their own unfortunate reference point. I have a new respect for the word broken.

And why is it that no words from loved ones, no matter how kind or wonderful they are, bring any comfort? This time for me, the grief has been equal to what I have felt from loved ones passing away. That is hard to understand. How can the end of love feel the same and an end of a life?

I am also scared I will never find love again. I have been so many places in my life. I have meet thousands of men throughout my life and of those thousands; one man had everything I was looking for. What are the odds that will happen again? I would say they are stacked against me. Even if I deserve it, what are the chances of finding that again?

I also wonder why it could happen, having this kind of amazing love grow for someone but they don’t feel it for you. Seems like such a waste. The world needs so much love, why create something so beautiful for it to be worth nothing in the end? I struggle to understand that.

So in the end I do question, is it all worth it? Is the gain worth the loss? This might sound jaded or bitter but it really isn’t. It is just the thoughts from a woman that wasn't loved. I hope the answer someday is yes. That will be the new hope I have.

Until next time,
Christy

The Irony of Loss

The irony of loss is what you gain from it.

I have gained a greater understanding of myself. I have gained a greater understanding of what love really is. And I have gained a greater understanding of how hope can bring you both peace and pain.

I am a different woman then before the relationship started. But I am also different from the end of it as well. And even through my sadness I know I need to be grateful for both.

Time is passing and now months have gone by at a speed that seems to be as fast as a blink of an eye but at the same time as slow as if I had to watch each second pass on the hands of a clock. I am living them. Of course I have happiness; it is in my nature but also my choice. And I am getting stronger and trying to keep my heart open. But I find that isn’t easy and that scares me.

I still have moments where something reminds me of him and the intensity of that feeling seems as if it can bring me to my knees. Still as intense as the first day I felt them. After the joy passes from the memory my eyes usually start to fill with tears. I try to hold them back and sometimes I can’t. I cry from the beauty of what I feel as well as the longing to still be with him. And after each moment I feel like I have to regain the strength I have built.

The memories are a gift. I am grateful for getting to feel them in life. I am not bitter because I know what we had was real. Even the longing I now feel is a gift. Getting to feel what it feels like to truly miss someone this much is a gift that is as equally as important to understand what love is.

And again I am reminded that I still just don’t know how to move on yet. That knowledge brings me equal amounts of sorrow and peace. And my new understanding of myself has helped me see that I do need to find a way to trust myself again. So I am going to do that and embrace where I need to be and have the courage to stay here.

Until the next time.

Christy

A Heart in Pain is Simply Feeling Love and Loss Fully

I have been told and do feel that I am being so hard on myself lately. But I am beginning to understand why. It is guilt. I feel guilty that I let myself down. And I feel like I cost myself something very important to my heart by the mistakes I made. I know there are two people involved in the loss but I can only be responsible for my part in it.

When the guilt is from something you did to yourself, it is twice as hard to take and for that matter twice as hard to forgive yourself. You know how important it was to you because you defined the importance. You feel the cost of the loss because it’s your loss and you feel every detail of it. And you inconveniently have every minute of every day to examine, analyze, and blame yourself for all you did wrong even when you fight not to because guilt seems to win every battle it embarks on in your spirit.

When you let yourself down, you become your worse critic. It’s like opening the flood gates to one bad review after another, judging you on what you did and didn’t do. On what you shouldn’t have done or should have, as hindsight is always 2o/20. But instead of letting it get me down, I am making a choice to learn from it.

So I humbly take it all in. I listen to every word because I know I can do better and I deserve more. Through all the fearful emotions and angry judgments there is something to learn and gain if I take the time to listen to all my heart and mind tries to tell me. And I owe it to myself to listen and learn from my mistakes and get to the root cause of why I did make the mistakes to begin with.

To battle the guilt I dive into learning and self discovery instead. I am reading books, articles and writing down all my insights gained, thoughts discovered and realizations made to capture all of it and begin to become a more improved woman and partner.

It is like I am cramming for an exam, only this time it’s an exam of the heart or of my character. Studying for a final, only this time it is to prepare myself to be more careful with his heart and mine. And training, only this time to make better choices for the next time I am in a relationship.

So these next posts will be a series. A series of things I am learning. I want to share them to humbly remind myself I am trying to become better at this adventure of life and relationships. I also want to hold myself accountable for the new direction I am taking to self improvement. What better way to teach an old dog a new trick then to capture the words and read them back to myself again and again till I learn to make the better choice and take better care and build the character I will be proud of.

I hope to begin to change my critic’s mind, start to hear the positive reviews and possibly and hopefully find a way to forgive myself from losing something that meant the world to me.

Until next time.
Christy

Happy Father's Day Dad

Too many times we wait till someone is gone or becomes sick before we tell them what they mean to us or how they have affected our life. Today I choose to let my father know what he means to me, on Father’s Day.

I can’t be with him today. He is at his home thousands of miles away and I am at mine. These are the days I hope the memories we have shared keep him company while I am away. I wish I could be with him today.

My dad is one of the greatest people I know. He has spent his life serving others, always putting their needs before his own. On a daily basis he helps people and supports them through the good times and most importantly the bad ones. I could not be more proud of him.

By his example, he has taught me compassion, service, the grace of quietness, the importance of humility, kindness, faith, open-heartedness, humor, strength, the honor of family and above all love.

I am who I am today because of my father’s and mother’s love. They have allowed me the freedom to become the woman I am by having faith in me and letting me live the life I choose.

With that trust I try to take risk in life, understanding how precious and short it is, and live life by not holding back. I try to take risk in love, learning from them to not be afraid to fall in love, it is one of the only things that matters in life. And I try to always learn from my mistakes.

They taught me I am not perfect and should never try to be. But I am responsible for my own life and the energy I bring to others. I should choose to learn from the mistakes I make, to gain wisdom and humility from those moments in life. And if I do, I will be a better person if I can find the grace to do so.

I am blessed to have been shown this kind of love from my parents. I am grateful for it every day. Today Dad, I just want to tell you, I see all you do. I hear all you say. And everything you say and do for me matters to me more then I could ever express in words.

I love you dad. Happy Father’s day!

Christy

In Honor of Beatrice Mary Victoria Armitage Smith

Recently my grandma passed away. I was fortunate enough to have spent the last days of her life with her and I will forever be grateful for that gift. I got to say goodbye. Not everyone gets a chance to do that with the ones we love. I loved my Grandmother and will miss you very much.
When I was younger I lived close to her and did get to spend many holidays and visits with her. They are wonderful memories I will always treasure. But later in life I moved away to Colorado and didn’t get to spend as much time with her. I regret that. In reflecting on her death, I have mixed emotions and am sad when asking myself the question, did I really know her? I know that may sound weird to ask of a family member but did I really know her? I knew her as my wonderful and loving grandmother but she has been so much more in life than that.

What I do know about her is she is originally from England, met my grandfather in the war, fell in love and moved over to the United States. She left her family and all of her friends to start a new life in America with my grandfather. I will never know what that felt like for her. I can only imagine what that would be like. Terrifying and exciting all at the same time.

I also don’t know what she was like as a young woman. Not what she did to spend her time but more about what made her happy, what made her laugh and even cry. I don’t know what it was like for her as a mother, raising four daughters in a foreign country without her family for support in a time you couldn’t just pick up the phone or email them when you really wanted or needed their advice.

I began to realize that I don’t know my grandmother, well as least like I would like to. I have never had a chance to sit down and have a conversation with her, woman to woman. I am sure that we have similar emotions, habits, fears, likes and dislikes in life but I don’t really know what those are. I am a legacy of a woman that I really don’t know as I should.

I regret that. We all are here for such a very short time in this world. And so easily we forget to really know the people in our lives. I mean really know them. Not how their day was or how the job is going, etc… I mean really get to know them and having deep conversations with them.

Conversations about life issues and about what their biggest triumphs and fears are. What choices in life they are proud of and which ones they realized were mistakes they had to learn from. What they would have done different if given that second chance and what they would love to pass on to us as wisdom.

These are things that I would like to know about my grandmother. I won’t have the chance now. But what I can do for her, in memory of her, is to get to know my family and be closer to them for her. She would have loved that. She always wanted that for all of us and I hope that we can give her that and in doing so give ourselves a great gift too.

The Gift of Time

I’m a simple woman. I like the simple things in life. I find joy in a sunrise or sunset, in a quiet moment with sunshine, snow or the wind and being near the ocean or a river. My heart can swell listening to a favorite song and one of my favorite sounds is to listen to my friends and family laugh.

Through all the years of my life, I have realized a very important thing. What means the most to me is to spend time with someone I care about. Time is the most precious gift we can give someone. And I am honored when those I love or care about choose to share theirs with me.

Life is not a dress rehearsal. We only get one shot at life. No do-overs. Knowing that perspective, I value it even more when those I treasure choose to share their time with me.

That gift is the best I have or will ever receive.

Until next time.

Christy