Awe-summ in 7

My friend Cat over at 4 Nuts in a Shell tagged me to tell what I thought was "awe-summ" about myself. I had been challenged to do that by Christina over at SoloMother some time ago (hers was 10 things), so I'm not going to brag all over again (especially because it was so darn hard to come up with those 10 things to begin with. No, seriously, it took me forever to think of them), so I'll just link you to that post here.

I've been instructed to tag 7 Bloggers that I think are awe-summ to post a list of their own, but I've always been a tiny bit of a rebel so I'm not going to single out any Blogger in particular. Here's the deal, if you take on this "assignment", lol, just post your own "Awe-summ in 7" in which you state 7 things that are truly awesome about you, and then leave a comment here on this post so that I can go check it out and leave comments agreeing that yes, you are indeed, AWE-SUMM!!! :-)

So Grateful

So, this past week has been filled with a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. My birthday and the day after left me feeling a bit 'blah", to tell the truth, and I was worried I was getting a case of the Birthday Blues. Luckily for me in the beginning of May I had signed up to do the Landmark Forum the weekend after my birthday. It was truly, aside from having my son, the most transformative experience I have ever had. I was a bit skeptical going into it, because when you Google the Landmark Forum you get all this "cult" stuff about them. I can understand that though, I mean, Christianity, Islam, even Buddhism were all cults when they started out because their perspective was so radically different from what was being taught at the time. The thing is, one of the closest people in my life to me did the Forum in April and I saw with my own two eyes the positive change it had on her. I knew then I didn't really have anything to lose anyway; I'm way too level-headed to get sucked up into drinking Jim Jones' Kool-Aid. She assured me that it was nothing like that, and she too is one of the most practical and level-headed people I know. She had become so free from all the tension and negative intensity that had ruled her life for so long after the Forum. She seemed so much more peaceful and contented, still her, but like a Her 2.0 version of herself, lol. The changes in her were so pleasant and positive.

By the time I signed up, I was in desperate need of a pleasant and positive change.

It's not a very easy experience to describe, except to say that it transforms the way you look at yourself, your past, and your life. Indeed, life in general. I feel free in a way I haven't since childhood. I have been given the gift of a release from the burdens of the past to create my life and my future. What a gift. Happy Birthday to me!

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Landmark Education, and David Ure, my Forum Leader this past weekend. They surpassed what I thought possible -- and now everything will surpass what I thought was possible. I am so grateful that I went. I know things will still pop up from time to time, and that life itself will present challenges that may still frighten me, but now I have powerful tools and a much, much cleaner canvas from which to create the life I choose to live. For that, I am so very grateful.

Tomorrow Starts My Own Personal 'New Year'

I turn 36 tomorrow. There, I said it. The big 36. I am no longer in either of the "cool groups" you check off on questionaires: 18 - 25, or 26 - 35. No, now I'm in the 36 - 45 age group. Yeah, uh huh, I'm middle aged. What the . . . ??? When did that happen? I don't look middle aged. Middle aged??? WHAT THE . . . ??????

Lol, I'm not really having a mid-life crisis (although I fully expect to be alive until I'm 102, so technically I won't be middle aged until I'm 51). I'm just realizing that I'm no spring chicken anymore. I've never really felt young anyway, so that hasn't changed. I've always been referred to as an "old soul", and I certainly have always felt that way, since I was a little kid. Teachers, my mom's friends, family members, and just random adults always said I was such a mature kid -- almost too much so. I'm only now learning how to "let go", as it were. One of my friends actually calls me "Grandma" because I act like such an old lady sometimes, and she's a year older than I am! So, it's not that I don't want to feel old, because I've actually always felt old. I'm just beyond amazed at how quickly my life has gone by. And the older I get, the quicker it all seems to go! Now with Theo in my life, I would love if it slowed down a bit so that I can enjoy every moment of this journey with him while he is still so small. I know I'm asking for the impossible though.

I'm actually looking at this birthday as the beginning of my own personal New Year. I plan to wipe the slate clean of as much of my past as possible and go forward with a lighter load and a brand new canvas that I can paint anyway I choose. And what do I choose? Happiness. Peace. Love. Everyday -- no matter what. Because in the end, I have a funny feeling that those are the only things that truly matter.

I'm just glad I don't look my age. Everyone says I look younger than I am, and that helps a lot! :-)

Uhm, what do you think; I don't look 36, do I?

Karma

For many, the idea of karma is not a foreign one. Even if you don't use that particular word, you might believe in it as "you reap what you sow", or "what goes around comes around". It's the same thing, really. And I'm dealing with a serious case of it now.

Have any of you ever done something, whether through fear, poor judgment, greed, or any other reason, that maybe you THOUGHT you got away with, but eventually came back to bite you on the butt? Did you whine and complain that it just wasn't fair -- other people get away with murder, literally, and here you are getting caught for something far less than that? Or did you handle the consequences with grace and humilty, accepting what you are reaping and trying to understand the lesson in it all?

I haven't killed anyone, don't worry (lol), but I made a mistake and now I will have to pay for it. I think that although I know the actual paying for it will be difficult, I can accept that even if it takes its time, karma always plays out, and that I just have to pay for my mistake, focus on moving forward, and remind myself that I am still a very good person. Even truly good people make mistakes.

To all of you who have made mistakes that seem huge to you, and have tried to handle it with as much grace as possible, I salute you. It certainly ain't easy to do.

Gift Card Giveaway and New Family Events Article

My new friend, Cat, was the winner of the $50 Stop & Shop Gift Card giveaway! She is the Mama Nut over at 4 Nuts in a Nutshell. Her blog is a great family-friendly read, so be sure to stop by and show her some love.

I've written a new NY Family Events article over at Examiner.com that lets you in on a secret: every third Friday, you can take the family to the South Street Seaport for FREE! This is during select hours only, so check out the article here.

So, after the spiritual high of reading Eat, Pray, Love, I've decided to stay in that same place and have just begun reading Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth. I read The Power of Now several years ago and it was without a doubt one of the most important books I've ever read. His book Stillness Speaks is one of those books that I bought years ago and waits patiently for me on my bookshelf. I probably should read that one first before reading A New Earth, but A New Earth is calling me, so I'm going to listen. I have a feeling that I am going to be grateful for the inner calm it is sure to bring me. I have quite a bit on my plate now and I will need a calm spirit to navigate through it all.

Balance

I just (finally), finished reading the book Eat, Pray, Love. I know, I know, I'm probably the only American adult over 21 who hasn't read it already. When it came out I had just given birth to Theo, so suffice it to say I was a bit too preoccupied to read. I guess the fact that I just got around to reading it and Theo turned 20 months old this past Friday, gives you some indication of just how preoccupied I've been, lol.

What tends to happen with me and books usually causes a delay in reading them anyway. That is to say, what happens is that I usually find a book, (whether through hearing about it or browsing through online or brick-and-mortar bookstores), I buy it, and then it usually sits on my bookshelf, sometimes for years. I'm not kidding - I bought Eat, Pray, Love in 2007! I truly feel though, that there is a part of my consciousness that recognizes that I will benefit in whatever way from reading a particular book and then buys it, and somehow I always start reading that book precisely most when I need to. Like Eat, Pray, Love for example. I'm sure that the millions of people who read it all got different things from it, but I would hazard a guess in that everyone got one message from it -- the importance of balance. This lesson, I'm afraid, is one that seems to still be an ongoing one for me - and it is a lesson that I am in the midst of trying to fully learn.

I love too hard. In pretty much all of my relationships. Because of this, I tend to give too much of myself to my son and not enough to myself. I justify this well though -- I am a single mother, and he is still very, very young. A baby still, really. And because of this, he needs his Mama, and I need to focus on him and his needs. I am okay with this -- for now. Much sooner than I even know, that dynamic will change and I will have to start focusing on what I need.

I eat too hard. By that I mean I looooooooove to eat -- mostly things that are on the South Beach Diet's "never ever eat" list. And mostly in huge, NFL sized portions. When I decide that I must change my eating habits to get healthy and lose weight however, I go all the way over to almost asceticism -- depriving myself of almost everything I love to eat most, and there really needs to be balance in that.

I think too hard. I think that it is very important to be a thinker, an analyzer, and a self-processor, but as discussed in my previous post, I suppose even that can go too far. I've been told that I "think too much" pretty much all of my life. I used to think that was a laughably stupid thing to say - how can anyone ever think too much? Now, I get it. You'd think after 7 and a half years of being a practicing Buddhist I would be able to cultivate a calm mind and get past mere thinking into inner knowing. Sooo not there yet.

I feel as if I'm on the precipice of big things in my life. Maybe never bigger than being a mother, but close. I feel as if the changes to come will temper me, in both firey and gentle ways, into becoming the me I was always meant to be. I am not growing away from my past self, I am growing fully into my future self. For that knowledge, I am grateful. And for the balance in my life that growth is sure to bring, I am also grateful.

Now, I am off to have a non-fat yogurt with organic blueberries for breakfast. But for lunch, I think I'm gonna get a pizza with extra cheese!

How's This For A Kick In The Pants . . .

My therapist said I was too challenging! And not in a good way either. She basically said that she found it hard to be my therapist because I was so challenging. So now I can add her to my list of ex-boyfriends -- people who think I'm too much of a challenge, and people I never want to see again.

No, seriously. She said because I was so adept at self-processing I made it seem like I wasn't open to the process of therapy, and when I told her of course I am -- here I am, sitting in a therapist's office once a week for the past month, something I wouldn't do if I wasn't open to the process, she said that I seemed guarded and that she didn't know if I was accessible. Now, she's had some really good insights about me -- the best being that it would seem that in my relationships with men, I tend to want to have a connection with them but as soon as they disappoint me in any way that I pull all the way back and become overly independent. That I need to find balance (no secret there), in order to maintain healthy relationships. She also said that because I have some Daddy issues (as do most women, I'm sure), that I tend to look for perfection in my man, and then when he eventually falls short of said perfection, I drop him like a hot potato. Very true. More balance needed there. Got it.

But this whole "being too self-processing" thing? I told her that I always thought that being able to self-process, be introspective, and to be self-analytical were gifts! That these gifts allowed me to correct ways of thinking and behaving that were negative, unhealthy, and unproductive. That I've changed a lot in my life -- for the better -- because I was able to self-analyze and see where I needed to do things differently. Well, she actually said I do too much, that the fact that I have done a lot of research on things to help myself over the years was a sign of being overly independent, and that I needed to allow for the process of therapy to act like a "guided meditation" so that I'm not always doing it alone.

No shit, lady. Why do you think I'm in your office?

She made it all seem so negative though. I have another appointment for next week, but I'm SERIOUSLY considering getting another therapist. I am well aware that therapy is a relationship, and that you have to find the right therapist for you -- not all of them will work well with you. I had hopes for this one, but I left her office today feeling bad about myself, as if I was a screwed-up person for being "overly" independent, self-processing, and proactive about researching subjects that would in any way be of help to me. I was choking back tears as she oh-so-gently told me I was too much of a challenge, and that maybe she needed to rethink how she was going to go forward in our therapy meetings. Then she said if I was willing to come back and give it another "try" she was willing as well. The smart-ass in me wanted to tell her it wasn't my fault that her other patients were dumb as friggin' rocks and had no intellectual, emotional, or spiritual depth -- and that because of that she had grown complacent and lacked the skills to treat a highly evolved neurotic as opposed to the low-brow whiners she must see all day.

I kept it to myself though.

I just can't believe it. Even my damn shrink thinks I'm too much of a challenge. Un-friggin'-believable.