Opportunities for Growth, Healing and Changing the World

I firmly believe the revolution starts with us. With you and me, working to become the most amazing you and me we can be. Doing the hard work of healing ourselves helps toheal the world. Finding our own light, letting it shine out and spread light to another – that is how the world will heal, that is how we will create the revolution – by loving ourselves and letting that love glow out into the world.

How do we do it though? How do we heal ourselves? Therapy is one answer (and one I recommend!) and there are as many approaches to therapy as there are people in the world it seems. I am in search of a new therapist myself, and am looking for one certified inLevine’s Somatic Experiencing or the Ogden’s Sensorimotor Approach. Trauma lives in the body and these two approaches are focused on guiding you to letting your body reset itself. Each of the sites have a link to find certified practitioners in your area. If you are looking to do some deep trauma healing I really recommend finding a therapist certified in one of these approaches.

There are other paths to healing too. Read more at my new home…

Growth

My daughter is my greatest teacher. I’ve said it a million times by now and will likely say it a million more. While I know this truth in my soul, I’m always surprised how those life lessons from her come through and how I have changed and grown over the years, thanks to her existence.

This year we are making gifts for each other. Money is extremely tight and while gifts from Santa are covered (thank you Gram!), we all agreed that we would only be exchanging homemade gifts from each other. Our daughter requested a peace sign pillow from me a few weeks ago and so yesterday I went to my dear friend’s (and her godmother) home and we made a pattern and made the bulk of the pillow together.

The pillow isn’t perfect. It isn’t what I visioned it to be and I’m sure not what she had in mind.

A year ago I would have been in tears and having a minor rage about how awful the pillow was, how I suck at sewing, how I can’t even make a simple pillow for my daughter, how I’m such a failure as a mother, a human.

The surprise is, that hasn’t happened.

I look at this pillow and I know all the love both I and her godmama have put into it. I know that I will continue to work on it and it will have its flaws and that will be okay. She may or may not notice those flaws. She may hate the pillow, she may love it. And it’s all okay.

My personal growth in the last year is what is amazing and beautiful. My acceptance that I’m not perfect. My acceptance that I do not need to be perfect. My acceptance that my love is enough. My best effort is enough. I am enough.

I’m not a perfect mom. Read more…

Time

This morning, on our way to a friend’s home, where I was to drop of my daughter before I went to work, she said to me “Mama, we haven’t had any you and me time lately. I miss you.”

My heart stopped. My throat closed. Tears welled up in my eyes.

I just finished the semester – the last two weeks I have been focused on writing papers, on school. Not on my girl or husband. It is the ebb and flow of our life.

It’s the holidays and this coming weekend is particularly jam-packed with a wedding, an extended family gathering and then Sunday is baking with a dear family friend. I work again on Monday. Tuesday I’m off to spend time with another friend and to work on my daughter’s Christmas present from me. Wednesday is a play date with dear friends who we won’t see for almost a month after because of the holidays and my school. Thursday, almost a week away is the soonest we’ll have a whole day to just focus on her and me.

I took a deep breath and said “We’ve got a busy week ahead of us, honey. We’re going to have to get our times together in-between it all as much as we can.”

When I got to work I heard the news of the horrifying events in Connecticut. I can’t even begin to imagine.

For my job I’m the supervisor for supervised parental visits with a young child. It’s actually a very rewarding job, getting to witness a parent connect with her or his child. And so I sat in the library, watching this parent and child play and connect, my heart breaking for the families in Connecticut who won’t get that chance to connect with their children tonight, wanting with all my soul to pick up my child in those moments and hold her so close.

Read more…

Ebb and Flow

It’s the end of the semester for me, which means I spend the evenings holed up reading and writing academic papers and do the same for whole days on my husband’s weekend. Monday and Tuesday will be the last two days of being hidden away, deep in my academic ventures and then I will be able to focus on other things, like reconnecting with my family.

Connection is hard for me. Not because I don’t crave it, I do. Yet it’s so vulnerable, it can be terrifying. In the past I’d often use school or later work as an excuse not to connect with those close to me. I could easily dive into academic pursuits or my career and no one would notice that I was using them as a shield to keep people away. To keep my soul safe. In fact, people would often applaud how “dedicated” I was to my career, what a great employee I was and how my success was just proof of how hard work will get you far.

The hard work did get me far. It got me far away from feeling whole. It got me far away from the people I love. It got me far away from me.

It’s taken me a while to get to a place of understanding that connection can ebb and flow. Read more at http://gwynnraimondi.com/2012/12/10/ebb-and-flow/

New home…

I’ve moved to a new online home and I’d love for you to come visit me…

http://gwynnraimondi.com

I’ll continue to update here when I update over there for a while… I just posted a new post that can be found at: http://gwynnraimondi.com/2012/11/30/beginnings/

I truly hope each one of you follows my new site, I’ve enjoyed your comments and support. ❤ *hugs* ❤

Grounding and Painted Toes

A side-effect of having a (or several) traumatic experiences is a tendency to live out-of-body. I have this tendency, and I truly have worked to be in my body – to recognize that something is starting to trigger me, to notice those little body cues that something isn’t quite right for me, and to then act and make it right. Sometimes that action is simply to take some breathes, or to shift my body. I know I have a lot of triggers, and so noticing when I start to react, taking in my body cues and getting my mind and body into the present has been a huge blessing for me and my family. It’s a practice. I work at it daily and some days go more smoothly than others.

Since my surgery I’ve really neglected my body in a lot of ways. I’ve stayed aware of it’s reactions and I’ve acknowledged when things are off and done the bare minimum to get myself back to center. And I hadn’t gotten back to my yoga practice. I hadn’t gotten back to my meditation practice. I hadn’t been doing my body scans and check-ins. I hadn’t actually felt my body since September 19.

And truth be told I’ve been a bit angry at my body too. I have what feels like a kazillion food sensitivities. Of course, it’s all my comfort foods that I shouldn’t eat, that my body and mind react most negatively to, but my emotions crave. The fact that I needed surgery pissed me off and the fact that I wasn’t healing as quickly as I thought I should post surgery pissed me off. My body failed me. I was mad. When I get mad I eat corn chips and drink cola. I eat potatoes. Anything salty and starchy or fizzy and sugary – that’s my comfort food. That’s the food that my body rejects and rebels against.  Post surgery I was eating a lot of these foods. My body reacted in her usual ways: rashes, itching underneath my skin, eczema. My feet seem to rebel the most and my poor toes end up looking like they’ve been through a battle field barefoot.

I stopped eating all the bad for me foods a couple weeks ago and my body has started to calm down. I realized a week ago though I really wasn’t grounded. Not like I had been before surgery and while I was making half-hearted attempts at centering myself, I wasn’t doing the work I knew I needed to do.

Three days ago I started my twice daily yoga practice again. Two days ago I started my body scans. I hope to start meditating again tonight.

What I noticed in the last three days is my feet. While my feet have continued to do what they are supposed to do – carry my body from point A to point B with the help of my legs and hips – I couldn’t feel them touching the ground. I literally could not feel my feet. At all.

Today during my morning yoga I paid extra attention to my feet and feeling them connect to the ground. Feeling the weight of my body through my feet and the pressure of my feet into the floor. Touching them, massaging them as I was in forward bends. By the end of my morning practice I could actually feel my feet on the ground, I could feel the floor pressing back against my feet and my feet supporting my whole body. It was an amazing feeling.

I decided to give my feet some extra love for all they do, all they endure. I gave myself (and my daughter too of course) a pedicure: scruffed off the dead skin, trimmed and painted my nails. I gave love to my feet. I gave love my daughter’s precious fee too. Massaged them to warm them up, painted her perfect toes with some sparkly blue polish. We had a beautiful time together, picking out our nail polishes, admiring our handy work. She even helped me paint my toes.

I happily looked down at my toes all day today, with their pretty colors, feeling the warmth of the recent connection with my daughter, smiling at the memory. I’d remember to feel my feet, to feel them touching the floor to be in my body and stay connected to me and the earth and to not float away.

Practice. Constant practice.

Perfectly timed, as it turns out. One of the side-effects of the treatment I’m on for my endometriosis is anxiety attacks. I’ve had mini-attacks building up for the last two weeks, and today could have been disastrous if I hadn’t been practicing grounding and centering, feeling the earth, connecting myself to the present. I would feel the attack start to build and would breath through it and then remember to connect my feet to the ground. Keeping me connected; keeping me present. It would take time, and slowly the more I focused on my feet connecting to the earth, the less my heart would race, the less my mind would race, the more in my body I would feel and the more in the present moment I would become.

I’m grateful I’ve found my practices to help keep me in the present, to keep me connected to the here and now and not let myself just float away. I’m grateful I’m able to experience the joy of being in the moment; learning to let myself play, to let myself relax. I’m not great at it, I practice constantly.

Constant practice. Someday it will come more easily and I’ll have something else that requires practice. It’s all worth it. To experience the joy that is my life, to experience the beautiful moments, like giving my daughter and myself pedicures, in the moment. Being present, that is the present – for my daughter, my husband and most importantly, for me. 

Painted toes, star pajamas.

Warrior Heart

Trauma sucks. It sucks our life energy. It sucks our joy. It sucks our soul. It sucks us away from our community.

It’s not fair. Experiencing trauma, especially as child, at the hands of an adult who is supposed to love and protect and care for you – it’s not fair. It’s not fair that the impacts of trauma lasts for decades. It’s not fair that even if our minds forget the events, our bodies won’t. It’s not fair that we have to pay the price of what others have done to us, pay that price for years, for decades. Pay that price with our mental, physical and spiritual health.

I had surgery in September. It was to remove some endometriosis. I also have adenomyosis and we’ve been tracking down some auto-immune issues too. I’ve been researching how childhood trauma and cumulative trauma can impact our health as an adult. I wrote a paper on it. I’m working on writing an ebook. The idea of how the pain endured over three decades ago at the hands of people who were supposed to love me, who were supposed to protect me, people who I trusted with my life – literally – how that pain has manifested itself as illness is as much a part of me now as the illness and the trauma itself.

I’m not the only person on the planet who has suffered at the hands of people who were supposed to care for me. I’m not the only person on a path to healing, holistic healing, searching for release, searching for joy. I’m not the only person who comes to places in my life where I think I’ve finally let it all go, only be pushed back with the reality that there is more work to do, more play to do, more healing.

Peter Levine says: “Trauma is a fact of life. It is not however, a life sentence.” I believe him. I believe we can heal. I believe I can heal. I believe in joy, love and hope. I believe in grace. I believe in you and me. I believe in the beauty of helping each other, holding space for each other. I believe in healing in community.

I have battle scars. Scars from a surgery when I was 18. Recent scars from my surgery a few months ago. They are battle scars. They are reminders of how I have fought to take back my body, to take back me. They remind me that I am a Warrior. They remind me that I could have given up, oh so many times I could have given up, and I didn’t. They remind me of the work I have done and have yet to do.

I am grateful for these scars. I am grateful for every single event in my life – the good, the glorious, the icky, the horrifying. I’m grateful because without the accumulation of all these events I would not be who I am today. Without the ick, I could not appreciate the beauty and joy. Without the pain I could not appreciate the healing release and relief. Without grieving I could not have found hope.

I am lucky I can wear my scars on the outside, on my skin. I am blessed to have the visual reminder that with every act of violence inflicted upon me, I can heal.

When I had my first surgery at 18 my only concern for the surgeon was whether I would have any scars. At 18 I didn’t see the beauty in scars. At 18 I didn’t fully appreciate or understand the life long fight of taking back me. I had two little scars from that surgery – one faded long ago, the second now wiped away by the recent surgery.

Twenty-two years later my greatest concern about the surgery was that it be scheduled as quickly as possible, so the ick could be physically removed from my body, so I could heal. The surgery itself was a traumatic event – planned, wanted, and still traumatic. My body reacted with night terrors and anxiety. Once I gave my body love, once literally touched it and said, “This is my body. I am safe. I will heal.” the night terrors and anxiety practically disappeared.

I’m thankful my body calls out to me, tells me it needs love. I’m thankful I can hear my body’s cries, screams, and even more grateful I am able to come running to it and give it love, reassure it, give it what it needs to help all of me heal.

I have four scars from this recent surgery. I should have a fifth, however that fifth one – the one that is really two scars from two surgeries, is invisible. It has healed completely. This lack of scar gives me hope I can heal the rest of me completely. 

I am who I am today because of all I have experienced – from the moment of conception (or possibly before) to this very moment. I am thankful for all of the moments. I am grateful for my healing journey. I am grateful to all those who have hurt and all those who have loved me. I am grateful for all the Warrior Hearts who helped show me the way. I am grateful for all the Warrior Hearts who let me be a part of their healing journey. In community we will heal, we will overcome, we will find ourselves again.

Sending so much love to all the Warrior Hearts of the World ❤ ❤ ❤

(I am dedicating this post to Red Zorah, who is a Warrior, who has a Warrior Heart, who has, since I was 16, taught me how to access my own Warrior Heart. This post is dedicated to all the Warrior Women out there, each one of us fighting and releasing and finding our healing and our joy. I love you all so much. <3)

Transformational Books

I have loved to read since I figured out how at the ripe old age of three. Reading opened a whole world for me – a world of information, a world of hope. Books brought with them whole worlds that were so different from my own life. Books let me know at a young age that there were families out there that didn’t hurt children, with parents who were loving to each other. Through out my life books have opened whole new worlds to me. Today I want to share ten (plus one!) books that have been transformational for me – transforming my parenting, my career, my relationships, my life. These books have brought tears and understanding, hope and grief. Each one deeply touched me, I would love to know how they impact you. (Full disclosure – the links to the books are my Amazon Affiliate links. Thank you for supporting me on my journey).

1. And I Don’t Want to Live This Life: A Mother’s Story of Her Daughter’s Murder by Deborah Spungen. The first time I read this book I was 14 or 15. While I don’t remember much about the details anymore or my reaction to Nancy’s mom’s view of events, I have always remembered the poem written by her uncle for her funeral. It was my mantra to get through the very painful years of my teens and early twenties. The poem let me hold on to the hope that someday I would reconcile with my mother and have a loving, accepting relationship (we did shortly before she died). Now that I have a child of my own, I still hold on to the poem as a reminder that while my daughter is from me, she is not me and to step back and let her life be her own. (The poem itself can be read here).

2. The Prophet by Kahil Gibran. I was a teenager the first time I read this book too, and it has stuck with me for over 25 years. I refer to it for solace and as another gentle reminder to not try to mold my daughter into who I may want her to be and to allow her to grow into her own beautiful self.

3. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. My mom gave me this book for my first birthday and it encouraged my individuality from that day forward. I know by today’s standards the book is a bit on the cheesy side, however it gave me solace knowing that my mom wanted me to be my own person from a young age, even if when that manifested in later years she may not have been so accepting.

4. 10 Lessons to Transform Your Marriage by John M. Gottman, PhD and Julie Schwartz Gottman, PhD. When my marriage was falling apart after the birth of our daughter (and continued to free fall for two plus years), this book gave both Nick and I hope for our marriage. We would come back it again and again, do one or another of the exercises together and have real connection. Although those times were the hardest of our marriage to date, even though divorce was threatened daily by both of us, I really believe this book helped us remember why we chose each other in the first place and is a large part of why we are still together today.

5. Maternal Desire: On Children, Love and the Inner Life by Daphne de Marneffe. I read this book just after I had made the decision to walk away from my career. I sobbed through the whole book, feeling as if finally, someone was saying what my heart had been screaming about my call to motherhood. I love this book, it erased shame and spoke my heart.

6. Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld, PhD and Gabor Mate, MD. This book not only was the main reason I decided to agree with Nick regarding homeschooling our daughter, it also initiated my internal realization of being called to become a marriage and family therapist. While the tone of the book can be a little heavy-handed at times (after further study at the Neufeld Institute I learned that the tone was more the editor than Dr. Neufeld), it contains valuable information regarding how to attain and maintain an attachment based relationship with your child as they grow. It is amazing.

7. The Big Book of Unschooling by Sandra Dodd. This book solidified my decision for our family to unschool. I still randomly open it when I’m feeling overwhelmed with whatever parenting thing is going on in the moment and magically exactly the right words will appear to help me reset myself and be the parent I want to be. I really think every parent should read this book, whether you intend to unschool or not – it is filled with amazing parenting insight.

8. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brene Brown, PhD, LMSW. This  book touched those parts of me that were scared of the new uncharted course I was embarking on (unschooling, career change) and really helped me get in touch with my soul and what I have been called to do. This book also helped me to start the process of letting go of a LOT of shame and self blame for a lot of the pain I experienced throughout my life.

9. In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness by Peter A. Levine, PhD. This is the book that started me on the path to finding the interconnection of trauma with physical, mental and spiritual health. Levine explains trauma and trauma treatment from a somatic (body) perspective. This book (and the course I took that required its reading) helped me further define the work I want to do and how I want to help others on their healing path. It also has some great exercises that you can do at home to help with starting your own healing journey.

10. The Unsayable: The Hidden Language of Trauma by Annie G. Rogers, PhD. Yet another book that brought me to tears. Rogers discusses how language itself can be traumatizing. She shares both autobiographical and client stories while explaining Lacan’s theory of trauma transference through language. It is both heart-wrenching and fascinating to read.

And because I can’t leave this book off the list…

11. The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn R. Saks. This book is an autobiography by a fully functioning schizophrenic. Reading her life experiences, both what it is like inside her head as a schizophrenic as well as the experiences she has at the hands of others because of her diagnosis has had a huge impact on me that I still cannot articulate. Not only has it given me greater empathy for those with chronic mental illnesses, it opened my eyes to the cruelty of the mental health system within the United States.

There they are. Eleven books that have shaped who I am in this moment. I would love to  know what books have impacted you deeply in your life.

Loving Home

There are times when I think I’m finally getting it – you know, how to live a beautiful, relatively low-stress life filled with joy and love.  I love these times, because it is during these moments or hours or days that the universe sends me a  message along a particular theme that I definitely have not figured out. Messages about a piece of life that is negative, that brings me sadness, that dampens the joy of my beautiful life.

This week the message was about home. I read a post from SoulRootingJoyRising.com and it hit me like a thunderbolt.

We moved into our home two years ago this month. We chose our home for several reasons, but the biggest selling point to us was the creek in the back yard. Oh, how we love our little creek and it’s tiny wooded area. We don’t visit it often enough, and when we do… it’s like magic.

Other than the creek, I haven’t had a single nice thing to say about our home since we moved in. I’ve often complained about how it doesn’t get enough light. How our basement is like a freezer year round. How having three floors and no central family space makes me insane. The kitchen is too small and so is the living room. There’s too much space and it’s not laid out well. On and on my list of complaints goes.

The thought that hit me after reading Cassia’s post, is how I don’t love our home. Meaning, I don’t give love to our home, I don’t care for it, I don’t nurture it. I put more and more negativity into it and the piles of mess and chaos continued to grow and my negativity grew with them.

How terribly sad it is to me, the negative energy I have put into the space that shelters us from the heat and cold; that provides the appliances to cook our food and clean our clothes; that gives us the opportunities to shower and bathe. The space where our joy of being together is born, where it is nurtured by each of us.

How can our joy as a family be nurtured fully in a space that I hate? How can the feeling of love and peace be overflowing when all I can do is complain about how the space we are in is all wrong? What would happen if I gave our home the same tender loving care that I give to cooking our meals, to helping my daughter drift off to sleep, to making sure my husband has clean clothes? How much would our joy as a family increase if I turned this negativity I have for our home into a love and awe of its beauty?

I’m on a mission now. A mission to love our home. A mission to give love to our home. A mission to create a space of healing, love and growth for every person who walks in the door, and most importantly for the three of us who live here.

I started yesterday. My daughter and I unpacked two boxes from the garage (remember, we’ve been here two years, still have boxes in the garage to unpack), found homes for several of the items and some of them were put into a bag to be donated. I polished some of the silver (!!!!!) – namely the silver hand mirror in our middle floor bathroom and the small candelabra that lives in our dining room (I used the aluminum foil and baking soda method). I rearranged the living room so I actually like the space (and both Nick and our daughter also commented how much better the space is now). I hung up some more art and took down some pieces that were inherited, that I never really liked but felt I had to keep for some reason (those pieces are also going to donation). Today I hung up another string of twinkle lights to give the space more light and warmth.

I gave love to two rooms in our home and it has given me peace and comfort in return. I will continue to give love a space at a time, clearing away clutter, unpacking our possessions, hanging up our art, arranging the space so it feels like it’s ours. Because it is ours, and we should love it as a reflection of ourselves.

I will give love to the space that has kept us warm in winter and cool in summer. I will give love to the space that allows our joy and beautiful life to blossom. As I would give love to any other part of our life that nourishes us, I will give love to the space that is our home. 

The (recently) polished hand mirror and a new candle in one of our bathrooms.

Seeing abundance

I’ve enjoyed the last week, returning to my life of abundance, returning to gratitude, returning to knowing in my soul I am on the path I am meant to be on. It hasn’t been easy. There are questions still around our finances, the multiple medical bills from my surgery and treatments, the holidays fast approaching. It all can crash down upon me if I let it and I can start to slip and spin into that familiar sense of lack, that familiar fear.

Yesterday, at breakfast, my girl stood next to me, looking through a toy catalog, pointing out every thing she wanted (which was pretty much every thing in the catalog!). I felt myself tense, become angry. Doesn’t she understand she can’t have everything she wants? Doesn’t she understand we are poor and can’t afford any of these things she wants? The guilt also came in, which fed the anger – if only I’d stayed in my full-time position years ago, we wouldn’t be where we are today. If only I’d done this or that or the other thing.

I felt all this negativity through my whole body. I started getting snappy with my daughter “that’s too expensive,” “you don’t need that” instead of enjoying the beauty of watching a little girl’s world expand and seeing all the amazing things that are in it, that she wants to be a part of.

I had no patience for any of it.

I took a deep breath and the tears came. She asked me what was wrong and I sobbed. I sobbed how we don’t have any money for presents this year (but not to worry, she would get presents), that mommy and daddy won’t be exchanging gifts this year. I cried tears, but didn’t share the thoughts, of not knowing if we will have a special Christmas dinner or if it will be simple, unremarkable.

My daughter’s reaction took my breath away. As I’m in the midst of a breakdown about how our Christmas isn’t going to be anything like in years past, she says matter-of-factly: “Mama, we can just make presents for each other this year”.

Her wisdom is truly beyond her five and a half years.

A week ago she and I had this conversation while folding laundry:

Her: Mama I want a peace sign toy.
Me: You mean like a pillow shaped like a peace sign?
Her: Yeah. I want you to make it mama.
Me: I think I could do that.
Her: Really? You could sew that mama? I want it as my Christmas present from you.
Me: I can absolutely make that happen.

I remembered this conversation when she said we could just make each other presents. I breathed in the beauty and truth of my daughter. I breathed in the beauty and truth of knowing that as long as we have each other, everything will be amazing.

I still felt sad, however. I love shopping for gifts, wrapping gifts, having a thousand gifts under the tree on Christmas morning. We went upstairs and I looked in her room. I again breathed in the truth of our abundance. Her room is overflowing with toys. Don’t I often complain that she has too much and need to get rid of somethings because we just don’t have space for it all? Breathing in the truth and beauty of knowing we have all we need and more.

We went into the master bedroom and I started to fold the clean laundry that had piled up over the week. So many clothes. Hers. Mine. Nick’s. I again breathed in the beauty and truth of our abundance.

The day continued like this, where I would start to feel sadness because our holidays will be different from years past and then breathing in how yes, they will be different – we have a peace and joy in our home now that we didn’t have even a year ago. We have each other. We have all become so much closer and there is so much love in our home. I wouldn’t trade the feeling of our home for any material goods.

Nick had to go to work for an hour today (his day off) and so I took a break from studying and working on my business and spent time with our girl. We pulled out two boxes from the garage and unpacked them (this month marks two years of being in our home, and we still have boxes to unpack). The boxes were marked “knick-knacks” and they were all the little statues and figurines that I haven’t wanted to find a home for. Today felt like a good time to share them all with my daughter, plus I was looking for a Mary statue for my altar.

I saw our abundance again. Heirloom figurines from mine and Nick’s childhoods. Gifts from my mom. Pieces of each of us that have been hidden away for two years. There is a small bag of these that are going to Goodwill, because tastes have changed, the realization made that our deceased family members do not inhabit their things left behind, they inhabit our hearts and souls.

I went back out to grab a third box to go through and saw a doll carrying case that was my mom’s. My daughter came out as I was grabbing it to bring in and my eyes lit up  and I told her I found something for her.

We went in and opened it up – it was filled with Barbie clothes and accessories, circa the mid-1950s. There were Barbie plates and a tea set, shoes and clothes (most of them made by my grandma). She was so filled with joy. New (to her) accessories for her Barbies. She ran up to her room, grabbed her Barbie beach house and some dolls and came down to start to play.

I breathe in the beauty of these moments. The truth of these moments, knowing truly and deeply we have more than enough. We will be more than fine. We have each other, and that is all that matters.

I’m thankful for my dark moments, when all I see is the sadness, the perceived lack. Without those dark moments I couldn’t appreciate the beauty of all we have. The peace, sparkle and joy that truly fills our home, our life. Without those moments of doubt I couldn’t become more firm in my faith and belief of my path. Without those tears I can’t cleanse and heal the pain of the hurt little girl inside me. Without the darkness, we can not appreciate the light.