MY HERO

              BY: AINSLEY

One of the people I admire is my mom. 

First, one reason she is my hero is she is brave. She is brave because she likes to do dare-devil things. One thing she did that was scary was she and I went on a 1,200 feet drop Canyon Swing! We strapped in and the swing went almost all the way upside down! Another she is brave is she is a single mom, a writer, and a dog owner. I think she is brave because there is a lot of things to worry about because she has to take care of Zack and I, she has to turn all her stories in before her deadline, and she has to take care of a 9 week old puppy. One more reason she is brave is she is not afraid of what others think of her. She will dance in public if I wasn’t around and she will not care of what people say about her. 

Next, another reason I admire her is because she is talented. She is talented because she can take care of 2 kids and a puppy. Another reason she is talented is she is a fabulous mom. She is always nice and is very strict though. I can’t believe she can manage to take care of us! Another reason she is talented is she is very smart. She can answer anything in a split second. 

Finally, she is very loving. She is loving because she stills loves my dad even though they are divorced. She still talks to him and is nice to him. Another reason she is loving is she loves my uncle even though he is mad at her. She still tries to talk to him even though he doesn’t want to talk to her. One more reason she is loving is she loves all of her family. She never says mean things to them and would never try to hurt their feelings. 

 All in all, I love and admire my mom.

 

It would appear that I have not ruined my children’s lives after all by throwing in the towel on my 12-year marriage. My kids are showering me with cards, love letters, paintings and supportive words of affection. It is sad, the transition of a family into something new and different. But, we’re all doing the best we can. All evidence suggests that I’m doing a bang up job of it.

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I told God and the vast abundant Universe that I wanted more.

“Absolutely! Just open your palm!”

But, my palm was full of stuff that wasn’t serving me. It was making me sad, angry, frustrated and unhappy. Worst of all, it was leaving me starved – love starved – spiritually starved.

But, I didn’t want to let go. It hurt to hold it in my palm. But, I knew it. I understood it. The stuff my fist was clenched around was familiarly painful. Not unexpectedly painful. There is an enormous difference, you know. Sometimes an ache can become so familiar that we believe it is us. And even when we know it’s not, it’s terrifying to let go of.

“I want more!” I shouted. “Bring that first and then I’ll open my palm.”

“Just open your palm to receive! But, you have to release all that junk you’re holding onto first, or you won’t have room, and you’ll drop it. Trust. Have Faith.”

{{{breathe}}}

{{{open}}}

{{{release}}}

{{{gasp}}}

{{{heave}}}

{{{sigh}}}

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“When is it going to be over? When do I get to receive what I want? What I asked for?”

“When you’ve grieved.”

{{{gasp}}}

{{{heave}}}

{{{sigh}}}

{{{weep}}

Break a clavicle, bruises all over my heart for months.

{{{sob}}

{{{gasp}}}

{{{heave}}}

{{{sigh}}}

{{{weep}}

“I love you, Tracee. I love you, Tracee. I love you. I love you. Ssshhhhh, I love you,” I whisper to myself in the dark.

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It’s a brand new baby 2012.

What I wish for you I wish for myself. My wishes come from the Sermon on the Mount. It is the Law, as delivered by Jesus, retold by Matthew.

What you ask for you will get.

Ask for better and more, expecting the abundance of the entire Universe.

Be more clever in your questioning.

Be wise enough to accept the answers.

Release that which no longer serves you to make room to recieve that which does.

What you seek you will find.

Be very selective about what you seek and where you seek it.

Remember you can only find snakes in a snake’s den. You won’t find a cuddly bunny there.

Look within. You won’t find self-worth in someone else. You won’t find your body image in advertising.

When you find what you seek, may you be brave enough to face it with a core of strength and boldness of action.

Knock and the door will be opened to you.

Though you tremble when you knock, may you dare walk through only the right doors with your head held high.

You don’t want to knock on every door you come to. Focus is the key to success. “For straight is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it.” (Matt.7:14)

You don’t have to walk through every door you knock on. You can just peek and let your inner wisdom change your mind.

Some Holy Warnings

Do not settle.

When someone tells you he’s a dog or swine, believe him and then collect your holy pearls and move on.

If you’re sitting under a tree that keeps bearing rotten fruit, ask better questions, then go find one that bears nutritious and delicious fruit.

If someone looks like a sheep, but you feel like you’re about to be eaten by a wolf — believe yourself — you are about to be eaten by a wolf. Run away.

You are wiser in 2012 than you were in 2011. Your life will be richer and more abundant because of it.

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Some of our family and friends have “disabilities.” Of course, yours do too. My kids ask questions about their friends’ disabilities. Sometimes adults use letters — ADD, ADHD, OCD — to describe these disabilities, other times they use words that mean nothing to kids like Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation, Downs Syndrome, Aspergers, Dyslexia, Bi-polar, depression. Usually people talk about these different abilities so negatively. I find this type of thinking limited. I hate that we attach the word “disorder” or “syndrome” to God’s gifts. Has anyone ever met a “normal” person? Does anyone really want to be one?

My kids want to know things like what does the name of these “disorders” mean, what does it mean the kid or adult can and can’t do, what will it mean for their future, will they be okay, should they be pitied, do they need help or special treatment?

I’m not an advocate for any special group, I’m not an educator for any particular disorder, I’m not a specialist on any of these disorders. I’m a parent who wants to tell my kids the truth as I know it, answer their questions and make sure they leave the conversation with respect for the way God chose to make different kinds of people, instead of doing the boring thing and making us all think the same and act the same. I don’t take special care to answer my kids with “political correctness” so if you’re offended, please choose not to take it personally.

Attention Deficit Disorder — ADD and ADHD is the inability to focus or sit still, or at least that’s what the public school system wants you to think. These people are highly creative, have a lot of ideas and find it difficult to focus on one thing. This sometimes makes it hard for them to learn what their teachers want them to learn in school. It makes it hard for them to sit still and be quiet in class, so sometimes they have to take medicine to help them. But, when they grow up, these people will be fantastic salespeople, communicators, marketers, artists and entrepreneurs. They’ll have lots of brilliant ideas and if they can find the right people to implement them before they lose interest, they’ll probably make lots of money.

Autism and Aspergers — These people are born with an ability to think differently than you or I. They have linear engineering minds. If ADD or ADHD is the inability to focus, Autism and Aspergers is the ability to hyper-focus or focus so intently that you almost can’t learn anything else or connect with the people around you. They get fixated on certain things to the point of obsession. Maybe the way things are made or the way things are built. In the school system and society, people interpret this as odd and peculiar. They miss social cues and don’t have a lot of friends, they find it difficult to have deep emotions or make intimate connections with loved ones. But, when they grow up, or even while they are teenagers or older children, they are capable of great leaps of discovery. They might find the gene that cures cancer or make the next leap in technology or computers. They become so focused on one thing to the exclusion of everything else that they are bound to discover or invent something new about it or expand it in some way. They are geniuses.

Downs Syndrome and Mentally Retarded —  These people have brains that don’t develop at what is considered a normal rate. They may have suffered an injury or they may have been born this way. These people are pure and innocent. They connect intimately and they came to teach us how to be vulnerable and love purely.  They find it easy to connect to the Now and stay present and focus on the important things in life. When Jesus said “be like the little children,” these are the people you want to look at to see what he meant. Pure. Innocent. Present. Connected. Open. Vulnerable.

Bi-polar and Depression — These people are highly creative and intuitive. They go up and down in their emotions. Some people stay pretty level all their lives. They don’t have really high highs, they don’t know how great that is — but they don’t know what serious lows are like either. People with “bi-polar disorder” are often actors, artists, musicians, writers, public speakers — extremely creative people who rely on bursts of inspiration to do their work. During times when they don’t have burst of inspiration they experience lows that can be very dark, this is depression. It’s very hard for them because they know how great real ecstasy can be. They are usually brilliantly creative and extraordinarily passionate and often end up famous.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder — These people enjoy order. They like for people to take care of their business because, hey they take care of theirs. They can get obsessive about it. They like to clean. They can get freaked out about uncleanliness. They can be control freaks. These people will grow up and be Martha Stewart or that Walsh guy who who helps the Hoarders get rid of their shit and clear out their psyches. They’ll be IKEA designers, it will be awesome. When ADD and OCD people get married there could be balance or massive conflict – you just never know.

Of course I didn’t list every diagnosis or different ways of being in the world. Just the ones that have come up lately with my kids as they have touched our lives with our friends and family.

I would love if you left comments describing your perspective of other “disorders” and “diagnosis” that have touched your lives and how you talk to your kids about them.

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Author, Tracee Sioux Photo Credit, Ainsley

If you’re a regular here, you know I spent the summer battling depression and anxiety. Beating down old demons and wrestling dragons from my past that would creep up on me in unexpected ways. And learning to let go. It was excruciating. Here’s that post if you’re interested.

When I was done with that — and properly medicated — I felt like I was staring at a blank page. Just sort of waiting for what was next. Not in pain anymore, and greatly relieved about that. Just waiting for my next wave of inspiration, in anticipation. Here is that post.

Well, the day after Ainsley’s 10th birthday party I woke up in an inexplicable frenzy. I went down to the basement to the “storage room.” and began to clean. In this room is everything no one in the house wants to deal with. Boxes we have not unpacked since we moved from New York in 2002. Shamefully, I found boxes I packed upon leaving Morro Bay, Cal. in 1999. We were “box hoarders” keeping every shoe box, every box from items we purchased from last Christmas and since, every Amazon box – why?

I won’t bore you with everything in that room. Crap we don’t need. Crap that’s not in my house anymore. And I haven’t stopped. Everyday I’ve just been seeing piles of stuff, clutter, magazine racks, book shelves with books I’ve already read, boxes in the garage full of stuff we don’t want, shoes that don’t fit anyone. OUT!

It feels so good and it has set my Creative Energy FREE!

My creative energy is sky rocketing as a result. I’m taking risks where I wouldn’t have before. I have a freelance marketing gig from this stuffy baby boomer CPA who hadn’t updated his marketing material in 20 years. I wrote this hilarious, hip and edgy marketing piece and it was brilliant! I mean it really was brilliant! I threw caution to the wind and sent it to them. They LOVED it. It wasn’t at all what they were expecting and they loved it!

I’m redecorating everything. Picking edgy paint colors that make my heart sing! Peacock for my bedroom and bathroom, and I’m going to mix in fine grained silver mica so it shimmers! I’ve made two art pieces for the basement and made bright orange curtains with Ikea graphic prints and I’m painting the room candy apple green! My living room kitchen area has been reorganized and the walls are going to be butternut squash. I think I’m going to graffiti the walls on the stairs with words like Love, Dream, Joy or I’ll scribble inspiring phrases or whatever else I feel like painting!

In my Anasara yoga class this morning my teacher said the New Year is coming and she suggested we pick a word to hang onto for the year, and mine is RELEASE!

Just the idea of releasing makes me feel so free. The more I think about it the more liberated I feel. Not only is cleaning out all the extraneous stuff in my life symbolic of releasing all the stuff I don’t need or want, but it’s freeing me to be more creative.

The more I think about releasing the things that frustrate me the more it frees me — wanting to weigh 125 pounds, wanting to write a best-selling book, smoking (I released it last week), drinking beer (I released it last week), having specific financial goals, making specific goals in general and then striving constantly to achieve them, having expectations, stories about my past, judgments about what other people are doing and should be doing, having specific ideas about what will make me happy and what will make me unhappy — the idea of making it my spiritual practice to just release these things into the wind, and letting God handle it, is exhilarating and liberating.

I’m releasing.

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