Strange Day

I have been very productive and active recently. We have stayed on top of our schedule and so through to completion things needing to be done. I have upped my workouts and they are kicking my butt. It is a good thing. I love it. But I am tired so I decided to take the day off to rest.

My goodness, it has sucked.

The kids and I are all feeling wimpy and whiny. I think we may all be on the verge of throwing fits. We are NOT on our best behavior, not one little bit. It is pretty brutal around here.

If you know me, you will know I can let this experience go by without examining it. It isn't in my nature. Once a dear friend said, "Karen, sometimes you are just in a bad mood and that is the way it is. Don't you agree?" I gave a resounding no to that. I believe my moods always have a starting point, a seed they have grown from to blossom into whatever they choose to be.

First, I am going to let my little ones off the hook. I am pretty sure this whole day can be dumped at my door for the reason. I am empathic and feel other people's emotions. I have given birth to two gorgeous babes who are also affected by other people's emotion. Not surprisingly, they are probably most affected by the emotions of moi. Suprise. Suprise. Right?

So they are off the hook. Poor things are just channeling momma.

I am fairly exhausted. Like I said above I have really increased the intensity of my workouts. I have a plan for my first year of my 40's but that is a different post. What I think is truly the matter is I have been digging deep spiritually. I have spent more time practicing yoga, meditating, and praying. Actually, it is a great time of growth for me and it is wonderful. But in all things with the good comes the bad. I have found a lot of yuck and nastiness coming out that must be dealt with decisively. Baggage, old emotions suppressed, questions, fears, many things have come to light. In the end, it will be a very good thing to deal with and slough off these negative things but it is exhausting right now.

But then I ran into a little gem of wisdom. I am still chewing on it and thinking about it. Here it is,

"Do not allow yourself to fall apart or it will become a habit. Practice being strong."

The quote is from Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Just want to give credit, you know.

Anyway, it is very timely for today. I am really feeling awash in negative emotions. It would be easy to lie down and just fall apart a little. But would that do any good? Would that care for my children? Would that care for my soul, my spirit? No, it would just leave me feeling defeated and more exhausted. So I need to practice being strong.

Now I do not believe this means I need to repress or deny my emotions. They are what they are. They need to be dealt with or they will, ultimately, control me whether I realize it or not. But I can choose how I deal with them and at what speed. I can say, today I will deal with the idea of guilt and shame over this particular failing or perceived failing. When I have dealt with that I am going to take a break and then maybe deal with something else, if I am up to it.

There is some pretty serious upheaval going on in my head. I think there will be some things I won't want to confront or seriously consider but I must. If I don't, I think I will be stagnant in my growth and the result will be more akin to chasing my own tail rather than continuing on the journey and path I know I am meant to explore.

I am just grateful I trust God will give me the strength and the wisdom to persevere and see this through.

Embracing My Insanity

Okay, this is crazy but I am going to do it anyway. I am going to run the Rock n' Roll St Louis FULL marathon. I cannot believe I would even want to but I really, really do. So that is exactly what I am going to work toward.

This is huge for me in ways hard to describe. I am a nit-picking, self-doubting perfectionist. I have often sabotaged my own accomplishments so I couldn't actually fail due to lack of ability. But even sneakier, I just didn't try someting unless I was almost certain I could finish easily and close to perfection. I did not truly have self confidence.

I have been reading Donald Miller and he talks about "inciting events". Basically, it means unless we have something push us down a hard path we will most likely continue along the comfortable, familiar path we are on. Even if it is a bad path for us, we will continue to plod along the path because it is the path we know. It takes a major event to steer us differently.

Running the half marathon was my inciting event. I am not even sure how I intially committed to it. I believe I was sort of just talking trash but then people found out about it. There were so many times I wanted to quit but continued because too many people knew and I didn't want to admit I was quitting. I am so very glad I didn't. I am so glad I continued to work harder and so above my comfort zone in order to not be humiliated. It changed everything.

Completing that difficult and emotional event finally gave me the self confidence I have been lacking. Failure lost most of its scariness. I now know I can go out and try to accomplish some pretty crazy things and as long as I really try, there is no shame in failure. Actually, there is just alot to be learned.

So now I am challenging myself to the next crazy event, the full marathon. I am going to train hard over the summer. I know it will be another difficult and life changing experience but this time, I am looking forward to it.

I Want to Train for Cirque du Soleil

Okay, I ran into another blog post over at A Whole Lot of Hoop Love (sorry I can't figure out how to embed and I am excited about my subject) about the things she wants to do to be a circus performer. I totally get where she is coming from with this. I really do. You see, I have a whole plan laid out on my journey to train for Cirque du Soleil. Do I think I am going to get there?? Well of course not, I am an almost 40 year old women with two small children. I am neither young/flexible enough nor free from responsibilities enough to run off to join any circus. But the journey, oh my the journey will be AMAZING!! I already hoop and I will take classes for my doubles and minis soon. I want to learn more poi over the summer. I intend to take belly dancing lessons soon. And then the coolest, coolest part, AERIALS! Bumbershoots here in St Louis has classes for both aerial silks and aerial hoop. Hubs says go for it!! (Love, love that man. He truly is coolest hubs evah!!!!) So that is my plan for the next 6 months or so, to explore the creative and physical side of the circus-y type arts. They are so elegant, beautiful, and let's be honest, downright gorgeous. It is just the kind of beauty in my life and my world that makes me happy. I just had a morning with my amazing friend Sarah. Seriously, she is one of the most beautiful and light filled souls I have ever met. My week is better from the visit. I know my life is better because of the friendship. Anyhoo, we were discussing my let's call it gregarious and inhibition free personality. I wasn't always like this. I used to be caught up in the world and the rat race that so aptly describes it. I used to think I will be happy and really start living my life when... oh fill in the blank. It didn't matter what is is but it held me back. One day I thought, I am done. I am living today for today and living a life that I am proud of and makes me happy. And that is what I did. And now what makes me proud and happy is to train to be a circus performer. I love my life. It is so cool to me.

Extract Your Foot From Your Mouth and Try Again

I have noticed lately that I have not been as kind, loving, or compassionate as I long to be. I have found myself to be impatient, acerbic, and not very pleasant. I so dislike being this way, I truly do. I understand completely when Paul says he does things he doesn't want to do and doesn't do things he desperately wants to do. I completely get it.

Words are some of the most intense weapons we have. They truly can encourage, comfort, and empower or they can destroy, negate, and horrify. They are more powerful than most of us realize. God gave me a gift with words. If I quiet my mind and open my heart, I can often find the words someone needs to hear. I can convey that even if I don't understand, I really care about them and their pain. So many of us really just want to be Heard with a capital H. We want to know someone really does care about what we are saying and what we are dealing with at that moment. We need that intimacy. It has been an amazing blessing. I think it is often the Holy Spirit speaking through me in those quiet moments. I don't know for sure but I can tell you the words just sort of come forth.

There is a dark side to this gift. I also have the ability to use words as a sword that can cut to the heart. My words can come fast and furious pummelling whomever they are directed. It is a defense mechanism and an extremely ugly, hateful one. It is probably the trait I dislike the most about myself.

It is interesting this gift can be a blessing or a curse depending on how I choose to use it.

Today I was praying and I decided to make a conscious effort to get back on the path of love I chose to follow. Here is my Facebook post:

Today I pray that all of my communications, whether with my precious babies or complete strangers, will be filled with love, grace, kindness, and compassion. So often I have a quick, witty, and biting retort locked, loaded, and ready to go. I pray to change that habit and replace my bitter ammunition with words that encourage, fill others with hope, and shows the love of Christ that shines through me.

I am sure you can see where this is going. I went to the gym, there was a dust up, someone was nasty, and I shoved words right down her throat. I marched to my car in (self) righteous indignation. As I drove away, the light dawned on my, and my spirit curled up within me and hid its proverbial head.

Epic Fail.

Ack!! It is just humiliating and humbling. Just not a fun thing to deal with. I will apologize when I see her. But you can't take words back. She will bear a small scar of where I plunged in an ever sharp, ever waiting, ever eager verbal knife. It doesn't matter nearly as much how people treat us or speak to us, it is how we respond to them that defines us. I am not advocating becoming a door mat, not at all. But I truly believe we can comport ourselves with grace, compassion, mercy, and love even when someone verbally attacks us. That is what I am aspiring to do.

So I failed. But that is okay. It really is because I can learn from this. I can allow this situation to better refine me for the future, smooth out more and ever present rough edges. Hopefully, it will teach me to be more graceful in the future. Hopefully, it will teach me more about love.

That is what I have going on today. I am exploring the new found fact that I, apparently, have a foot shaped mouth.

Holy Overtraining Batman!!

Lately I have been crabby, grouchy, tired, out of sorts, unable to sleep, and in general, a malcontent. I seriously did not have a clue what was going on. I have thought hard about all the facets of my life to see what was going on with me. I finally figured out that my diet was trashed. We have been eating out far too much and even though I made the "healthier" choices, they were not nearly as healthy as when we eat at home. But I have been too tired, stressed, and crazy to cook like that. It was too much!

Then I started to think, I really have been very anxious and stressed lately. There is no reason for me to be that way. Life is good. I don't really have alot to worry about. So what was going on? Perhaps I was developing an anxiety disorder? Maybe I was going to need meds? What was I going to do? The more anxious I was, the more the kids, surprise surprise, were acting out resulting in momma being even more tightly wound. Seriously, not a recipe for success and happiness. In fact, we are spinning out of control quickly.

It couldn't be depression. I was still really productive. I am doing 3 runs a week, two of average length and run huge mondo run. I was kicking butt at my insanely intense two boot camp classes. In addition, I was making the effort to get the kids to the park, cleaning the house, keeping up with the shopping, starting spring cleaning, blah, blah, blah.

(Okay, okay, so it is completely obvious NOW. Hindsight is great but when you are in the midst of a maelstrom, you just hold on for dear life.)

I love my husband. He is an amazing man. He is warm, kind, loving, and supportive. But he is also very courageous. Have you ever had the courage to tell someone completely fixated on a goal something they did not want to hear, someone who is so passionate, so zealous to reach a goal that they become single focused to the point of craziness? My wonderful husband said to me, "Honey, I think you have to look at the very real possibility that you are overtraining." Nooooo!!! Not that. But he was right.

It has been too much. I am exhausted and spent. I was not allowing myself to recover so each day it was a little worse. Each day I woke up worse off then the day before. Right now I am feeling a bit ran over by a truck. But it is getting better.

This is another lesson in moderation. It appears to be a very hard lesson for me to learn. Life hasmany parts that come together and form our existence holistically. If one thing is out of whack, it all quickly goes out of whack. A few little decisions can shoot us careening down an unwanted path. It often takes longer than we would like and more damage than we are comfortable with before we make the necessary corrections.

Now let's talk about the damage. This is the vulnerable, authentic, and humiliating part. Due to my black and white thinking, my refusal to see the bigger picture have been failing my children and forcing them to deal with a momma they did not deserve. I have been crabby, impatient, even intolerant. I have become irriated, even angry over things that I know to be simply age appropriate behaviors. According to my husband, I held back in action but in thought I was thinking hateful things. And my poor, sensitive babies responded in kind. The worse I became, the more they acted out, and that just made me more irritated. I could cry over how unloving and ungracious I have acted. These have not been my best momma moments but I have definately learned some hard lessons. What it comes down to is what affects me affects them and I am the adult so I better get my act together.

The very realization of the true problem lifted a huge burden off my shoulders. I cancelled today and tomorrow's workout. I went to the good grocery store and bought the food we should be eating. I have spent time today prepping and cooking and will spend more time tomorrow. Mainly, I have spent time with my precious babies. We have laughed, sang, and cuddled. They have helped me cook and clean up. It has been a wonderful day.

As far as the half marathon goes, oh it is still on like Donkey Kong but modified. I am dropping the two boot camp classes and I will replace it with one day of good solid lifting. I will be aware from now on to the possibility of changing things around to accomodate my life and my family.

Looking back, the irritation with my children should have been a major warning that something was really wrong. If you knew me personally you would know that in general I am not necessarily a patient person and I am not one to suffer fools gladly. I am quick, (Isn't that a pleasant way to put it?) However, for some bizarre reason completely unknown and not understood by me, I have a crazy amount of patience and tolerance for my children. Huge messes that would send most mommas nutty are simply endearing to me. Hey, we can clean up together and that will be fun. Childish and age appropraite antics usually catch me trying to hide my smile because I know that they really do need to be corrected and redirected but they are so dang cute and funny! These ugly feelings surrounding my beautiful babies were completely unnatural to me. I was growing more uncomfortable in my skin and with life every day.

I guess the point of this story is to be open to really analyzing your life. Think hard and deep about what is going on with you. Think about your stresses, anxieties, the general tone of your life and find out if a couple of changes could improve it. In the past I have found that major issues could often be overcome by relatively simple and small changes either in habits, mindset, or both.

For me, it is never fun to be humbled but it is often necessary. I am not happy about what happened but I am so grateful that events transpired in a manner that headed off something I might regret long term. Moderation is such a difficult concept for me. Just more proof that I will continue to be a student in this life.

May you have a blessed and peaceful day. May you make decisions and changes that will bring joy, love, and laughter to you and those you love.