Wednesday, May 12, 2010
the beautiful things
I recently started practicing Kabbalah. Not as a "jump on the hip train" sort of thing, but on a suggestion from my mother to find a way to "center myself"
Balance has, and always has been a weak point for me. It is difficult for me to adjust to change, it is difficult for me to see the good when there is so much bad. Being positive has only gotten me so far in life, and so I have found myself as a student of Kabbalah. Which I enjoy. Non traditional as it may be ( and as I am) I have found many lessons within this practice that has helped me find joy in the day to day.
I have had more happy days in the past week than I have had in the past six months, and by happy days, I do not mean when people "make me" happy. I mean happy days where I am just happy on the inside. This happiness has been a hard road for me. I have long battled a myriad of "sad issues" and I have felt more centered and more happy.
For the record: Kabbalah is not a religion, more of on "add on" to beliefs that we already have. It coexists with any judeo-christian thinking, and even if one does not believe in anything, the positive thoughts it helps stimulate is like chicken soup for the non believing soul. I have many friends that do not believe in anything, which is fine, as their choice is their choice, however the overwhelming happiness I feel attached with the mantras of Kabbalah are wonderful.
Every morning I get an email from the "daily tune up" of Kaballah wisdom (Yehuda Berg) today it read as such:
Successes aren't what really matter in life; it's what we do with our failures that makes us, and our work, great in this world.
Today, keep moving. Every no brings you closer to a yes
Yesterday's was as follows:
These words bring a lot of insight to my life, and as a mother, human, woman, partner, and student, they help me destress and find happiness... even where before I found none.
Balance has, and always has been a weak point for me. It is difficult for me to adjust to change, it is difficult for me to see the good when there is so much bad. Being positive has only gotten me so far in life, and so I have found myself as a student of Kabbalah. Which I enjoy. Non traditional as it may be ( and as I am) I have found many lessons within this practice that has helped me find joy in the day to day.
I have had more happy days in the past week than I have had in the past six months, and by happy days, I do not mean when people "make me" happy. I mean happy days where I am just happy on the inside. This happiness has been a hard road for me. I have long battled a myriad of "sad issues" and I have felt more centered and more happy.
For the record: Kabbalah is not a religion, more of on "add on" to beliefs that we already have. It coexists with any judeo-christian thinking, and even if one does not believe in anything, the positive thoughts it helps stimulate is like chicken soup for the non believing soul. I have many friends that do not believe in anything, which is fine, as their choice is their choice, however the overwhelming happiness I feel attached with the mantras of Kabbalah are wonderful.
Every morning I get an email from the "daily tune up" of Kaballah wisdom (Yehuda Berg) today it read as such:
Successes aren't what really matter in life; it's what we do with our failures that makes us, and our work, great in this world.
Today, keep moving. Every no brings you closer to a yes
Yesterday's was as follows:
Everything you see in others is a reflection of your own ego. When you see something in someone else that especially bothers you, what you're really seeing is your own hidden faults being reflected back at you.
What's more, the reason you see it when you do is because it's the ideal time to bring the ego down!
Today, when someone gets under your skin, know you're being given a key.
What's more, the reason you see it when you do is because it's the ideal time to bring the ego down!
Today, when someone gets under your skin, know you're being given a key.
Your work is to find the grain of truth in what you see.
These words bring a lot of insight to my life, and as a mother, human, woman, partner, and student, they help me destress and find happiness... even where before I found none.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
mother's day
I am a sucker for mother's day.
By sucker I mean I loathe mother's day and the innate pressure I feel from it to live a traditional lifestyle. I am far from traditional, far from "normal", far from the picturesque "mother" that I see around me. I don't have a man that lives with me, and I am not the best at relationships ( although I am in a healthy, productive relationship with a great man currently).
That being said, seeing the mother's day commercials with the burly father and the kids in the garage playing music kind of makes me want to throw up. Call me negative. Call me realistic. How many women raise children on their own? Plenty, yet the advertising world seems to sweep right over them and advertise to the husbands and not in a way that makes mothers like me feel very good about being a mother like me!
It is days like this where I turn to Ariel Gore's The Mother Trip and The Essential Hip Mama. Gore, a writer who is also "making it" as a single Mom, provides much needed sanity and clarity for any Mother. Especially after a night where one is awoken at three am with macaroni and cheese projectiled across the room and onto the mural you have painstakingly created. This mural, of course, not withstanding the upchuck of stomach acids mixed with the healthy kraft macaroni and cheese your child begged out of you, is ruined, and it is at this point you look to her work and say "well shit, I can do this".
I know I am not the first woman who has considered heaving herself out of her second story window when her (then) three year old ate a complete bottle of gummy vitamins ( which for the record are not as toxic as I thought), and then had to deal with the intestinal consequences. But when you do feel like that, which is OK, remember to pick up the phone and call a friend/coworker/parent, or in my case, when none of these are available, pick up Ariel's work and take a namaste breath and just let it go. I mean, after thinking about it, the gummy vitamins are pretty good, and nothing bad did happen. Feeling like you could win the "worst mother of the year award", however, is usually what brings the second story window into favor, but realizing that all of us, each and every one of us, mess up from time to time ( or in my case ALL the time), it helps make us better mothers, friends, workers, etc.
As much as I slammed mother's day earlier, especially for being a hetero-normative advertisers wet dream, I must admit this. Without my mother I would be nothing. She is absolutely fantastic and I love to little smithereens.
By sucker I mean I loathe mother's day and the innate pressure I feel from it to live a traditional lifestyle. I am far from traditional, far from "normal", far from the picturesque "mother" that I see around me. I don't have a man that lives with me, and I am not the best at relationships ( although I am in a healthy, productive relationship with a great man currently).
That being said, seeing the mother's day commercials with the burly father and the kids in the garage playing music kind of makes me want to throw up. Call me negative. Call me realistic. How many women raise children on their own? Plenty, yet the advertising world seems to sweep right over them and advertise to the husbands and not in a way that makes mothers like me feel very good about being a mother like me!
It is days like this where I turn to Ariel Gore's The Mother Trip and The Essential Hip Mama. Gore, a writer who is also "making it" as a single Mom, provides much needed sanity and clarity for any Mother. Especially after a night where one is awoken at three am with macaroni and cheese projectiled across the room and onto the mural you have painstakingly created. This mural, of course, not withstanding the upchuck of stomach acids mixed with the healthy kraft macaroni and cheese your child begged out of you, is ruined, and it is at this point you look to her work and say "well shit, I can do this".
I know I am not the first woman who has considered heaving herself out of her second story window when her (then) three year old ate a complete bottle of gummy vitamins ( which for the record are not as toxic as I thought), and then had to deal with the intestinal consequences. But when you do feel like that, which is OK, remember to pick up the phone and call a friend/coworker/parent, or in my case, when none of these are available, pick up Ariel's work and take a namaste breath and just let it go. I mean, after thinking about it, the gummy vitamins are pretty good, and nothing bad did happen. Feeling like you could win the "worst mother of the year award", however, is usually what brings the second story window into favor, but realizing that all of us, each and every one of us, mess up from time to time ( or in my case ALL the time), it helps make us better mothers, friends, workers, etc.
As much as I slammed mother's day earlier, especially for being a hetero-normative advertisers wet dream, I must admit this. Without my mother I would be nothing. She is absolutely fantastic and I love to little smithereens.
The first time
To whom it may concern:
Or, to anyone it may concern ( or not, depending on what brought you to my blog), I send my greetings. This last week, actually, the last few weeks, have been likened to hell on earth. My coping mechanisms and my self created realities have seemed to have caught up with me, and I have been feeling rather.... strange, to say the least.
Thus, I have decided to start a blog, about my life, and more specifically my life regarding being a single mother, and raising my daughter all by myself.
So, let me tell you, my readers ( and hopefully I will get some readers, because that would be fantastic) a little about the beginning of my journey
I found out I was pregnant on June 21st, 2005. ( My birthday). I found out in a way that could have been less dramatic, but then again, I have always had a flair for theatrics. I was terrified, and rightfully so, I was on again-off again with my daughters father, and upon learning about my pregnancy, we were on again. I should have always known that we weren't good for one another, and when he asked me to marry him, I told him no. He did a lot of things, and fidelity was not really a strong suit of his, and getting treated poorly is not really a favorite activity of mine.
The fault was not all his, and the fault was certainly not all mine, but when I came home three weeks into fall semester 2006, when my daughter was still tiny, I had quite the surprise. I was certainly not expecting my home to bare, the television to be gone, and everything off of the walls. He left without telling me, and he left without saying goodbye. It hurt, and it hurt in a way that is difficult to explain as I certainly was not happy, his constant infidelity and lack of drive was demoralizing, and him leaving, as painful as it was to feel "not good enough" was more like a sigh of relief as opposed to a knife in the heart.
That is where I will leave the story of the beginning of my "singlemomness" for tonight, but not without saying this first. When I found I was pregnant I was told that being a mom meant that I would never "make it". I was urged to get an abortion, I was urged to give up the child for adoption, being told that without doing either of those things, I would never graduate from college, never have a career, and never be comfortably financially.
I think sometimes being told that I can't do something makes me want to do it all the more, and while I hope this doesn't sound overly self indulgent- I believe that I have been able to do something many haven't, and I hope and want other women who are in my shoes, or are moms who believe that they "CANT DO IT" to know that they can do anything, because I did.
The other day my daughter asked me what I wanted to do when I "grew up higher". I told her "change the world". I meant it. I mean it.
I will leave you all with this, a picture of my daughter not long after her father left us. Still smiling, because as Winston Churchill noted "never, ever, ever give up."
Best regards,
Rhian
Or, to anyone it may concern ( or not, depending on what brought you to my blog), I send my greetings. This last week, actually, the last few weeks, have been likened to hell on earth. My coping mechanisms and my self created realities have seemed to have caught up with me, and I have been feeling rather.... strange, to say the least.
Thus, I have decided to start a blog, about my life, and more specifically my life regarding being a single mother, and raising my daughter all by myself.
So, let me tell you, my readers ( and hopefully I will get some readers, because that would be fantastic) a little about the beginning of my journey
I found out I was pregnant on June 21st, 2005. ( My birthday). I found out in a way that could have been less dramatic, but then again, I have always had a flair for theatrics. I was terrified, and rightfully so, I was on again-off again with my daughters father, and upon learning about my pregnancy, we were on again. I should have always known that we weren't good for one another, and when he asked me to marry him, I told him no. He did a lot of things, and fidelity was not really a strong suit of his, and getting treated poorly is not really a favorite activity of mine.
The fault was not all his, and the fault was certainly not all mine, but when I came home three weeks into fall semester 2006, when my daughter was still tiny, I had quite the surprise. I was certainly not expecting my home to bare, the television to be gone, and everything off of the walls. He left without telling me, and he left without saying goodbye. It hurt, and it hurt in a way that is difficult to explain as I certainly was not happy, his constant infidelity and lack of drive was demoralizing, and him leaving, as painful as it was to feel "not good enough" was more like a sigh of relief as opposed to a knife in the heart.
That is where I will leave the story of the beginning of my "singlemomness" for tonight, but not without saying this first. When I found I was pregnant I was told that being a mom meant that I would never "make it". I was urged to get an abortion, I was urged to give up the child for adoption, being told that without doing either of those things, I would never graduate from college, never have a career, and never be comfortably financially.
I think sometimes being told that I can't do something makes me want to do it all the more, and while I hope this doesn't sound overly self indulgent- I believe that I have been able to do something many haven't, and I hope and want other women who are in my shoes, or are moms who believe that they "CANT DO IT" to know that they can do anything, because I did.
The other day my daughter asked me what I wanted to do when I "grew up higher". I told her "change the world". I meant it. I mean it.
I will leave you all with this, a picture of my daughter not long after her father left us. Still smiling, because as Winston Churchill noted "never, ever, ever give up."
Best regards,
Rhian
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