sticking up for myself...

I am writing about this today in celebration.

So many good things have happened as a consequence of me sticking up for myself.

I am in a tremendously good place...on the outside and on the inside...

and this is huge, because i have an ancesteral heritage of people who are good at facade - so i often do the outside well...

but the inside was left to go to wrack and ruin (what is wrack anyway... an interesting word of the week???)

So lately i have begun to say what i want.

I have begun to ask for stuff for me.

I have started to speak my truth.

And i have been heard.

Whether it is by my lovely husband, my friends, the benevolent universe....

I am being answered in a;

"Yes! Sure Thing! No Sweat! How about more???" kinda fashion.

and it becomes easier to back myself when i have had success at backing myself...

Example:

Daughter 1 is constantly stressed by confronting Grumpy teacher. She has a problem with having to do something at the moment which everyone has to do but she doesn't get any benefit from...

Today i faced grumpy teacher - stood up to her, didn't cave when she gave me reasons why not... and stuck to what i see as supporting my daughter.

It wasn't hard or mean. I did find myself worrying about her feelings but then the voice that is being nurtured by asking for what i want said; " Just worry about what you know your daughter needs and let GT's feelings be hers".

And i did.

And they were.

And i came out with a good outcome and integrity.

And that is the key

When i give up what i want and need and believe in for others i swamp my integrity.

I belittle myself. And then who do i get to be resentful of???... Well i have tried off loading it on many others but actually it mostly falls on my lap.

And resenting yourself eats your soul.

Enough of eating my soul

Enough of putting my soul's callings aside.

I back myself

And i hear "yes!" in return

bad days

bad days suck

i had one yesterday - a fight with my daughter (which was really a fight with myself) before i even got out of bed - she wanted me - i had too much to do before school....

(and of course now i regret it - how many more days will there be that she wants to lie in bed and cuddle and draw and read books with me like it is the best thing in the world to do???)

then i busted a necklace

found out i will have to do a little more work to get to see turtles in Malaysia (helllloooooo brain i am going to Malaysia for Goddess' sake can i not just see how wonderful that is and get immediately pants-peeish-excited????)

things just kept going wrong - cows in the friend's driveway, children i was supposed to be lookiing after almost run down by a runaway horse, new filling starting to hurt, clonking my daughter straight in the nose with my elbow (which may be the pointiest elbow in the world - yet to be confirmed by the Guiness book of Records) then standing on her toe......

do you need to hear more????

there is more but too dreary to continue with...

and i felt poopy

and i acted poopy sometimes

but now that i am here with the computer and the cat on my lap - (quite a feat)

and the safe distance of a good night's sleep between the shit day and me

i see all the blessings there too... being able to to say sorry and model that to my girl

being able to reach out to my husband and have him reach tenderly back

being able to see my children's behaviour is not always the most irritating behaviour on the planet... etc etc

that i have health surrounding me - (both lots of children i was looking after needed to be with me because of cancer in their family)........

and now i sit and i think about how it is a new thing for me to be OK about feeling poopy while poopy is happening...

i tried for so long to Polly Anna my way out of it ... to see the good

but i think that is inauthentic - and turning away from authentic AAAARGH just prolongs it

being real allows the truth to flow on by

and the tide to turn

and the good to come floodiing in (it's raining AGAIN here so water metaphors are called for!)

and today... well it is a gooooood day!

sometimes what my head says just isn't true

sometimes i hear a lot of crap about myself coming from inside my head...

i mean the sort of crap that really doesn't help me

you are not good enough

you don't deserve

you are a failure

i am blushing as i type this ... it makes me feel so vulnerable to have it out there in cyberspace...but really how much more damage can it do than when i have it rolling around in my head, smashing up against my tender soul, scraping edges off my heart???

and then i thought about today...

i woke up with three people who love me beside me (well not all at once - it is a moderately slow process of children leaving beds, husbands returning in great white hunter style with hard fought for cups of tea, cats finding the best place in the middle of it all, books retrieved and read out loud...)

i got up and went to the park,(with two rubbish bags and a rake) with my youngest and the poodle to collect autumn leaves for the compost heap....

we made piles and jumped in them, then went exploring over the bridge where i fell in - over my head and walked all the way back to the car dripping and staggering with two bags of leaves like a wet woman compost Santa....

home to a long hot shower, emails from good friends, seeing my children work on projects...

out to visit aging parents and share a bit of children and poodle love around ... listening to choices and versions of the world i feel so relieved i make the choice to avoid.....

watching sky divers drifting down the endless blue sky, shags splitting the still harbour water making ripples and changing the reflections into other worlds...

going to the garden shop and buying seedlings to bring joy and food to my family

coming home to my loving husband seeing our sheep and cat coming to greet us...

and all this - my ordinary, non-guinessbook-of-records-nobel-prize-winning-headline-making life

and i see those voices couldn't be further from the truth