A Little Bit of Cuteness=A Whole Lotta Thriving

I keep on going back to my suggestion of thriving vs surviving last week.

To be honest with you all, right now I want to just throw my hands up and "just survive" for a little bit, to stop pushing myself so hard, to stop expecting so much.  I can almost convince myself to do it, then I see this:

 I mean, let's be honest here....who can feel that they are just surviving when looking at these two?  Despite the drowning feeling that I sometimes experience (okay, maybe often experience over the last couple of months) this, THIS right here, gives me buoyancy.  I do more than survive because I want these smiles to stay on those faces for years to come.  (and selfishly because I want smiles like that on my face also.)

 I never feel more alive than I do when I am outside with my kids.  The fresh air invigorates me, the smiles and laughs spark a happiness inside of me that is not often touched.  The genuine joy the girls show prompts me to find new ways for them to experience joy--whether that is a walk in the neigborhood, a trip to the zoo, or a playground in their playroom (shhh...don't tell them--it's a Christmas surprise!)

 Despite that, I still find myself struggling.  I still ride that rollercoaster of highs (feeling like I'm thriving) and lows (feeling like I'm barely surviving.)  It may be the simple fact that I have four kids -------------------------------------------->

It could be that I just don't have enough hours in my week to meet all of the demands placed on me in the variety of roles I play.

 These roles make it increasingly difficult to find my happy in being a mom and in chasing my professional dreams.  The sheer number of roles and responsibilities almost cement the fact that I am often just barely surviving in each.

How can one possibly find a desire to thrive, and take hold of opportunities to do so, when each step towards thriving in one area is a step away from surviving well in another.

It feels like each "extra" I take on for school hurts my family and each "extra" I take on for family hurts my school.

 

 That's when icy reality sets in.  I am not a super hero (as much as my friends like to joke that I am).

I am a flawed individual.  I make mistakes.  I make really, really bad decisions sometimes.  The worst is that, particularly now, sometimes my really, really bad decisions effect others--others like my children (or my clients, even), whom I am supposed to protect and do the best for.  I hurt.  When I hurt, others hurt.

When I struggle to just survive, I threaten to limit the thriving my children may do.  I limit their abilities to become "super" and dampen the enthusiasm they need to see for life, for love, for seizing the day.  When I struggle to survive I am not present with my children, my husband, or my clients.  I am stuck inside, stuck in life, stuck outside of seeing me and the good in me, the good in the world, the benefits and strengths I can bring to the world, to my family, to my clients, to me.

That is what these photos remind me of.  That cycle I face daily.  The struggle I feel and the four main little reasons I have to keep pushing, to keep trying, to keep wanting to thrive.

It is a small but powerful fact that thriving does not start with the big, superhero powers but with the small foundations that create a strong base on which to draw strength when all you really want to do is just survive.

Activities like the family painting time above help me to build a source of strength from which I can create not only a thriving family but a thriving self.  I give my children my best, but at the same time, I take so much from them--a different way of viewing the world and my place in it, a humbleness, a smallness that is so affiming and so calming.  A reminder of those simple things in life and the fact that without those, without those moments, those smiles, that peace found in family and in nature--without those--then I would be just surviving.  As long as these simple things are in place, I have all the tools, strength, and support I need to not only survive but thrive.

What simple things helps you build a foundation of strength from which to thrive?

How would you define thriving?  Need it be an all or nothing concept or can it be fluid?

How much does strength=thriving?

What do you do when you feel yourself slipping into "just surviving?"

Please take a moment to ask youself these questions (feel free to respond in the comment section, but more importantly, just take the time to reflect.)  It is utterly important that we each find a state in which we feel empowered.  A state in which we feel we are in the place we belong and that we are thriving in that exact spot in this exact moment in time.  Good luck to each of you as you navigate what leads to thriving in your lives.

Survive or Thrive in the Irony of life

I know I promised you all updates and photos of the kids from the wedding...then I just disappeared into my lice infested home for weeks!

That's not actually the whole story. Good news?--We seemed to have gotten rid of the lice in one set of two rounds of "Rid"ding--well technically the cheap store brand of "Rid" and a ridiculous amount of combing, screaming, crying, and head picking. Bad News?--I had yet another useless organ (this time my appendix) removed due to incomprehensible and indescribable pain.

Picture me (those of you who know me)--those of you who don't picture any roughly 30 year old woman--lying on the bathroom floor curled in a ball crying, raising only to throw up. Then, things get even more interesting as you pan out and see an infant in a Bumbo seat smiling and cooing and a 20 month old toddler running over to copy Mom's throwing up. "Brudder, blech, Mama. Hahahaha. Blech, Mama." Then running back over to climb on the mom's back so that toddler can more easily "Blech, hahahahaha" into the toilet.

Yep, that whole life is fragile, let go of control thing--it may actually be literally killing me.

Let me share a secret with you all--I was JUST starting to feel like myself again after the last surgery. Just beginning to dance in the kitchen with the kids, lift the bigger girls, play a little more roughly. Now, it's back to attempting to not lift more than 15 pounds--YEAH RIGHT!--and feeling sore and keeping from snuggling too closely because little elbows, feet, hands, and knees dig into the laproscopic incisions.

And I can't help but feel bitter. Angry with my body. Beyond frustrated with my lack of control in ALL things (side note: I was already WAY behind in clinical hours for my practicum, then I had to reschedule 13 hours of clients--13!!!). Further, I am terrified. Every time I feel a pain or slightly nauseaus, I worry that there's actually something more, that my other ovary or some other ridiculous organ is disinigrating or preparing to explode, or something. So, maybe this is sounding a bit like PTSD...it may be. Surgery is scary. Emergency surgery is even more scary. Emergency surgery scary is ridiculously more scary when there are kids waiting for you at home.

Here I am, singing the same song to a just slightly different tune. I wonder if life is just trying to beat into my thick skull that there really is nothing I can control. But, at the same time as I am learning that very very hard lesson in ridiculously hard ways, I can't help but try to maintain some control over the few things I can control. I'm faltering though...losing my will to hold onto that control.

What do you do when life beats you so hard that you begin to lose the will to fight back (READ: I am NOT talking lose the will to live, I am talking about losing the will to push above and beyond, to excell, to be great.) When, if ever, is it smart to just throw your hands up and live the status quo? When does life "win" in the tug of war between just surviving and thriving?

How do you thrive? Is it always a conscious effort? When do you know you need to let go a bit and just survive?

Life has a funny sense of humor...

Yep.  Life and it's humorous irony.  I know I have written on this before.  That no matter what I plan, no matter what is happening life ALWAYS throws me a curveball.

Probably always throws you one too, huh?

I was planning on a great post all about my sister's beautiful wedding, how wonderful, albeit ironic, it was to have a "new" brother.  I was gonna go on and on about how full I felt as I watched my girls play with their grown boy cousins--and maybe a little worried by the little crushy smile I saw on the oldest's face and what it would mean in the teen years.

Then life slammed me with a couple amazing research opportunities.  I was going to write a post about that.  About my wonderful research opportunities.  About the fact I am working on a meta-analysis, which is a pretty high level stats type project.  About the fact I can see long-term implications for this research.  I was going to tell you all about my awesome bibliotherapy program I get to create from scratch and implement in a local kindergarten class to build empathy.  I was going to share all the nitty gritty details with you about the projects, my hopes for what they could mean, and my worries about fitting it all in.

Then, the oldest came home from school with an itchy head.  And school, work, research, my "new" brother, and you, my dear readers, no longer mattered.  Because life has a funny sense of humor and thought, you know what that family needs right now?  They need a full blown case of lice.  Yep, long blonde hair, four kids, seven garbage bags full of stuffed animals--lice would be a really funny coincidence.  It will be great to watch that mom try to wash all those kids hair and comb it all out with little skinny lice combs multiple times a day.  Even better is watching that dad, who has never experienced lice, completely freak out and suggest shaving all the long beautiful blonde locks off of the kids (and maybe the mom).

So, that is what I have been doing for the past week and a half.  Lots of laundry, lots of combing of hair, sitting on the kitchen floor with flashlights picking through the girls hair.  So much fell through the cracks this week--school was a blur, I could barely count my hours.  And, there is such a feeling of embarrassment.  I mean, I know they caught it from somewhere, but the embarrassment is nearly unbearable.  I actually made my husband call the school, because I just couldn't do it.

I remember reading an open letter on the internet from a mom whose daughter contracted lice at school.  I could just feel her judgey, hateful words ripping through me.  I was judging myself. 

It took me a few days to realize, that woman has no room to speak.  Hell, I had no room to judge myself.  I did everything I could during the whole ordeal.  I sat there and picked through their hair like a freakin' monkey.  I rewashed sheets daily until there were no more bugs to be seen in anyone's head.  I bags a shitload of stuffed animals.  And, most importantly, I normalized the experience and kept my kids from feeling like the "buggies" in their hair were a poor reflection on them as people or on us as a family.  So that woman can go to hell.  Lice is not our fault.  My kids didn't do anything wrong to catch it--likely they just played closely with friends--showing good interpersonal skills.  We didn't do anything wrong--we called the school, we took that embarrassing step.  I didn't do anything wrong--I did everything right.

And this is a lesson I need to keep repeating in my mind as I wade through other difficult areas--such as new research endeavors, continuing to deal with my brother's death, school--I didn't do anything wrong.  I may not have control over much--as life so often likes to prove by throwing ridiculous things my way--but so far, I really haven't done too many "wrong" things with that which I have been thrown.  So I need to ease up on my judgements of myself.  I am the only one who knows where my faults lie and if I continue to fault myself for life's curveballs, then life's ironic twists are going to break me instead of providing me with a weird sense of comic relief.

What do you do to remind yourself to be easy on yourself?  How do you forgive yourself?  What is the most ridiculously silly thing life has sent you to teach you a lesson or provide ironic comic relief?