This entry was posted on Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 at 2:56 pm and is filed under Map Making : Change and Goal Setting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Mark Twain is attributed as saying ” the only thing that likes change is a wet baby.” (I for one saw it on a bumper sticker years ago and have never forgotten it.)
With every change comes a transition, moving from one phase, state, or condition to another. We spend our lives in transitions, and too often, those transitions are met with a myriad of emotions. Too often we think we need to negotiate those transitions on our own.
Think of all the transitions you personally have moved through…pre school to elementary school…junior high to (gulp) high school. Being single to being partnered…being single and not being partnered…graduating from high school, getting a “real job”…having children, losing children. Being married, to not being married. Being married again, to being widowed. Moving into your dorm room, moving into your house. Having parents, being an orphan. Having a pet, losing a pet. Having ovaries, no longer having ovaries. Having friends to accompany you on that walk through, losing those friends along the way. Some stay with you, new friends come along.
Reflect back on how you managed each of these changes. What strengths did you uncover as you make that examination? Once again, look at your VIA Signature Strengths, if you haven’t taken this assessment go to www.authentichappiness.com and take this assessment (it’s free). The key to pulling through this grief period may be to use those STRENGTHS to get you past the rough spots. Do that now.
Seems to me the holiday season brings out comparisons…comparisons to holidays gone past. Holidays when you were the child dealing with the magic of the holidays. Holidays when you were alone and defining your own way. Holidays when you were a drinker and now are sober. Holidays when you shared your children and sobbed like a baby when your children left. Holidays when the house was filled with people, holidays when you were the only one in your space.
You managed to negotiate each transition…you managed to make it through by calling on your strengths both external and internal.
Yes, it’s a time of review. Yes, it’s your narrative, your life story.
Can you change the narrative now? Can you re write your role in the drama? Can you assign new and different meanings to what is happening?
Life is a series of transitions of moving from state to state, from phase to phase, learning to celebrate each new phase and mourn the loss of the old …it’s all part of the process.
For too many of us we get “stuck” in romanticizing the past…fearing the future.
Perhaps the “new normal” has new benefits,
Can you allow yourself to “go there”
Move on, forward, and through,
but, not alone….
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December 24th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Yep, it is December 24th.
It occurred to me yesterday that the holiday doesn’t need to be yippie skippie happy, but it also doesn’t need to be so depressing that just functioning for days on end is a struggle. Getting out of bed and being around PEOPLE was the most challenging event for me.
For the longest time I thought it was just me making the holiday horrible. For me it has never been a time of happiness, but the difference I am making this year is not so much happiness, but instead a calm and steady flow. I won’t shrink back in a corner and hide nor will I hide behind a drink. I will go about my business today and tomorrow just as if it was another day. When it comes time for presents and then dinner I will not try to force myself into the happy zone, but I will try to force myself to not slip into the depression zone. Think that can be accomplished by simply not trying so hard. Not focusing on the past. using the moment to visit with those that I don’t see often, and laugh with those that I do.
Should it become overwhelming for me in the next couple days I will take an hour and compose myself. Take an hour and just go regroup.
I have found lately that it is easier to stay in the calm than it is to get myself out of the depressed cranky mood that I tend to get into. So whatever it takes to stay calm is what I can and will do for the next few days.
This is what I woke up thinking about this morning. Making a plan to make it a calm hoiday for me and of course those close to me that have to deal with the cranky, depressed, snot that I become this time of year.
December 28th, 2007 at 7:23 am
A calm holiday. I cannot tell you the years and years I yearned for one of those. And this year, it happened … well, pretty close. The only thing that got in the way was my HEAD! Getting better at NOT “shoulding on myself”, but the holiday season seems to crank it up a bit.
As at Thanksgiving, I spent Christmas day at home doing nothing! And, it was great, but a little weird. Giving myself permission to do this seems like breaking a rule or a law or a curse or something. My sister invited me to come down to her place for Christmas Eve (a two-hour drive, one way, in hideous traffic) and I declined. She called me on Christmas Day and said she was glad I hadn’t come because she really needed to relax and get some rest. WHAT!?! It was okay for me to be honest and true to myself!?! INCREDIBLE!
I’m not saying I staved off the “holiday blues” completely. Far from it really. But that was the point. I just wanted to stay home or, as it turned out, at least in the neighborhood. Two friends and I got together on Christmas Eve to exchange gifts, have a turkey dinner (NOT cooked by me) and play cards until midnight or so. Ahhhh. I could have walked home as the celebration took place in the condo just below mine, but I drove because it was *&!@’ing cold outside.
As for current and past transitions: I’m single, perpetually; in my mid-50’s, “baby-boomishly”; both parents deceased and thus “orphaned” (my mother over 40 yrs. ago-my father in late 2004); no children; one sister; one stepsister; one cat. I’m an auntie to a neice and nephew, and an “anutie” (intentionally misspelled) to numerous cats and dogs belonging to my friends.
Here’s where some of my transititions have really hung me up and some that have been real blessings in disguise. I mean, I thought I’d be the “first one in the frying pan” to get married, NOPE, and have children, NOPE. These were two of the toughest realities of my life and past grief. At times, I have desperately missed having a “love of my life” mate and I’ve literally grieved for the children I never conceived or adopted. But I wanted my life to look “just right” and it was important to me to prove to myself that I could support myself “if I ever needed to do so”. D’OH!
I’ve been treated for depression for years and am a recovering alcoholic (March ‘08 will be my 20th sober anniversary, for which I’m very grateful). I’ve struggled since “getting out on my own” with food addiction and it’s a toughy. Unfortunately, I learned a long time ago that putting something in my mouth made me feel better. It’s a wonder why I never got hooked on cigarettes. Oh, sure, I tried smoking to help me lose weight. Booze and occasional drug use helped me relax around men (remember, that was my main goal: snag a man, lay a man, have kids with a man). Well, booze helped with that and was socially acceptable. After all, I had watched my parents and their friends have wonderful, happy times doing both. Over time (years), I probably purchased a grand total of two or three packs of cigarettes, but just couldn’t make myself like them. However, I had very little trouble inhaling pot. Isn’t that odd? NOPE. I quit cigarettes when I realized that the thing I liked best about them was watching the smoke curl off the end of a “lit butt”, pun intended — and I don’t apologize for it. I don’t smoke, but to this day I LOVE the smell of lit cigars and most pipe tobacco. The cigars remind me of my grandpa and the pipe probably reminds me of ‘enry ‘iggins (see, cinema: “My Fair Lady”) or some fascinating man from my past whose name I never caught. Same thing with the great-smelling guy who sat in front of me on a BART train years ago. Just had to ask him what cologne he was wearing. It was Royal Copenhagen, ever hear of it. It seems to me one of the hit tunes on the radio in those days was by artist Sheena Eastin (sp?). It was called, “(My Baby Takes the) Morning Train”. As you can see, I’m pretty sentimental. Do you wonder now why I talk about shutting up my head? And this is the positive stuff!
Christmas Day also marked my ninth or tenth month without a period, for which I shall not grieve or shed a single tear once I’ve finally made the monumental transition to official menopause-dom. I enjoyed Beth’s transitiion examples and add these to the list: Having ovaries and nothing to do with them; and, having “eggs” and no place to fry them except in my always-HOT bod! I thought “hot flashes” were a myth. I WISH.
All things considered, and not to be confused by my moods and emotions, my life is blessed. My friends are treasured. My relatives are few and too far away, but dearly loved.
I get very emotional when I first get on this website, but feel much better by the time I “blog off”.
Thank you muchly,
Peace,
Love, JC
December 28th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
I love you both so much because you “get it”, “own it”, “face it” and don’t “fake it.”
Amazing women.
Yes, so many transitions. So many ways our lives twist on us.
When Rob died as a result of a surgeon’s incompetence, a fact not an opinion, my life tilted and it’s still tilting. That wasn’t supposed to happen to me, Ls wasn’t supposed to lose a child, and JC wasn’t supposed to be childless.
Of course, I look around and see people who I project “perfect lives” which is of course of myth. But, we all know them, although I am sure we have different perfect visions…you know, the one’s who look perfect, have a perfect life with 2.5 children, successful careers, beautiful homes…yet when I stop…and really look, I realize that even in their apparent impression management” their wounds are evident. I guess I am relieved that mine are real and on the surface, at least I don’t have to “pretend.”
My sense is that the people I am most attracted to, and the people I think will survive and thrive transitions are the real ones…the ones who don’t pretend…
I admire you both so very much…now I get to go listen to gratitidue…
You two, are on the top of the list.
Blog on, PLEASE, you are sharing so much for others, as well as yourselves.