Affirmations Journal on Dust Bunny Haven

Bless this mess?

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 19:34:11 +0000

I radiate joy and share it with others. It is a time for laughter and singing and dancing. I bless everyone and everything.

My best friend likes to tell the story of her first impressions of me when we met in 6th grade. “When I first met Lela, I thought she was perfect…then I saw her binder.” She has long since come to terms with the fact that whatever illusion of organization I project is just that. It’s an unintentional illusion, but an illusion all the same. My house is chronically a disaster. And I don’t just mean the typical mom blog confession of a few cracker crumbs on the counter and a disheveled roll of toilet paper. I loathe those posts because how the hell did those people find time to polish the granite under those crumbs, or scrub the dirty grout behind the faucet? (honestly, how does anyone do this?). How do they get the grime out of the corners of the room when washing the floor? Is it toothbrushes? And after all the essential daily tasks of homework, laundry, cooking, dish washing, sweeping, paperwork, vacuuming, and de-cluttering, how do they also dust all the baseboards, prune the trees, scrub the spots off the chair cushions, and all those less-obvious tasks that build up over time until your house feels so unbelievably icky that you can’t fathom how to ever get it clean again, nor can you consider ever subjecting any house guests to the endless filth of your biohazardous home. I’m perplexed by the whole thing.

And yet, I have a very deep desire to be a person who makes others feel comfortable, and I feel part of that is welcoming them into my home. And people often do not feel comfortable in someone else’s mess. There’s no answer that I’ve found to fix this conundrum. Should I never let my kids make a mess? Spend all my time cleaning? I’ve wondered if cutting down on sleep might be the answer, but only to having a cleaner home. It would be terrible for everything and everyone else. I know housekeeping services are a big business where I live, but whenever I think about hiring someone to come in monthly, I think about how mortified and frantic I’d feel the day before, de-cluttering just so they can do the job I hired them for. And also how obvious it will be that no one did any cleaning since the last time they were there. How much more work it will be for them because the little drips of food I didn’t notice have dried on the chairs, and stuck to the side of the sink, and because that annoying little crack where the wood floor meets the linoleum in the kitchen is now filled with crud from ineffective sweeping. Ultimately, I end up feeling like it would add to my stress, and provide very little in return. Whenever I clean the house, it usually falls apart within days, if not hours. But how am I supposed to find a way to radiate joy in a messy house? And if I try to resolve this with constant cleaning, how do I also find time for laughter, singing and dancing, let alone blessing those around me? Blessing is an extremely clean affair. Look at baptisms! I don’t see how I can be a blessing until I become less of a slob.

One I don’t understand

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 18:28:55 +0000

I flow freely and lovingly with Life. I love myself. I know that only good awaits me at every turn.

Why is “Life” capitalized in this affirmation? Is this another reference to God? I’m trying to wrap my head around Life as a proper noun and I get visions of frolicking through fields of wildflowers with someone dressed in a flowing Grecian gown. Demeter with Persephone, before that netherworld creep kidnapped her and tricked her into eating magical pomegranate seeds so she’d have to return to him 6 months a year. Ok, now that I’m writing this out, I’m realizing, was that a metaphor for sex?

Anyway, what’s the deal with this affirmation? Is this book trying to lure me into a false sense of security? Because this affirmation is objectively false. Bad stuff is definitely going to keep happening. So ok, this doesn’t mean I have to be actively preparing for it at all times, which is why I’m in therapy for anxiety. But is telling myself “It’s cool. There’s only good from here on out, girl!” really a better plan?

Maybe the affirmation is more about encouraging a “silver lining” approach to life? I know many people who do this naturally. I’ve wondered if this is genetic, like temperament in babies. I can say with a reasonable level of certainty that it doesn’t seem to be associated with faith, despite it feeling like born again Christian messaging. Some of the most optimistic people I’ve ever known were atheists, and I’ve met some pretty angry, negative religious folks. So why are some people able to assume the best and others, like me, spend their time preparing for the worst? Can I learn to be the former? Can it be taught? Anyone want to teach me?

New meditation space

Wed, 09 Feb 2022 18:03:18 +0000

My good now flows freely. Divine ideas express themselves through me. I am at peace.

I have heard that as people age they become more extreme versions of what they already were. I don’t know whether to be concerned about this or not. It also made me wonder if hobbies taken up later in life are just physical manifestations of personality traits. Or maybe that’s just what hobbies are regardless of age? I’ve always hoped to become an older woman who lacks ego. I imagine myself gardening, and interacting with young people genuinely and lovingly, at peace with myself and with my world. I have been told that the fifth decade in a woman’s life is when she becomes less concerned with what others think, and I keep waiting for this to happen. But I wonder if I would notice if it does. Free flowing goodness seems like it requires both an insight and inner calmness that I don’t feel I’ve ever had. The only time I can step outside of myself and just exist is when I’m singing or writing. Maybe I should just sing or write all my communications from now on. Would that be like exposure therapy for social anxiety? Talk therapy and mindfulness seem like a lower profile option.

A few months ago, my husband shared an article about someone who meditated themselves into agoraphobia by practicing it for hours and hours a day. The article argued that meditation is not always beneficial, despite it being peddled as the solution to our mental health crisis. The issue with this is that moderation is a core concept in mindfulness philosophy, and in the religions that practice it, so it’s disingenuous to ignore that aspect of meditation and then complain that meditation is harmful. However, despite my protests, there was something about the story that resonated with me. Mindfulness was originally intended to be practiced within the confines of a spiritual context, and monks that practice it often seem to do so in secluded places far removed from the chaos and sensory overload of day to day life in communities. Why do they live this way if it isn’t an essential component of the practice? It makes me think of yoga, which was a religious ritual meant to be practiced only by experienced yogis who knew how to properly apply both the physical and spiritual components of it. Removing it from this context and marketing it as just a healthy lifestyle choice has helped people who may not have pursued it in its original form. But a quick online search will reveal that it has also hurt many people, sometimes irreparably.

Maybe mindfulness that is intended to bring calm to chaos should be performed in that chaos. If I lived my life in a meditation room full of candle-lit vases of flowers, ambient music, and the sweet scent of palo santo, would I really need to meditate to achieve inner peace? Simply stepping out of a room occupied by my children, with the intention of meditating, is usually enough to make me feel calmer. So maybe my mindfulness moments need to look more like everyday moments if I want them to help me through everyday life. From now on, I meditate in front of a sink full of dirty dishes. I’ll smell dinner cooking on the stove behind me, and hear the “thump, thump, thump” drifting in from the livingroom as my children leap off furniture (the way I always ask them not to do), followed by the shrieking when they trip and smack their faces on the floor. Oooooommmmmmmmmmmmm.

Being a good mom

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 19:09:35 +0000

I allow the love from my own heart to wash through me, and cleanse and heal every part of my body and emotions.

I’ve written a lot about self-care and compassion, especially in terms of parenting. I’ve written about it back when I used facebook. I’ve written about it on this blog, and in the newsletter I used to write for a local mothers club. The expectations of motherhood, both personal and societal, are impossible to meet. There’s always more to do. And there is always so much you aren’t doing, or can’t do, for one reason or another. It’s so much easier to see this obvious truth for others. It’s much harder to forgive these limitations in ourselves. We could have our children in sports for physical health and teamwork, music lessons for cultural and creative developments, tutoring for academic success, gymnastics or karate for coordination, some kind of scouts for social skills and self-esteem, and they are solidly booked all week. Booked…Oh, wait! We’ve got to get them into bookclub! We can surely squeeze that into a morning slot so they can do that too, right? Ok, NOW they are solidly booked, but that’s ok because we have the weekend! Except this is when we attend the games of whatever sport our child is playing, and recitals for their music programs. And somehow, maybe, we also cram in chores, church, family visits, school projects, and the occasional visit to a museum, or campground. And at the end of every exhausting day, we’d know that we were still failing, because research suggests children are getting burnt out by this practice of leaving no extracurricular stone unturned. We are failing because our children have no time to play, which is now a documented and dangerous truth about modern childhood. We are not finding the time to sit and chat about the little things, so studies suggest our kids may not tell us about the big things either. In our haste to take photos to capture the memories, we are failing to live them, and someday all the little fingerprints will be cleaned off of our furniture, never to return, and we will miss this time, having never felt like we truly lived it. But if we don’t sign them up for all the classes, and do all the things, how will little Dahlia get the soccer scholarship? What if, because he never took piano lessons, Jayden never learns he has a gift? What if the things I’m not doing are the very things that would make the big difference, and steer my kids towards a happy and successful life? Is the answer that I’ll never know, so I don’t have to worry about it? Alternatively, what if I did decide to create this kind of jammed-packed life for my kids, and it destroys our family? This is a distinct possibility, as it would mean a dangerous shortage of down-time that I don’t think any of our introverts could withstand for long. So, it is impossible to do all the things, and it is impossible to know the results of not doing all the things. What can I do? I guess I can just be the mom friend that I need, and acknowledge this when I start to worry about everything my kids aren’t doing. I can say to myself, “They will only remember what you did do. Be gentle with yourself. You are a good mom.”

The Water in the Glass

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 23:22:26 +0000

I am willing to release old, negative beliefs. They are only thoughts that stand in my way. My new thoughts are positive and fulfilling.

I am so sad today, and for no clear reason. I could come up with reasons, but that would just be trying to find a shape for the sadness I feel.

Acknowledging the water level in a glass is important. It’s frustrating that our culture considers it pessimistic to view the glass as half empty. Or maybe I find it frustrating that our culture insinuates that pessimism is a bad thing; the wrong way to be. It’s similar to our struggle with introversion, often treating it as a problem to be solved, rather than a valid way to interact with the world. I am both a pessimist and an introvert (I’m lots of fun!), and I think it’s ok to see the glass as half-empty. In fact, why aren’t we celebrating pessimists as essential to the survival of our species? The half-empty state of the glass means that the resources are being depleted! The glass will need filling sooner than if it were full. Perhaps it’s time to start paying closer attention to the rate at which the glass is emptying, so we have a better idea of when we will need to refill. If we were to only acknowledge what is left in the glass, would we be inspired to take the necessary steps to make sure our needs will be met when eventually that glass is truly empty? Would we be as likely to note when, where, and how we can get that glass refilled if we are just feeling pleased with how much we have left inside? What happens if others are also depending on the water level of the glass? Isn’t it a good thing that someone is looking out for the group so they notice the next refill station and we don’t all die of dehydration caused by excessive optimism?

So now let’s change the metaphor from water in the glass to emotional energy in ourselves. Suddenly, acknowledging our depleted resources becomes a form of self-care, and is encouraged. Or is it? Does society recognize the need to consider the state of our emotional and psychological health, and encourage us to draw boundaries in order to not be further depleted? Or are we still too often encouraging the self-destructive optimism that leaves people broken and entirely empty? I see examples of both, and I’m hoping we are moving in the right direction.

So, I’m willing to release the old, negative belief that pessimism is a personality flaw. Anxiety isn’t a problem to fix, but rather a survival instinct to be trained. I’m releasing the negative belief that emotional limitations and mental health struggles are burdensome or shameful; something to be quietly overcome. The more we acknowledge mental health struggles, and celebrate self-care, the closer we get to the kind and fulfilling society I want to live in.

Lemonade

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 23:39:01 +0000

I am one with the Power that created me, and this Power has given me the ability to create my own circumstances.

When life hands you lemons, ideally you can make lemonade. You might even have the sugar and water already within your reach right now! What a huge advantage this is for you in your lemonade making endeavors! But if you do not have those ingredients, you might still be close to a store that carries the products you need, and you also might have the money and transportation to go to that store and purchase those items. To make lemonade, you will require the tools for the job, or the ability to access those tools. A bowl, pitcher, or some kind of container is essential. If you do not have a home for your lemonade, you will not be able to make it. If you do not have, or cannot acquire, a knife or a juicer, making lemonade becomes a lot harder. Depending on your circumstances, it may even become impossible, because juicing those lemons without the proper tools will take more time and energy, and you may not have one or either of those. In order to make lemonade, you must also have the knowledge of how to make it, as well as the time to apply that knowledge. While it is technically possible to make lemonade even if you don’t have the strong support structure and self-esteem that would inspire you to believe that you can make it, having support greatly increases the possibility that you will succeed. If you have health issues, or physical or mental limitations that prevent you from being able to make lemonade, you will not be able to make lemonade.

I don’t like this affirmation.

A life lesson from a hamster

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 20:34:07 +0000

Whatever I am guided to do will be a success. I learn from every experience. My pathway is a series of stepping stones to ever greater successes.

Long ago, my mom and step-dad stopped at the window of a petstore to admire the hamsters. One of the baby hamsters was determined to run in the wheel with the big guys. Her stubby little legs couldn’t keep up and she would get swung halfway up the wheel by the speed of the faster runners, before gravity crashed her back down on her head. Then she would climb back into the wheel and try again. My parents were charmed by the moxie of this little hamster and took her home, with another hamster buddy to keep her company. Hamster buddy ended up being a male so before long, two hamsters became many more. There were too many babies for her nest, and we’ve all heard what hamsters do when this happens. Fortunately, mama hamster had a less traumatizing solution (from a human perspective, of course). She took half her babies out of the nest, and built them a new nest in another part of the cage. She would spend all day running between nests to nurse all the babies. I’ve been thinking about this mama a lot lately as we are back to homeschooling our two children. While my husband diligently works in our quiet bedroom, I parse out my time in small increments to keep both kids functioning and engaged in school. I tell big kid to wait for a second while I help little kid send her journal entry to her teacher. I turn on the reading video for little kid and dash out to the livingroom to help big kid divide decimals. I get him on his way, and it’s back to little kid to close youtube and get her started on handwriting and spelling. Once she’s got the idea, it’s back to big kid who is now in a full blown meltdown because Oh, no! He has to write a personal narrative and he can’t remember anything that has ever happened in his life. There is nothing he can write about except minecraft, and that’s not personal enough, and he will never be able to do this assignment! This problem is clearly going to take more time than I’ve got for one kid, so after he’s calmed down, and he is trying to remember something from his past that he might be able to translate into a written story, I dash back to little kid to circle every number on her math assignment that she’s written backwards, so she can correct that while I’m sitting with big kid, tossing out memories from all the trips we’ve taken in the last 4 years.

By the end of the day, I fall into bed unsure of what I’ve done with my day. It is difficult feeling successful when you are living in five minute increments, most of which are interrupted. The house is full of half finished attempts to do more. Sometimes I won’t see until the next day that, oh yeah, I brought the vinegar into the bathroom yesterday to try to get the hard water spots off the counter, but then little kid needed help recording her reading assignment. And the fact that it’s a choice we have made to keep the kids at home right now, makes me feel very much like the baby hamster that keeps choosing to climb onto the wheel only to fall on my head over and over. She also ended her days having never successfully met her goals. But as I’m writing this, it’s occurring to me that I might be missing the lesson here. The hamster wheel just goes around. It might feel like progress, but they aren’t really getting anywhere. What about the practice of picking yourself up and trying again despite repeated failure? In this particular way, that hamster was further along the path to success than I have ever been. I also want to recognize that success is a subjective term, and I might not be allowing myself to appreciate the successes that I do have, because I’m too busy being frustrated by those I’m not achieving. Like mama hamster, I am overcoming challenges and successfully getting myself and my family to the end of each day. School work gets done. Meals are cooked and eaten. We have clean clothes to wear. Most importantly, our family dynamic is healthy and reasonably happy. I can learn from these experiences instead of regretting the ones I did not have, and all the items not checked off on my todo list. These successes are the ones that are building towards my future, and they are valuable and worthy.

WWLD?

Tue, 30 Nov 2021 17:27:01 +0000

I trust my Higher Self. I listen with love to my own inner voice. I release all that is unlike the action of love.

Before we moved away from San Francisco I wrote myself a letter promising that I would be me wherever I lived. “Interested and interesting” is how my husband likes to describe the culture of San Francisco that we cherished, and those are the values we strived to live by. At the time I didn’t understand the dread I felt about moving away. The sadness made sense to me. I was leaving behind communities I loved and friends whose company I would dearly miss. But along with the loss came an overwhelming sense that I was going to lose myself in this move. Maybe it was my subconscious remembering something about the suburbs from when I lived here as a child. But at the time of the move I didn’t dwell on the dread. I brushed it off as the fear of change I’ve struggled with my whole life. Then we moved here, to this lovely, little town full of good schools, yoga studios, perfectly manicured parks, and happy, comfortable families. I confidently ventured out to create some community connections in our new home, when something strange happened. Despite the fact that we all spoke the same language, the people in my social circles often didn’t seem to understand me, nor I them. It was as though I was participating in a conversation in which I’d missed the context. No one was ever unfriendly, but my ability to make connections became increasingly difficult, as this undercurrent of strangeness made me feel embarrassed, and this increased the awkwardness with which I communicated. My efforts to forge ahead for the sake of my family resulted in me taking on leadership positions in organizations I had been a part of for years, but in which I still felt like an outsider. It was bewildering and inexplicable as no one was ever anything but perfectly cordial and warm; at community events, at the grocery store, at playgroups, at the birthday parties we hosted despite my own children rarely being invited to any themselves. We were surrounded by amiable indifference, and the more I tried, the worse I felt. Nothing worked, though at that point my sheer desperation was probably getting in the way of having a normal interaction. So I stopped trying. I fulfilled my obligations, but in self-defense, I stopped being interested. I stopped being interesting. I lost my sense of self, and my self-love.

Shortly before my first child was born, I volunteered my time helping a woman with breast cancer start a non-profit that created healing spaces, organized therapeutic events, and nurtured a supportive community, particularly for those with life threatening conditions. I would visit the center (her home) twice a week and log her receipts, design posters and draft copy for facebook. I also contacted people who were involved in various activities at the center, which almost always included frantic fundraising. My friend was a fabulously charismatic, articulate, talented and deeply insightful person, but finances were not her strong suit. As I spoke with people who were trying to raise the necessary donations to avoid her eviction, I would stare at the corkboard that hung above her phone. Mostly it was full of her contacts, schedules, todo and grocery lists, but up in the corner was a post-it that read only “What would love do?” I would reflect on that idea a lot in the following years. What Would Love Do? I appreciated the ambiguity of the question; how it was unclear if the question was “What could be the impact of a loving mindset?” or if it was meant to be Love with a capital “L”, referencing the more familiar sentiment “What would Jesus Do?” I thought both interpretations had merit, but I liked the second better. Reflecting on what Love would do requires a suspension of ego. I’m not trying to figure out how I could respond to something in a loving way. I’m thinking about how Love would respond. I’m stepping outside of myself, and any concerns I might have about being judged or hurt, or making the wrong choices. Nor am I worrying about how uncomfortable I feel, because all of those considerations have to do with Lela, not Love. I don’t have to care about whether I’m doing this right or whether anyone else thinks I am, because none of it is about me. It’s about Love, and whomever Love is interacting with.

So let’s step away from this trascendental woowoo for a second and get real. I can’t be Love with a capital “L”, and the parts of my personality that are not love are parts I’m still pretty fond of. But despite not wanting to nor being capable of transcending humanity to become pure, sentient emotion, for years I found this exercise helpful in moments of stress, confusion or sadness; then I forgot about it for a very long time, until the pandemic hit, life slowed down, and I found myself with a lot of time to sit and reflect. How would Love build a community? Love would reach out, but not worry about responses, or lack thereof. It is not a reflection on her, and even if it was, it wouldn’t matter because Love just loves. Love doesn’t worry about being awkward, or tongue tied or saying the wrong thing. Love just loves. Love doesn’t worry about party invitations or fitting in. Love just loves. Love just loves her children, who will experience a different childhood than she did, and will still be loved. Love just loves without concern about acceptance or rejection.

So what would Love do when someone is having trouble loving herself? When she is wondering if she is as interested or as interesting as she once felt she was. What did that feel like? Was she right back then, or is she right now? Love reminds us that we are who we were when we did love ourselves. Hurt and judgement can make us doubt who we are, but it doesn’t change it.

Sadly, my sweet friend from years ago did not survive her diagnosis. When I went to help her family clear the apartment I looked for that post-it note, but the corkboard had already been taken down. I hope the post-it is inspiring another one of her friends, in a place where they can see it every day and remember to ask this question, not just in their interactions with others, but also in their interactions with themselves.

It’s been a year.

Sun, 21 Nov 2021 21:14:33 +0000

Welcome to my once a decade blog! Some of my posts from 10 years ago are pretty good. I sure was thoughtful and articulate back before mom-brain turned me into someone who forgets to finish her sentences half the

So why am I trying to do this again after 10 years, knowing how hard it is for me to maintain any kind of routine in the chaos of life with two young kids? Truth is, almost every year for the past five years I have written an introductory post to this blog. Maybe someday I’ll post them all and restart this thing over and over for several weeks when I’m dealing with writer’s block, or just being lazy. Maybe this post will also never be published. Just another post to add to the pile in my google docs. However, I hope this is not the case, because this time it’s not just about the writing itch I get every Fall. Last February I had a breakdown. It was not only psychological, but also not entirely physical. It was neurological, at least in part, and it became emotional due to the stress of the symptoms. After thousands of dollars in medical bills, there still isn’t a clear answer as to what happened. But after three different cancer scares over the course of 5 months (the last of which resulted in major surgery and the removal of even more organs than originally planned) I am now in therapy. Therapies. Several kinds of therapies, for all the different kinds of healing I now get to do. And I’m adding writing to the list of therapeutic methods I’m using to try to return to my baseline level of functionality. I know myself well enough to recognize that I need accountability if I’m going to try to make this a routine, and I can pretend I have that in a blog. But more than that, I’m hoping that some of you might even want to participate in this with me. For my birthday this year I was given an affirmation journal. Every page has an affirmation on which you are meant to reflect and offer a response. So far my entries have not been a response so much as an exercise in free association. As I wrote in this journal, I found myself continually wondering how others would interpret these affirmations, and wishing I could hear your responses and insights. What kind of ideas might those insights spark in me? So I decided to take this online where I could share, and maybe have others share with me. But, a word of warning if you require organized, precise and articulate reading material. I’m not good at any of those thing. However, if you so desire, you could raise the quality of this blog with your own reflections and opinions, in which I would be interested, and for which I would be grateful.