Parking Anxiety, the Ego, and Me

I went a bit crazy on my trip to Seattle.  I was expecting a little personal turmoil.  The trip was rife with potential emotional overtones. My son was graduating from college, and I had planned to stay several extra days to care for him since the Monday after the Saturday ceremony he was having an operation on his knee.  Did I worry about the stress around either of these events?  NO. 

I worried about parking a car. I'm not kidding.  Here's what happened. 

Our boy's girlfriend was off on a trip to Europe, so her apartment was available for my use during my stay.  It was a lovely place to be; a jewel box of an apartment filled with beautiful pieces of art, inspirational poetry, and great literature ( I got some good reading done) and only a ten minute walk to my boy's place. 

The only problem with this solution was where to put my rental car. Parking in Seattle is insane.  My boy's girlfriend had a permit on her car allowing her to park on the street without being ticketed.  She also had a spot in her building's parking garage.  She told me to take her car out and park it on the street, and put my rental car in her spot in the garage.  This girl is an angel.

 

The problem?  Her car is huge and the spot is small. I could barely get the rental into it. Fitting her car into it, even though I knew she did it all the time, looked to me like trying to squeeze a EEE foot into a size 6 pump. This picture is the closest I could find to how difficult I imagined it to be. Now, I'm a pretty good driver, and have parallel parked on the steep hills in the streets of San Francisco, but for some reason, this task filled me with white-hot fear.  I wasted nights of good sleeping time trying to figure out how in the world I was going to park that car.  See what I mean?  Crazy.

Anyway, and not surprisingly, all went very well; but it disturbed me to be so affected by the potential of trouble.  It  took me right out of the moment and into a horrible parking revere.  These bouts of anxiety struck me as one of my common  and very annoying thought patterns, and I wondered how I could avoid this incredibly powerful anxiety energy in the future. 

I decided to take the problem to my network chiropractor, Lisa Hartnett. I'll sum up here what she told me. 
She said I was taking the whole thing too personally.  The "I" that was going crazy and being anxious is not who I truly am. All that negative energy patterning is my ego.  The "I" that I truly am is never crazy, never anxious, and never worried.  The true being that I am, that we all are, is our untroubled, happy-to-be alive, eager-to-experience-the-contrast, blithe and powerful Universal selves.

Lisa pointed out that I was lucky.  Now I knew very clearly how to tell the difference between messages from the ego and messages from the Universe.  Ego messages will cause discomfort.  Every time.  (Even praise, that flatters the ego, carries with it the desire for more approval and the flip-side fear of its loss).

Universal messages are always ones of joy, connection, peace, empowerment, and love. Heed those messages and wherever you are is heaven on earth, even a dark Seattle garage.

Love, Kristine

The Wisdom of Resting

Three days to go before we fly off to Seattle to see our youngest graduate from college.  The time has gone by in a flash.  I feel like I just kissed our freshman goodbye at the school steps and now he's graduating.

Because of his recent injury (torn meningus, detached ligment to the patella) he's going to be going to be receiving his diploma on crutches.  These few days he's negotiated insurance, transportation, and medical buerocracy.  I helped out long-distance, and didn't realize that, with his injury and the hectic nature of getting ready for our trip,  I was stressed out. I was ignoring every signal. 

This morning I got some really good advice from the Universe.  The first came through in this great book I'm reading called You Are the Answer by Michael J. Tamura.  Here's what I read:

"We begin to live for the sake of fulfilling our assumed responsibilities and obligations to everyone else in our world rather than for fulfilling our purpose in life".

I thought to myself, as I was busily organizing my daily to-do list, that that was a very interesting statement, and that I'd look into when I wasn't so busy.  Maybe I'd think about it on the plane . . .

Then I pulled my daily Abraham card and goddess amulet (completely at random) to see what guidence I should keep in mind as the day went by.  Here's what I got.  See the resting ladies? 

Not only that, the Angel card I pulled was "Obedience".  Did I listen?  No, I did not.  I am so sorry I didn't.  Sure, I got what I needed to do done, including writing this blog, but I've got a splitting headache for my trouble, a sure sign that I'm out of balance and some recharging is just what I need.  I promise that tomorrow . . .wait, you know what?  I'm not going to put it off another moment.  I think I'm going to get some rest right now.

Much Love,
Kristine

Trusting Life

I was enjoying a beautiful spring afternoon in the Bay Area.  The weather was delicious enough to host my monthly tea group at the table in my garden.  We were having a delightful conversation when my husband came downstairs to tell me that my youngest boy had injured himself. A cloud came over the sun.

My guests, all being mothers themselves, knew that I was no longer "at" the tea, and that my heart and mind were with my boy.  They graciously excused themselves, and I raced to the phone. I needed to find out right that minute what happened to him, how he was, and what I could do to help. 

We'll be seeing him next week.  We're heading for Seattle to attend his graduation from Cornish College of the Arts. We organized our trip to also catch a performance of the play he's been in for the last three months; A Midsummer Night's Dream with the Seattle Shakespeare Company. 

He's been loving this play, the company, and his part. Reports of standing ovations and nuanced and bawdy performances tickled our ears and warmed our souls.  It was his first professional gig, he was doing great, and we were proudly and eagerly looking forward to our place in the audience.

I dialed his number and heard his voice.  He had been having trouble with his knee, but didn't think it was too serious until right in the middle of the play. He made an overenthusiastic gesture and felt a wrenching pain.  Well, the show must go on, so he limped through the rest of the play hiding his injury as best he could. Now he was in the emergency room, and from the looks of his knee, this was going to be his last performance of Midsummer Night's Dream.

Ahh, the woulda/coulda/shoulda song started.  If we had know this was going to happen, we would've changed our plans.  We should've gone to see the play earlier.  If we had left for Seattle even a week earlier and planned a longer trip, we could've seen the play.  Woulda/coulda/shoulda will drive you mad! None of that was going to help our boy. But what was?

This question inspired wild plans of action.  Thoughts of driving 14 hours straight to get to him, of flying to Seattle earlier to help out, of recruiting local friends for support . . .we longed for something to do to help. 
But who, really, would we be helping?

Well, we'd be helping us to deal with our feelings of disappointment and helplessness, and to have a bold story to tell when it was all over.

What we truly needed to be was just an audience for what was happening to him. The drama of his own life was in his hands, and only he could deal with it.  He had insurance, had found a hospital, got the pain meds, and was going to be all right. Plus, he had built up a network of friends to support him and colleagues he could count on to help him do whatever was needed.

We were learning to be patient, stand back and watch it unfold. As we watched, we saw he was in the best hands possible: his own. In our latest phone call with him, he had this to say about his experience with disappointment and pain:  "Mom, I learned how loved I am."

What a great lesson to learn. 

Life has such interesting ways of teaching us what we need to know.

Love,
Kristine

The Wisdom of Letting Go: Mothers & Children

Let it all go.  Everything.  Make a decision that nothing you have matters. Remember that old saw, "!f you love something, set it free"?  It's time to do just that.

I did my own little experiment in letting go just the other day to see what would happen. I was driving with my husband, and noticed that I was thinking about my children and their various problems.  I was not focused on what I was doing.  My life, at that moment and so many others, was not mine.  It was theirs.
 
It's not their fault.  I chose to focus on their needs and priorities above my own from the moment they were born. As my kids grew, I prepared a path before them as best I could.  I used words and actions to help smooth their way.  Despite my efforts, if they stumbled or faced the inevitable difficulty, I was there to kiss their pain away and ease their hearts.  Well and good when they were two, but when they're twenty-two it's a different story. I had formed this habit when they were little, but for my sake and theirs, it was time to break it.  

I imagined how I would feel if my husband and I had had no children. Immediately I felt freer and more expansive, as if life had more possibilities and I had more choice. 

Don't get me wrong, I don't regret having kids at all.  Being a mom has been wonderful.  I've become stronger, more patient, and more in touch with the areas in my psyche and soul that needed healing.  Motherhood has truly inspired personal growth in so many areas, and I'm in awe of all my children have given me and how enriching their presence is in my life. They are wonderful people.

It's just that now realize that all my attempts to manage my children's experiences are meant to make ME feel better, not them.  First, I was using them a an excuse to get out of living my life.  After all, how could I focus on my life when I was so busy trying to live theirs. Second, if I could make everything all right with them, I imagined I could be free from worry and doubt.  In short, I was a prisoner of my insecurities, and so were they. I decided it was time for all of us to be set free.

Here is my pledge:

"To the best of my ability, I solemnly swear to the Sacred Mother that I will be for you, my children, as She is for all of us: a loving presence who let's us live our lives the way we choose. With a deep knowing in my heart, I surrender to the truth that no matter what occurs, all is truly well.  I will let life guide you to your proper path and I will, to the best of my ability, butt out!"

Go and live your lives.  I will love you, let you go, and, finally, learn to live mine.  I think it's about time.

Love, Kristine