Moving Forward

I am continuing to work on myself and considering life goals and progress over the last year. This last year, I have been reminded on the importance of learning to value yourself. It takes time to work on yourself. After two years of counseling and completing many life goals and accomplishments, I find that I sometimes still struggle and feel overwhelmed as a single parent. I have learned the importance of life purpose, focus, to not react, the importance of boundaries, and have identified behaviors that I deserve in relationships with other people. I made a list of personality traits in August and this has helped me keep myself in check. Many friends and family would say the following to me. Learn to love yourself. How do you do this? I still struggle at times but feel my family is making great gains. Be positive and live a life of purpose.  Give to others without people knowing.  Faith in God will carry you through. You are a light and are protected.  Take actions that do not

Reminders on how we can be kinder to ourselves. Responsibility Versus Blame: Responsibility is making a conscious choice on how you will respond to a situation or idea. How can you learn from this experience? What can you learn from this experience? Blame creates guilt, guilt creates punishment and punishment creates pain. Respond to yourself and life in a loving way. Relax and Meditate: Relaxation is essential to the healing process. We can't heal if we are tense. Mediation and deep breathing helps to be centered. Tell yourself that you love you and all is well. Notice how much easier your body is. Do this several times a day. What is it you need to know today? You can consider this question during meditation. Meditation creates the space in which we can quiet down and listen to your inner self. Become connected to yourself, through meditation. Affirmations : Praise yourself as much as you can daily. Tell yourself, I love you. What can you do today to make yourself happy?

With the start of the school year, many regroup to reconsider goals. The two year anniversary of my divorce was last weekend and I found myself in a place of reflection. My family has learned so much these last two years. I am much stronger and cognizant of my surroundings, purpose, behaviors, and reactions to situations. None of us are perfect, but we need to be aware and conscious on how we react to situations. Is our reaction coming from a spirit of love, or is the reaction rooted in fear or anger? Here are some goals I hope to remind myself to consider this fall. Learn to cultivate gratitude. Care for your neighbors and community. Practice 3 outcomes or results that you are committed to 6 months out. For me wrapping up PhD hopefully in September, graduation in December, and health. Love is shown through ACTION, not words. How do you show love in all that you do? Care less, but love more. Fear and anger are the two emotions that hurt individuals the most. Fear or worry is

Bitter sweet... is saying goodbye to elementary years as a parent forever soon. Both sons will be in junior high next year! Wonderful to have a year of healing with my sons. Anyone that knows me and knew my life with Uel knows that we visited the Wichita Mountains often and have camped in over 33 states, Canada, and Europe with the kids.   Nolan was assigned a teacher that was a little "old school" but has a heart of gold and is so dedicated. Without even knowing our background,  she led my kids to places that have significant meanings to our past. She doesn't know this, but my friends, former students and family in Dublin and Stephenville do. I literally found myself at Camp Grady Spruce (Dublin friends will smile about that), the Wichita Mountains (Uel and my old friends will smile), and the JFK museum(many of my former students and people who know me know I collect JFK memorabilia). We couldn't attend her campouts at Sid Richardson (I have 3 br

Deserted. Not occupied. Not inhabited. Space. The black hole that contains nothing. The vacuum. Realizing that the void is not a new phenomenon for me. The void appears in many roles and forms. Personal relationships, family, significant others, the various roles I play as a life partner, mother, employee, scholar, teacher, promoter, coach, artist, and the list goes on. The black hole is there, and not just with personal relationships. It is there in all the roles I play in this beautiful life.  The void remains as I attempt to fill it with projects, drive, the wrong people, because the emotional needs I had in my youth were not met. Rejection is a feeling I am all to familiar with. Why? I prove myself, strive to reach beyond expectations. Still... the void remains. I set myself up for failure, with the unconscious set up of being let down.  I allow judgement, abandonment, manipulations, lies,  cheating, bullying, emotional abandonment, detachment, and feel devalued. A negative cycle

We determine our own destiny, happiness, and we are not victims. We determine our own experiences. Learning to be alone has been very difficult for me. I have recently identified that my main fear is the fear of being alone. I have not had my own identify until now. For over 17 years, I identified myself as the "wife" and prior to that the "daughter."  Sometimes I do feel a little overwhelmed. Recently, I had to make a very hard decision regarding my professional life. Realizing that I must balance a strong relationship with my two sons, I made a tough and final decision. For a short moment last weekend, I had a few regrets. Emotionally, I have always turned to one or two people during moments of change and for the first time last weekend, I realized I am ALONE. Who am I? Can I do this? How will I fix my plumbing, work on my AC unit, check my car tires, landscape, etc.?  Learning that I am valuable, setting appropriate boundaries in difficult situations to defi