Mindspace

Writing in the morning

I've been struggling to find time to write.
These nights i have been crashing when the kids go to bed. Especially since i have been battling a cold. But i'm waking up early and i realized today that it's been a while since i've used the guest room in the morning since my mother left.
So here i am, this is my favorite room in the house. My son reading and me typing on my new Air. My new quiet time, praying, meditating and writing.

New themes

I'm entering a new phase in my practice -- a new confidence and a new depth. They say our clients symbolize the work we need to do, they are our gifts of healing and wisdom. These day as i am finally wading through deeper work with my therapist, more and more of my clients are confronting their trauma head-on, more and more of them are moving towards object relations work.
It's such a growth edge for me, because these are the two areas that i am skittish about. When one of my clients asked to come twice a week, i bucked and squirmed about it for months. I still saw her, but parts of me struggled with stepping into a space of dependency, reliability and rawness that i knew this client was wanting to do. Twice a week is inevitably the work of attachment. We are officially in psychoanalytic, interpersonal work. And i have to be ok being mommy.
It brought up all the issues of mothering i had when i first had Nally. The fear of engulfment, the fear of her taking over my life, the fear of me losing myself in her. With this client, my fear of me not being there for her, my fear of having to be there for her.
It's so funny -- but after 9 years when the children are more independent now --- my work still confronts me.
But with the help of my supervisors and my therapist, i sat in it. i explored it. i showed up faithfully every week and opened myself to it. But today we are doing fine. Both of us. The client always but me as well. And i am noticing my own ease with dependency in my other relationships, in my marriage, in my practice. The culmination was watching myself offer another client biweekly support as she processed her trauma. It was amazing to feel clean about it.
The other theme that shows up with my work lately is trauma. And when a few of them broached it i could feel this knot in my stomach. i realized that i feel competent with emoting flooding clients but it is ones that are composed, high functioning and non-emoting that i struggle with.
With these, i have to take the lead and "step into the fire" and i find myself going " if you don't want to go there, and i don't want to go there, let's not go there! ". Like my supervisor said once, with these " i protect them from their work".
But more and more, we are moving towards it. I am blessed with a new individual supervisor in my life and she is game and confident in the space. As i move towards it afraid, i am also aware that i am moving towards my own dark, unknown spaces. The spaces that haunt me, the spaces i have glimpses of and i don't know.
The funny thing about trauma is that you don't want to know, yet you know. It's this awful confident blend of blur.
There are so many unexplained emotional realities that i feel that i have no reasons or explanations. And i ask myself what's the point of knowing?
The only way out of the trauma is through it.
As i see my therapist more, i realizing that i am stepping into my own fire. Afraid and determined.

Breakfast routine

We've been fighting about our breakfast routine for months. i wake up in anxiety and i drop them off in this huge, frenzied rage. 
I told the kids at 4 years old, we were able to wake up, get dressed, clean our rooms, eat breakfast, homeschool, practice piano all before getting to school on time.
Now they are 7 and 9 and we are dawdling in our rooms till 7.15, the kitchen is a mess, i am yelling reminders of unmade beds and lights still on. i drop them off in a rage and my day is ruined and of course they are unanimously late for school. This is of course after i wake up at 6 am, do quiet time and meditate for 30 minutes. All the serenity is effectively drained by 8.15am.
So we drew up a schedule, and we bought 2 Star wars alarm clocks. One that went off when they needed to leave their rooms. One that went off when they needed to clean their plates.
Part of it now is that the kid wake up, they read in bed, they play, they make their own breakfast, i make them clean up -- i insist that over my dead body are they leaving dirty dishes on the counter because I AM NOT THE NANNY!
But these days i am trying something between Love and Logic and mindfulness based stress reduction. I am trying to let go of the fact that they might go to school hungry and late. i am trying to decide what i can control, i.e. getting into the car at a certain time. i am taking responsibility for my own schedule and time management. i am letting go of my cognitive distortions that the whole morning routine rests on me, that i am the only one keeping time in the whole family, that i am the "bad guy", the only one that cares that the kids miss the first 15 minutes of school.
Between letting go of the shame and making my rage the issue, we've been having a good couple of days. One day, these calm, leisurely mornings show up in our school weeks, the kids are up, nally and i are reading to the tunes of celtic music at the breakfast table, Aidan gets in a little practice time.
We drive to school, giggling about putting bets on the exact minute we drive to the school curb. The person who is right gets to pick the candy for the weekend.
Somewhere between me letting go of needing to control, the shame of being a parent of children who are perpetually late for school, somewhere between choosing to control what i can control -- we have peace.
And it is nothing short of a miracle.

 

Blogging in the dark

Blogging in the dark to  the tunes of Crickets Sound and Wind Bells for Deep Meditation on my new Macbook Air. It is the wildest experience. 
Recently, i had been incorporating more ambient nature meditations in my practice. I had a client close her eyes and listen to a track, and describe and draw what she saw. She ended up defining a scene in a cave, down to the very distance of how far the water droplets were falling. By the end of it, she said that she has been taking shallow breaths all week and this was the first time she was breathing better.
It's been lovely to incorporate more grounding experiential spaces in our work, since past weeks have been stressful. I am learning that as important as it is to walk our clients through spaces of trauma, it is also our gift to them to craft experiences of centering and relaxation. Their lives are so chaotic and crazed outside our rooms that it is a solace even for one hour a week, if we can create that place of rest.
I had an 8th grader come in that day and he was so worried he would miss his session. I asked why and he said he had a stressful weekend coming up. After we named all the reasons why he was anxious, all he wanted to do the rest of the time was run his fingers through the sandbox and piece together a 50 piece puzzle.
As i sat there, watching this anxious, misunderstood boy struggle to relax, i realize, who am i to make him "work" the whole session. He knew how to use the space. And he did.

New Season

i got a new Macbook Air. It's a hugely symbolic on so many levels.
My last laptop was 4.5 years old. It was bought used. So it probably was 6.  It was lime green and my security blanket all those lonely nights as i pounded out paper after paper for school; as i stared absently hour after hour into consulting jobs late into the night. i had used to it start my blog and my writing practice, during the hours the nanny would watch Aidan. 
It has all the graphics programs of a designer. It has a graphics card, all my fonts from design school. It was a designer's computer. i designed 2 websites on it, and countless others for clients. 
Today i bought an Air. It is my commitment to a new season. This year 2012, my new year's resolution is to return to writing. After 2 years of being out of school, i am out of practice. Gone were the days of at least 2 hours of writing a day and my writing group every Saturday. Now my blog posts are 30 days apart. i am fumbling with words. i am letting life go by undocumented.
But i figured that until i can save up enough for my Phd, i need to keep up my writing habit and practice. i figured i would keep blogging, i would write articles for magazines, for my trade and for newspapers. i would keep writing, so that when i do my dissertation, i won't be out of practice. i would keep writing so that i will finally get it in me to put together that proposal for a book.
I'll never forget the day up in San Damiano when God asked me "What makes a writer ? " i answered " Someone who makes the New York Times bestsellers ? " He said " A writer is someone who writes ".
However, unseen, unheard -- i've read it in a million writing books -- all over the world, writers are waking up in the morning, making a cup of coffee and sitting down to a blank page. It's the loneliest task in the word -- but you write because you're a writer. You're a writer because you write.

Protected

Just finished a book called "My husband's Affair was the best thing that happened to me". It is this sickly sweet version of Pollyanna meets Sexaholic Anonymous. Since i now have hard core sex addiction/abuse textbooks for bedside reading, since our church has survived not one but 2 such casualites --  i was a tad skeptical and a wee bit cynical about embarking on such a read.
But granted, since i also have a startlingly low threshold for fiction, fantasy or fairy tales ( the kids and i are listening to Sonheim's Into the Woods which is this twisted version of the fairy tales )  -- i figured this would be an exercise in "willing suspension of disbelief". i.e. my yearly venture into fictional reading.  
Now you have to know i've been rehearsing said scenario in my head for years. Not that my husband has given me any cause to worry. He is unwaveringly faithful and chronically loyal and a blinding optimist when it comes to our marriage.
Yet something about growing up in a culture where history entails having multiple wives as a sign of wealth; of which's modern day version now translates into a mistress in each country, in a part of the world that deems infidelity as almost an asset to being a competent world leader -- i was almost raised to believe this the fundamental core deficiency in men.
As my dad said when Clinton got caught -- " I don't understand America, everywhere in the world it is understood that world leaders cheat, only Americans object ".
So i ran through the book as fast as i could without throwing up. I have to admit there were a couple of times i wanted to throw the book across the room. But when i finally got to the happily ever after chapter, when i forced myself to choke down this sickeningly sweet letter the cheating spouse wrote to his wife; after i highlighted all the instances of codependency, every feature of pursuer-distancer, after i diagnosed the exact brand of infidelity the couple had, and the process of reconciliation, and the blind spots and the probably DSM diagnosis each spouse had; after i wrote out a treatment plan about how i would do it differently both as a spouse, as the therapist of the author, as the friend of the author -- i heard God whispering to my hardened, jaded heart. 
" What if it didn't have to be so hard ? What if i could protect you from it all ? "
And the word was "protect".
i have to say that when this woman chose to respond the "godly way" and meet with the other woman and extend  compassion and forgiveness towards her, when she decided to make herself more attractive and seduce him back into her bed, those were the moments i had to bite down and clench my very sore jaws. 
Yet as i watch the husband respond with insight, with contrition and with repentance, i notice a part of me really protest that. i notice a part of me geared up for revenge, for his suffering, for him really experiencing the hell she went through.
i noticed myself wanting to tear up that sweet letter that he wrote apologizing for the hell he put her through and wanting to rip those pages out and say " NOTHING NOTHING YOU COULD EVER SAY WILL MAKE UP FOR THIS ! "
Um… a little countertransference : )
But as i drove myself to my Al-anon meeting this morning, i heard God whispering to me:
God:" What if i could protect you from that ?"
Me: " From what, the affair ? You didn't protect her! "
God; " Not the affair, but the hell she went through "
What if when i choose Him, i am choosing not just this Pollyanna blind faith that sticks it's hands or BIble verses in her ears and says " lalalala la Jesus loves me" but i am choosing me. My health, my serenity, my peace, my protection. And that it's not disassociation, or denial or what the psychoanalyst call "the manic defense".
What if it was the huge, meditative, extreme gesture of self care.
And that when i choose His way, i am not absolving the crime, the pain, the hurt, the inconsolable wrongness of infidelity -- i am just choosing to let Him protect me from the consequence, the hell that horrendous sin threatens to put me through.
"What you have meant for evil, God meant for my good".
This morning, God gently confronted me with this idea of protection. "I can do it" i tell Him, i am competent, i am strong, i am cut out for this.
I know, He says quietly. But i can protect you from it.
And i thought about all the serene places my Al-anon group describes exist amidst horrific places of pain their addicts put them through. I thought -- surely this must be the same place.
Protected. Not because i am incompetent and unable, but because i deserve to be protected. i can't prevent the sin, but He can protect me from the effects of the sin. He can shield me, and wage the war of justice and fairness, of healing and recovery.
And i can stand right in the middle of it all and be a sickeningly sweet Pollyanna.

Why do you hate uncle G?

I'm learning this new skill, as i am trying to cultivate with my clients -- this ability to show up and tell the truth. 
So when my little girl asks me why i hate the neighbor 10 doors down, instead of resorting to the usual sarcastic, angry, sardonic remark -- i thought i'd check in and see if i could tell the truth.
And when i did i was really surprised to find the goodness and love in my heart.
" i don't hate uncle G Nally, i think he is a really nice guy"
" I do too"  So much for trying to brainwash my daughter.
" But you know how in school, there are two kids that get always get into trouble when they sit together? And apart, they are pretty nice kids but together they make bad decisions ? "
" Yah "
" It's like that here"
" They just can't sit together."
And when i could express it in the words of a nine year old, i surprised myself at the goodness i felt towards this man. This neighbor whom i've targeted all the rage i should have towards a husband who would hang out with him till 3am in the morning drinking. i was able to own his goodness, his humanity, and own the fact that it's my husband who can't make good decisions. Not him, and that it's not that he's bad.
He's just bad for us.
And for a moment, it was appropriately sad.

Gratitude

i often tell my clients that if we process the awful feelings in our lives, we actually make room for the positive feelings like joy, comfort and gratitude.
One of my newest clients who's had the hardest time over Christmas, reported hating coming into my office every week to cry. Yet, she said this Christmas, she's been laughing the hardest, the deep guttural kind of laugh that comes from inside, instead of the smiles she sticks on her face habitually.
Gratitude has been the one feeling i have been feeling more and more in my recovery. Initially, it's was more like an intravenous infusion of chemotherapy -- because it's good for me.
They say to keep a gratitude journal in 12-step. i started it as a child in the "Thanksgiving" portion of Quiet Time, and have kept it up through the years.
But these days i am catching myself in slivers of moments when i am flooded with gratitude.
The stretch of blue sky, when a parking spot opens up, the smell of my child's hair, the hug and grin from my son. It's almost like it knocks your breath out. And i am realizing, it's there all along, and these moments are only times i pause enough to access it.
Last night at 9pm, in the middle of thousand of lights, my little girl had one of those moments. She said "Mommy i am so grateful. i am so blessed that i have a mommy, i get to come here, i get to have diet coke, and cotton candy and garlic fries and go down the slides ".i could tell, she really got it. She tried to explain it to daddy and he of course attributed each blessing to the appropriate giver but -- i got it. She felt it too. This overwhelming sense of gratitude, of being blessed, of being given to. i loved that she felt it in the hustle and bustle of crowds of people.

And if there was one thing i could leave her with before i die, if there is one remnant of parenting -- it would be the gift of gratitude.

So thank you God for finding me amidst the pain and grief of New Year's Eve
For a beautiful New Year
For helping me forget moment to moment
the past and the future 
and really only be open to today

 

New Years at Al Anon

Spent New Year's Eve at Al Anon. Was all set to go to a karaoke, kid-friendly party, then husband showed up 3 hours after he was suppose to and tried to convince me that he crossed county lines from Costco Monterey to Costco Santa Cruz in search of milk. After repeating what he told me back to him 3 times like a true therapist he finally confessed he went wine tasting.
I don't know what hurts me more -- that he so predictably lies about his whereabouts when he drinks or that he actually expects me to believe him. i call him up these days and instead of asking " Where are you " i ask " where did you stop ? " and he'll repeat his expected whereabouts -- work, an errand, dropping off stuff at the neighbors like " Don't you remember hon, we're homosapians, we live on earth " like i am the one that has amnesia not him.
A part of me is humiliated the whole time that he thinks i am so stupid, so gullible, that i don't get this sinking feeling each time he tells me he's going somewhere -- " Where else is he going? " The few times i am wrong, i am relieved and repentant. i attempt to convince myself that i dreamt this whole thing up to get attention.
The majority of the times i am right -- i fantasize of the day he can just straight up be honest with me. That way i can just deal with the grief instead of this incredulous rage. That way, one part of me can be proud of him.
But "i drove to Santa Cruz for milk."This one has got to top " Sake isn't wine, it's rice". One good days, i know that i am not dreaming. i don't have to take his blood alcohol level to know this is certifiable addict behavior of the purest kind. Even my sponsor who i suspect wonders if i just made this whole alcoholic thing up in my head -- said " Wow, i didn't realize he's gotten worse ". After 2 years in Alanon, i know better than to need others to believe me but  for a minute it was lovely to be finally validated. We're dealing with addict character of the purest kind here.
So i took a deep breath and went through the steps of what i always tell my clients -- what can you control. What do you need. How can you take care of yourself.
i had been reading Dry all day for some reason, and maybe God was preparing me because after finishing it i knew exactly what to do. I decided i wasn't going to the party, i was going to a meeting instead. i took deep breaths. Tried to check in. Did a litmus test for vindictive revengefulness which i am beginning to realize is my hugest character defect.
No, i wasn't rageful now, if i had to put on a smiley face and go to this party i would be at the end of the night.
So i waited until he came home,  told him i felt betrayed, told him that i didn't feel i could trust him. And left.
i haven't gone to Al-anon for 2 weeks now. i was so proud of myself that i was holding up. But yesterday, i realized, i needed to be there.
15 people in a room, reporting sorrowfully how Christmas is such an anxiety producing season, how their qualifier acted out, how their family was crazy. i needed to be there. In fact, if i had been there, i would have probably not been as reactive to my sister and mother this vacation.
But it was comforting to see how others were handling it. That i was in good company. That they were laughing. That it felt like family.
It was wonderful to talk to another guy with 2 kids who's wife is driving while drinking and confess my desire to control him by refusing to be the designated driver. There was both a sorrow and a peace about him, that i told him i really aspire to have.
But i left in such a good place. i came home humming. And i am guarding this serenity with my life. It's not bad, it's not good it just is. And for slivers of moments, i experience the incident shrink to being a speck on the wall. The last night of 2011. It's not about me. It's about his stuff, his issue. And the fact that i wasn't raging, i wasn't self-destructively cursing. That the last words my daughter said to me was " Mommy is smiling, that's not good".
It's progress. And it was a beautiful end to the growth of 2011.

Palm Springs Visit

Here at Palm Springs on an impromptu trip with my parents. It's beautiful. The Marriot Palm Desert Villas are set on artificially constructed rolling hills, against the desert sky of stars twinkling against the heat. We wake up to ducks at our doors steps and 2 ponds in our backyard. The kids have a ball feeding them with bread and crumbs. Aidan wanders around the grounds as we can see him from our window. The kids are at such the perfect age to appreciate this.

Aidan is running around in circle going "It's beautiful! " Nally is enamored with everything from everything from crickets, to ducks to making wreaths out of vine.
We wake up to the desert sun against the palm trees and rolling putting green quality grass.
After 4 trips to Phuket and a couple of exchanges to Newport Beach --- we finally feel the gratitude of buying a time share.
It's always an ordeal to run away and we would never intentionally have chosen this place for ourselves. But having traded this place months ago, just because it was available, presented us with another option to run away for future Christmases.

.

We spent a day taking the tram to the San Jacinto State Park. In 10 minutes, we are up 8500 feet in the mountains with a feet of snow. The kids are ecstatic -- snowballing and sledding; running in from the cold. We are tickled to have the biting winter air against us just hours away from basking in Desert sun.
It was the perfect amount of snow for me. Just enough for the season, just enough to feel Christmasy, just enough for the kids to throw snowballs and just enough for us to come running into the warmth.

The Chias and Chois are grateful for the "enforced rest", me less mindful than my retreats. i notice myself less precccupied with the kids, less mindful of their activities, trusting that they will find solace for their bordom and hours. Tomorrow is our last morning here, perhaps i will finally sit outside the porch and drink in His beauty, sipping coffee and reading the Psalms.

Miffed in Palm Springs

Big clash last night God, and i am almost thrilled at how it sours the whole evening. I don't think he understands, just how self-mutilative i can be. A true ragaholic, i have no qualms about how much i destroy and how much goes down in flames.
These days, i am so struck by the very lack of core that a ragaholic possesses. It's not unlike any addict. Beneath all that rage, there is nothing, no-one worth fighting for. Hence, there really isn't any argument about how much our own destructive behavior hurts us. There isn't anyone to hurt in here. Just lots of people OUT THERE.
Last night, empowered by the presence of my parents, my husband got to be as vocal as he ever was. i got to experience, the joy the sheer joy of being on the other end of illogical rage. Wow, that is what it's like for someone to act completely out of line, have 2 people witness it and me have nothing to do with it. He ranted and raved like a little spoilt child, and then went against everything he blamed me for, and my mother sighed at the sheer illogic of it. Even my parents "punished" him with 30 minutes of silence -- he was completely out of line and i disappeared into a book while he can soak into his non-ra-rahness. It felt good to have an environment that is finally congruent. In his family, someone would change the subject and then everyone would act like nothing is wrong.
But this morning, some part of me is trying to love myself, even if all of me wants to set him in flames. That my kids, my parents, this trip deserves better. That even with 3 bottles of wine, his crazy sleeping habits, and watching my parents bicker, this has to be a trip worth taking for me.
To enjoy the kids and the surroundings, as if there was no one here at all. Just me, just the warm sun and the beautiful trees. Lots to be grateful for: a dissociative husband who is willing to lose himself in the kids -- more time for me. A cuddly college bear, who is providing all the endorphin highs i need when pressing his hard nose against my fingernails, lots of food.
I'm definitely realizing the anesthetic quality of my Kindle, that if i wake up in the middle of the night, and i can't sleep the backlit quality of the Kindle, the grounding texts of my favorite authors, they do the perfect job Melatonin is suppose to do.
Yesterday, i found out that if i drowned myself in a book -- everything around me melts away. i am lost in Pema Chodron, Brene Brown and the others.

Grandparents visit

Guilt

Today i will realize that i will always struggle with the guilt of being a bad mother. That i am struggling against generations of perfectionism and result-orientedness. That historically, we have only affirmed and recognized performance and results instead of beings and wisdom.
Because of that i will be gentle with myself during these times of guilt. i will not listen to the voice that says i am a bad mother. i will trust that has a path of success and reward that has some but not all to do with me. That if i instill character, i can guarentee times and life choices that happen in spaces and times i don't exist. If i instill results, i can only guarentee ( and not even ) only instances where i am present.

Preface

This book came about from my wrestlings as a born and bred Singaporean which makes for a bona fide Tiger Mom of the most potent breed because in a country with 2.5 billion people on _____ sq feet there is really only room for one animal. As a therapist, in my own therapy and people ask me about my dysfunctional family, i tell them it's more like i had a dysfunctional country.
i fled and found psychological asylum in the USA, said f-you to cambridge all my Oxford educated professors and proceeded to acquire like clockwork 2 BAs and 2 MAs before i finally landed in a calling quite by accident and purely again in the only way i get anything done -- in sheer drunken reactivity.
This book is written in the throes of mornings when i wake up with a full blown panic attack about worrying if i am ruining my children because i resigned being a TIger Mom. This verifies the fact that in spite of my yearly declawing and a repeated de-voicing and i am still every inch my country's daughter.
This book is a compilations of meditations that i had choked out of full blown panic attacks wondering for the 100th time what exactly are the navigational spaces i am raising my children.
i know what i don't want, but every inch of my body screams of the principles that chant in my head. Most days i struggle with shame and enormous amounts of guilt.
But i know being a psychotherapist now, what really matters and the consequences of being raised inside that cage.

Al- Anon gems

Al-Anon this morning was priceless.
i have been simmering all week. It started out Wednesday when i watched my husband consume 7 bottles of wine with 6 guests. Just the following Monday i was so proud of myself for not stressing out.
Then there were 2 more parties after and then this weekend in Monterey where i watched 1 bottle and 2 half bottles get consumed.
I know that when he stepped out to let a crab go and i wondered if he had stopped into another restaurant to get a beer, i am officially back to obsessing about my husband's drinking. Time for another meeting.
But this morning, we did the 4th Step -- what better distraction from my qualifier than to do a full blown inventory about myself. i've done so well for the month of November with my busy speaking engagement schedule. So busy i hadn't had any time to monitor my husband's drinking. When my meeting-mates ask me, i proudly declare " i am too busy living my life to notice ".
But now that the frenzy has simmered down and the holiday parties are up, i am back to noticing the empty bottles and the dishwasher full of wine glasses.
I notice myself crabbier, and more impatient. More prone to pushing him away. All in the same breath, grateful and thankful that if this is the most it is -- it is great.
But as i rushed in this morning to sit at a meeting, i know it's exactly what i needed to hear:

• One woman's definition of impatience as the inability to believe that we won't be here forever.
As i was taking my 4th step inventory in the meeting, i realize impatience was at the top of my list. i just apologized on text to my husband for being impatient over the weekend. i am trying to own my "defects of character" and "promptly admit it and make amends".
i am learning to trust that as my daughter systematically reads in fetal position and my son burps out loud proudly and they both have atrocious table manners that somehow this is temporary and they will learn in time.
i am trusting that this hard, lonely stage in our marriage is just momentarily, and the tomorrow or maybe in the next second, things may change.
i realize a part of me is so adverse to change, that i am willing to sit here, set up camp and make this god-awful miserable place home, because it's too much work to entertain being fluid and flexible -- even if it's in a good way.
Yet i've been praying for change forever.

• One woman talked about how her sponsor got her to imagine her ailing mother wrapped in a blanket of her own Higher Power.
The part that struck me was "HER OWN" higher power. The one hysterical thing about 12-step is that you don't have to share God. Everyone has their own Higher Power. They define it their own way, they have different relationships with Him/Her. We don't share.
Which a part of me just loves. Which a part of me feels is Christianity anyway -- we all forge our own relationship with God. But i think we often forget, we think our loved ones have OUR God, relate to God OUR way, should see God OUR way.
So this morning, i wrapped my husband in a blanket of his OWN Higher Power, trusting that God loves Him, is desperately worrying about him the same way i do. Ok i edited the last bit.

•One woman talked about how she was mad at herself for marrying her qualifier.
That one hit a chord. i was just trying to figure out this morning why i always hit this wall of fear and incredulity every time i find out my husband drinks. It would be as obvious as if i found out he was Chinese. But i reel. i lose it. i lose it to panic and fear and shame and betrayal.
And i realize as this lady shared, a part of me still can't forgive myself for marrying this part of him. Or marrying him.
It's god-awful to admit, given i am a classic, text-book co-addict. But listening to this lady share and how she married not one for 4 alcoholics/addicts. It is just heartbreaking.
And i am trying to focus on the fact that his drinking has more to say about me than him. That somehow i would be a person that would end up with someone like that.
As if i wasn't an addict myself, or couldn't be one. As if there is a part of me that blames myself for his drinking.
But this morning, i am struck by how i can imagine a part of my husband realizing this blame i feel towards myself and him. How it must be hurtful. How it must be horrifying.
To not be loved and celebrated unconditionally. The way i feel he loves me, when i am not busy reeling from being abandoned by his silence.

• One other lady shared about how abandoned she feels by her husband who found recovery and now instead leaves the family to go to AA meetings instead of drinking or drugging.
A part of me laughs. An addict is an addict, and when you get sober, you just graduate to more acceptable addictions -- like meetings.
A part of me resonates with him as she insists that he is losing his family while helping the world -- sponsoring other men. i know i feel the same way with my husband's trips to Haiti and dad's mission trips at a time when his grandchildren are growing up right before his eyes.
i am reminded of a scene from a movie when Jim a famous missionary leaves his family to go evangelize the aborigines who eventually killed him. i remembered the tears in his young son's eyes who begged him not to go.
This estrangement, this ambition, this purpose and calling God puts on men's hearts -- it's just heart breaking. Don't tell me it's good.
It's another addiction. i've reconciled myself with the idea that in order for men to feel purposeful in the world, they need the support of women, and then they leave.
We are suppose to find support elsewhere.

But i sat there, eyes closed listening to each share. Thankful for a mindful, cost-free space to reflect and hear myself. And to hear my Higher Power speak to me, and tell me serenity is possible; to say the serenity prayer with a group of other people. To hear others struggle with addicts in their lives with grace and dignity.
i love my Redwood City Homegroup. i feel so loved and seen by them. i am finally staying back and talking to them. i got a number from a friend today. Grateful. Thankful. Loved.

Grateful Mondays

Its a beautiful foggy Monday -- i am loving and relishing my precious day off. It starts the week off right, with the busy weekends we keep. i am getting my routine down and protecting it with my life. i typically, wake up, try not to stress the kids out  ( " Why are you so calm mommy ? Usually, you are all over the place. " My little mirror comments ) because they typically oversleep from the weekend activities. We grab a quick breakfast and i try to start their week calm and prayerful.
I run one errand before my 10am Al anon meeting, stroll casually to my 12.15 Dailey Method workout, lunch and possibly do one more errand before early pickup at 3.10pm.
On Mondays, i wake up and dress down the one day of the week besides Saturday. i wear my perfectly coordinated Lululemon workout clothes and meticulously wear a dress-down, non-made up "Nude look" and mess around in my Ugg clogs.
i relish the fact that my Al-anon group and the mom's group at school get to see me in my workout, stay-at-home mom outfit of the week. Every other day, i am dressed to the nine for work. Never thought i'd appreciate dressing down.
But Mondays i am typically overwhelmed with gratitude, grateful for the give. i am realizing that it is indispensable given now my schedule has me back to back for the next 4 days. Tuesday i am on from 9-5 back to back, with one hour to wolf down lunch.
i am so aware of other times in my life when the day ran into each other and i didn't feel the warm security of and a single finite day of hard earned rest. Of feeling the absence of guilt, and the pre-ache of a hard driving week ahead.
Everything is so much more precious in contrast.
Listening to K-love on a foggy day --- thank you Lord.

Little Man

Little man couldn't be more perfect right now. I think God is so amazing to give me the chance to raise a man -- someone else's husband one day, a chance to be loved so completely and sincerely.
I'll never forget one retreat up in San Damiano and i was reflecting on how mistrusting i am about the affections of men -- how conditional i always feel their love is.
And i reflected the exact moment in which i realized there is one space where i actually let my guard down and let myself trust the love of a man -- that is in the arms of my son.
Aidan at 7 is a bona fide codependent. i am already saving up for his therapy bills. He has a heart as large as the ocean. While his sister has the detachment, the distanciation skills to make her an excellent physician or therapist, he is truly incapable of watching or imagining anyone in pain. He used to shake watching the slightest violence on TV.
I remember when the little boy almost drowned in our pool, and enoch was giving CPR and the police and the firemen were around, my daughter hovered around curious and unmoved. Aidan was huddled in the corner of the playhouse quivering with tears, that night he bequeathed all his birthday toys to the little boy hoping that he would get well.
Even today when i cuddle up with him in a special moment to affirm him of how much i appreciate him, he would pause and say " How about Nally ?"
But he is in such a Oedipal stage right now, i wish we could stay here forever. He hugs me as says " Mommy you are gorgeous and glorious! ". He says "Mommy you are the BEST mommy in the world "
More than that, he is so quick to anticipate my needs, my stress in the mornings, helping me pick up the kitchen or wipe down the counters.
Tonight as i watch him pick up my clothes, hang up my jeans, run to get me a mug for teeth brush, tidy up the bathroom counter, i marvel at how and where he is learning all this.
He is always appreciative of everything i do for him " Thanks mom" or apologizing for the slightest bad mood i'm having " Sorry mom" even when it's got nothing to do with him. He is the baraomenter of our how family when all of us is disassociated and preoccupied, he can sense the slightest tension in the air between enoch and i and starts working to dissipate it immediately.
He gets my door, he carries my grocery, he gets my plate.
Just feel so loved by him.

Halloween

 

We missed Halloween last year because we were in Singapore.
And i realized, i missed one of the most stressful festival of the year. Somewhere between the projective identifications that are walking around, and some unwritten sworn oath every parent has made to make all their children's "fantasies come true ", somewhere between it being a costume making, baking and party event, it's every introvert's nightmare.
This year's Halloween ran headlong into what i'll now affectionately refer to as "marketing month", which meant i took the same perfectionist tendencies i had with my powerpoint presentation into baking -- which triggered flashbacks the size of my RISD days. i had never felt more incompetent, conspired against, like a failure, agonized and obsessive compulsive since i was preparing for crits in front of my Swiss professors.
I know i had reached new levels of trauma when i was muttering to myself in tears when the cake pops tipped over 5 minutes on the way into the car and then in the car and then on the way to the class.
But here are the pictures. The kids had a blast. Of course, Aidan changed his costume 8 minutes before he left for school, so that Ninja costume was made literally in 5 minutes. Thank Goodness, it only comes once a year.

Natalie Baking

The kids have to be about the perfect age -- more than being articulate, introspective and insightful post-hours therapists, they recently newborn cooks.
Nally's totally coming into her own in the kitchen. She now attends cooking classes on her own, googles recipes,  makes full blown cakes while i nap on Sunday afternoons.
Between that and watching Daddy's cooking shows, i am so pleased to see Aidan sitting there flipping the pan and shaking it noisily like the professionals. 
I now can be effectively bribed to take them to Mcdonalds on a school day morning by waking up to fully made, calorically acceptable breakfast -- scrambled eggs with spinach and turkey/fish/chicken and a cup of coffee ( Starbucks mixed with peppermint cocoa and a dash of creamer ). It's full service in our house.
The other day, i sat down on a Sunday to make stew in the crock pot and i had 2 suse chefs who fought over who gets to cut mushrooms and onions, peel potatoes and carrots. We had more fun making the soup than eating it.
But i am so struck by how we would never had experienced this new surge of interest and independence if we kept our in-house cook -- the nanny.
We learnt that if we let the kids make their breakfasts, they eat it. The other day, Aidan chastised me for assuming that i knew what he'd like for breakfast and putting it on the table BEFORE he opened the fridge and figured out what he wanted. ( Nevermind he liked my suggestion and ate it heartily )
But here are pictures of them cooking and cleaning. Nally bakes every weekend getting the same therapeutic relief from flour and mixing i get from writing and reading poetry.
I for one get increasing grouchy as the kitchen gets increasingly covered with uncontrollable dusts of flour and sugar.
The upside is on days like this on Thanksgiving morning, we are greeted with chocolate chip pancakes made on the fly, in the moment -- they are amazing!

 

Harvest

I was at a retreat at San Damiano and the leader asked us to think of a word that characterized this season of thanksgiving and the word "harvest" came to mind.
It has been a frenetic couple of weeks of a new flush of clients. I'm back to the crazy trainee days of 30 client hour weeks.
It's been a while, and the summer was a 3 month lull of sometimes 10 client weeks so i am facing this new flush with both new gratitude and skepticism.  The ebb and flow of private practice still unnerves me, both the fact that i can't control it and that is is unforgiving in that an empty client hour just resounds there without any busy work to fill it.
But on the other hand, God is reassuring me.
My practice is in a new space. My new clients are no longer from the "front lines" -- the cold calls that come through Christian Counseling Center. They are friends of clients, they are people that "found me" or "chosen me" from 60 other of my colleagues poring through the profile directory of the center. One of my clients asked to see me twice a week.
I have been furiously marketing with speaking engagements and yet all of my clients have been gifted to me from "ground up" from the referral richness of a 3 year old practice or from the confidence of a colleague referral which always hits a special collegial chord.
My heart overflows with gratitude at a God whom i've entrusted my living. It feels like the old days of handing over a design practice asking that He gives me enough clients to pay for my tuition for school. The gratitude every quarter when the funds came in to pay for 4.5 years of graduate tuition.
But this Thanksgiving, i am surprised by yet another "harvest": clients that i have been a year with "little" change;  clients, i've categorized a "Axis-2", the pure Freudian psychodynamic client that you know you're working in the "unconscious" space of attachment and object relations; clients that i have spent a year working in the winter of their lives, barren and "unproductive"; woke up to unexpected strides.

- a woman in mourning, paralyzed with 7 years of grief suddenly found work, is drawing boundaries and redefining her role in her family.

- a 50 year old man who hasn't worked in the last decade preoccupied with caring for his children in an acrimonious separation  suddenly starts his life back up again by going to trucking school.

- a 20-something tells her father about an abuse she kept secret for a decade.

Huge strides, enormous change but they crept up on us like the California weather -- teasingly, unpredictably, and unconsciously. Without knowing, we have ended up in Fall, relinquished our summer wear and adjusted to the reds and oranges of the thanksgiving season.

Unconsciously, after wailing and grieving for a year -- we have ended up in a season where all our prayers have been answered, all of our wounds are healing, and everything we've asked or imagined is given,
and
ironically,
we are too busy, too content living life
to notice.