Of Mice and Mold

C.S. Lewis told me that I'm a mere player on the stage -that the REAL me exists outside of the stage -in the darkened wings and the unseen balconies, and that I can't tap into The Real Me until my part is finished, until I've washed off the stage make-up and hung up the costume... in short: until I die.

This makes absolute sense to me because I feel The Real Me at certain sacred times in my life, and each time I do, I find a sense of home that feels even more HOME than the four walls that house me right now. 
Writing does it to me -leaves me with a sense of other-worldliness that feels more like visiting a departed twin I've never met rather than an alien encounter.
Certain songs will transport me to my "other" home, remind me that I'm still playing my part on stage and that there's a wide world waiting in the wings and beyond.
But surely, PRAYER is my biggest, fattest surest freest ticket to my Homeland, to Father and Mother.

Prayer has been my golden ticket in these last years.  I always pick up a ONE WAY ticket, fully intending to never leave God's presence, but something always, always pulls me back to the bright draw of the stage lights.
God knows how I can't let go of that stage.  Even when we're together, it seems like all I can talk about is The Play.  I'm consumed with it.
He knows all about The Play.
He wrote it.  He produces it.  He is the audience, the crew, the set designer.  Alpha and Omega!

I ask Him questions, and sometimes He replies.  Sometimes He raises His eyebrow and sometimes He just smiles while I work out answers for myself.

I'm doing a scene right now titled, "Of Mice and Mold."It's really pretty grotesque.

It hold the familiar old plot line of health issues, one that I can't seem to shake.  Maybe my character plays the part well?  I don't know.  This is something I ask Father when I happen to buy a well-intentioned "one way" ticket. 

The set looks something like a blue-collar rental, adorned with antiques and dirty clothes.  There's a baby painting her own fingernails, a young boy and girl arguing over who called whose imaginary friend stupid, and Me.  Me is wearing my LEAST favorite costume: work clothes.  I'm curled up in the comfiest chair.
There's a television show on in the background, a nearly empty milk carton in the fridge and leftovers on the counter that have grown some fascinating mounds of mold.
And as I sit with a heating pad on my side, hoping to quell the pain roaring from under my right rib and calm the nausea that comes in dreaded waves, a mouse scurries around the edge of the stage.

I want to care, but I'm too tired.  I'm SO tired.

I find that in previous acts, I've had to let go of expectations in my marriage.  I've had to leave my 50th anniversary bash and dreams of grey-haired front porch hand-holding in the hands of The Playwright.
THAT was hard.
I yelled into the blackness of the audience at that point.
"You expect me to go along with this?" My hair curled, my body toned and able, my make-up as pristine as was in my power to procure.
It was my DIVA moment, The Diva Scene.

Of Mice and Mold is unfolding in what feels like YEARS away from The Diva Scene.  I'm not sassy and stamping my feet.  At this point, I'm looked less plucky and more sucky, defeated and tired.

"It's been 5 years," I whisper to the footlights because I know The Director well enough by now to know that HE WILL HEAR ME even if I don't yell, even if I don't stamp, even if I don't speak at all, "and still.  I am being asked to give more of my future.  I am being asked to give all.  I don't know if I can."

Can I surrender my ENTIRE future to God?  Can I trust Him with my health and my kids and my bank account?
With the mice?
I haven't even mentioned the mold!

These are the questions I put at His feet on my Prayer Train visits.
His answers are always so pure and delicious. 
"Stop worrying about The Play, Alicia," He closes His eyes to match my closed eyes, "And let Me."
His calming words make the mice and mold feel like distant pebbles in my shoes -the kind I kick out in an instant. I remember that The Play is a blip on the radar.  It's so easy to forget, so easy to get wrapped up in my lines, the set, the banter.

At that moment, the Real Alicia and The Real Father touch souls so intimately and deeply that I can't imagine ever opening my eyes and breaking our connection.  In that moment, God knows my deepest longings to live a life filled with Mother Teresa's charity, C.S. Lewis' wisdom, and Erma Bombeck's humor.  He knows my shame, my strength, my fears and my hopes.  It is the most vulnerable love I know. I am completely exposed, yet all around me is insurmountable support.

It is Heaven on Earth.
And I CLING to it right up until the mouse scurries across from stage right, and then my eyes fly open.  I'm back.

The Plot floods my mind: get the nail polish away from the baby, keep the chocolate from the dog. Put the fighting children outside, and don't forget to eat even if everything makes me sick.  Do I have any bleach?  Can I make it to the store?  Does anyone have any clean clothes?

My serenity is threatened constantly on stage -maintained only by the heavenly hangover that comes when I access my Real Me, my True Home.
I remember today is just today, and my only job is to be as present as I can be in it for God has a new act around every corner.
The great tragedies only come when I spend my time trying to predict and manage the upcoming acts -to grieve over my mistakes in the acts I left behind.  I try to balance every scene all at once instead of simply playing the one at hand and leaving the managing and writing to God.

Tonight, I touched The Real Me.
This makes the impending tomorrow easier. Though the mold will grow and the mice will somehow find their way from the barn to my home and the pain in my body will insist on playing it's own shadowy part... I remember the Play is just The Play.

And God, who is within and without, knows me very, very well.

No More Tissues

I'll never forget the day I was done crying.

For six years of marriage, I had shoved down my tears in favor of comforting my husband.  And when I hit rock bottom and six years' worth of hot tears came raging to the surface, I couldn't stop.  I cried for months.  No one knew my pain.

I talked with the Bishop now and then, but kept that relationship as small as possible -stripped it bare of what I was really going through.  My own shame kept me from opening up.  I didn't talk, I didn't tell... I was married to an addict, a porn addict, and the shame I felt was binding.
But one day I told someone who wasn't on The Shame List of people it was okay to talk to -she wasn't a Bishop.
I didn't want to tell her because the thought of someone else KNOWING made me physically ill.  What would Danny say if he found out I had talked about his stuff with someone else?  a friend?  another woman?
Still, something drove me to open my heart.  And I did.
I'm pretty sure it's easier to jump out of a plane with a parachute strapped to your back than it is to take that first plunge.
Why?  No parachute.

For days afterward, I felt ill.  I shook.  I felt deceitful.  I felt like I was lying to my husband by not telling him that I had told someone.  I was terrified he'd tell me not to tell anyone else, not to talk to her, and at that time... I needed the safety of space, the safety of being able to talk unfiltered, to share my pain and hurt.
And I DID.
For months, she would call. 
"How are you?"
I would answer and the answers were never witty or funny or nice in any way.  They were riddled with grief, with hopelessness, with false beliefs about my abilities, identity and nature.  I would apologize for my negativity, and she would listen and say, "I am so sorry you're going through this."
So many tissues.  I used up so many tissues.  SIX YEARS of tears came flowing out in six months!  Meltdowns were no respecter of persons or holidays or convenience.
The children watched Netflix and sat on clean laundry.
I gained ten pounds.

My dear, sacred friend continued to call.  The One Who Knew.  
Then came one day in late summer.  She called on a bad day.  I picked up the phone.
"How are you?" she asked.
And, like I had for many months prior, I told her.  I laid bare my soul.
Only this time?  I HEARD myself.  It was an out-of-body experience.  I listened to my depression, I heard my tone of voice... the darkness in my soul.
I hung up the phone and DID something.  I did the dishes. 

As I washed, I felt the urge and push and desire for something... MORE. 

I didn't want tissues anymore.
What did I want?
A life without tissues had seemed impossible, and to find myself wanting to move on?  I felt lost.  I needed guidance.  I needed...
...
TOOLS.

I wanted to WORK at something, I wanted to dig up something, uncover something!  But all I had on my side were a pile of tissues and a dirty house!
I had no direction, no one to talk to... the only person I knew who had gone through this had divorced her husband, and I didn't feel that was a path I needed to take.

So I talked again.  I TOLD another person.  Again, the shame was sickening, but the rewards were worth it.  She suggested a support group.  I began attending and looking into the eyes of women who understood my pain. 
The more support I found, the less pain I felt and the more tools I had!

My soul became a tool box, hungry to be filled.  Each meeting, each phone call, each new person I felt prompted to open up to became a stepping stone, a tool, a fresh face in my pathway.

And my tissues.
My sweet, valiant, loyal tissues.
I reserved a drawer in my tool box just for them.  Where they were once a lifeline, they did become a enemy to my progression... a trap, so to speak.
 For although I needed my time to feel and process the victimization, there came a beautiful and glorious day when I was ready to put my toes into the water of hope. 
I just needed someone to take my hand and guide me toward the stream.

And as I filled my toolbox, it was constantly shifting.  Is this for me?  Is THIS for me?
I rearranged and tried new tools, different brands...

This weekend, I turned and checked my toolbox out to find -most blessedly -that my toolbox is past it's shaping phase.  I can now open up shop and fully go hard and fast to work.

My tools:

• Monthly meeting with my Bishop where I hold NOTHING back but lay aside my shame and open up.  My Bishop is safe -my Bishop has not traumatized me.  I know I can open fully up to him, and I do.  He gives me spiritual guidance and inspired direction from God.
• Regular meetings with a sex addiction therapist.  My online meetings with Brannon Patrick have been pivotal in my recovery.  Having someone look me in the eyes and say, "Alicia, you have rights.  You don't have to live under the thumb of addiction" was freeing and hopeful and validating.
• Education!  Support!  YOU!  I'm looking RIGHT AT YOU! Reading books and blogs and finding true joy in my unending and ever-satisfying quest for truth!  The more I know and learn about addiction, vulnerability, truth, transparency, and LOVE... the stronger and more resilient I become.
• Daily work in a 12-step program (s-anon for Yours Truly) with a sponsor who is safe -more concerned about my well-being than my comfort.  I can call her and spill it all, and she can lovingly guide me, speak truth when I can't see clearly, and say things like, "Go eat something healthy, okay?" when I'd rather eat cookie dough. Working the steps daily means working surrender daily, and surrender is one of my greatest tools that brings me closer to
• GOD.  Each of my tools above brings me closer to God.  He is at the center and the outskirts of my recovery.  He is in my core and around my being.  He IS Alpha and Omega. 

My tissues are blessed and sacred.
I don't minimize or downplay the months they camped by my side.
I needed those months, and am FOREVER grateful to my friend who listened without judgement or advice.  Without those vital months, I never would have HEARD myself.  I never would have come to a point where I was ready to seek out and fill a tool box.

But here I am, tools in hand.

My life is filled with HOPE and LOVE.  Because I lived without them, I know and can FEEL the stark difference.  So I issue a prayer to my God and to those traveling this path, no matter where they might be on it:

Give me tools.  Give me tools.  Give me tools.
The tissues will take care of themselves.

Wives Against Porn Driving

--Before we begin, the winner of the hatchet charm is NATE('s wife).  Please contact me via email at brabadges@hotmail.com and I'll mail it out next week! --

A few months ago, I was struck with how awesome it would be to organize P.U.R.E.
Porn Use Resistance Education.
Get it?  PURE?  It's genius.  Aaaaaaaand total rip off from D.A.R.E.

But anyway.  This post isn't about education.  It's about how yesterday I woke up and began getting ready for work while my husband did a counseling session via webcam with Brannon Patrick.  I wish I could say the BEST thing that ever happened to our marriage was our three wonderful kiddos.  But it's Brannon.  Right now, it's Brannon.

I went around the house in my PJs, getting our daughter ready for school and planning my day in my head.  I worked REALLY hard NOT to hear what was being said in my bedroom... because I didn't want to know.  When I started hearing snippets of the conversation, I'd start singing the first song that came to my head.
"Walkin' the floor
Feelin' so blue.
Smoke cigarettes.
Drink coffee too..."

Since I started working, my classic country music streaming has increased by about 3005% and it's amazing how many old country songs resonate with a jaded lady.

But then my husband popped out and ASKED me to please join him.  So I did, in all of my just-rolled-out-of-bed glory.  Online meetings are the best.
I only talked with Brannon for about 15 minutes, and I really like the guy.
But he totally ruined my day.  No offense, man!

My husband is leaving on Monday morning for a two-month long training.  He will be home on weekends.
"Are you feeling fear?" Brannon asked.
"No," I said.
"Why not?  Is it because you trust him to stay sober or because you don't care?"
"I don't care," I shrugged.
He then told me that was okay... I was in an okay place.
And then he said it... the worst word to hear in a counseling session.

BUT.

"But... eventually you'll need to come to place where you do care, where you can begin to reinvest and fall back in love.  It's a hard thing, Alicia, and it's just not fair."

I like that he uses my first name.  I think he's the only person who calls me by my first name even when he's not mad.

I walked away from that session and just blew up a little.  A LITTLE, not much.
"It's like you're a drunk driver," I said to my husband, "And you HIT me.  I went to the hospital and they were nice to me and loved me and then the nurses patted me on the head and said, 'okay, pretty soon you've got to get back in that car and drive that same road and the same drunk driver will be there with you.  Hope he's sober!"
It's NOT fair.
It's not fair that I've worked SO hard to detach, to be safe, to be empowered.
And where do I find myself?  I'm LONELY, guys.  Straight up, no mincing words... I'm lonely.  This sucks.

It seems like everywhere I turn people are telling me this isn't about me, that I'm not the victim.  But I always end up controlled by this situation -I seem to spin on an axis that revolves around HIS choices, and I always end up hurt OR I end up lonely.  The fact of the matter is: I AM the victim. I HAVE been hit by a drunk.
Of course I can't live in that mentality, but it's okay to own it and be mad about it when I feel the gravity of it.

I appreciate empowerment, but I don't appreciate being lonely.
I appreciate not being hurt and playing the victim, but I don't appreciate how hard and cold I feel.
Brannon had said some of the richest blessings in life come from human relationships, and here I was all walled off and thinking how some of my most awful hurts had come from human relationships.

As I made a bottle in the late afternoon, I thought about this... I hadn't wanted to talk to my husband all day because in 15 short minutes that morning he'd gone from being my husband to being my offender.
I filled baby's bottle and added formula and shook, shook, shook.  As I did, it came to me.  As clear as day, I SAW it.

Yes, I was hit.  Years ago, driving wildly down a dirt road I'd never been on before I was sideswiped by my very own, very unsober husband.
I couldn't believe it, so I didn't.  I haphazardly bandaged my wounds myself and then got back in the car.  I drove a *little* more carefully, but still without much caution.  And again: I was hit.  And again, and again, and again.
For YEARS.  YEARS!  I tried to handle the situation on my own.  I thought it was MY fault, so I tried driving better, I tried making myself more noticeable so my husband would SEEEEEEEEE me and avoid hitting me.  I tried installing GPS for him.
But it was never enough.  The accidents began getting worse, more blood, more tears...
Almost three years ago, it was the worst it had ever been.  I couldn't get up and walk away from that accident.  I just rested in the mess.
Until...
A beautiful man came. He is my Savior.  He had the answers, the tools, the ambulance, and he had the power to heal me and my car.  I turned to him and gave up trying.

He took me in his arms, and I found rest in his hospital.  He was my primary physician and He had a team of specialists working under Him.
A sponsor.
A Therapist.
A Bishop.
My Dad.

Close friends would visit me in the hospital.  Some brought food, some brought music, some brought smiles, and some brought tissues and hugs.

One visitor they couldn't keep out was my husband.  He would visit me daily, if not more.  His visits weren't always nice... in fact, most often they hurt me MORE.  It seemed that even though I'd found my way OFF the rough dirt road, the drunk driver had found a way to manage his mission by simply STANDING by me and TALKING.
Ouch.
Ouch.
Ouch.

There were glimpses of remorse.  There were glimpses of honesty.
And then there wasn't remorse or patience or empathy or apology.

My team of specialists worked under the hand of the Master Physician, and as the years went by my efforts to heal were evident.  The bruises were fading.  I found ways to avoid my husband when he came to visit, and new bruises quit forming.
The breaks, the cuts, the hurt... they were all healing and fading.

One day, I found I didn't NEED to avoid my husband.  In fact, I confronted him.  I stood in the doorway of my own room and I told him
NO.
ENOUGH.

He turned and went away.  I turned and went to bed.
The next day -much to my surprise -my husband was there again.  This time he looked different, he talked differently.
I sensed real remorse, true sorrow.

The next day, it was the same.
This went on for a good while.  At times his visits turned ugly, and I'd ask him to leave.  But for the most part, they were good visits.
The bad visits would send me back to my specialists with anger and spit in my eyes... I would get on my knees and call my Physician and ask, "WHAT IN THE H-E-ECK-ECK I AM SUPPOSED TO DO HERE?!?!?!"

And here's my answer:
choose.

My husband is visiting me in the hospital.  And when I'm ready to leave, I can CHOOSE whether I want to get back in my car (the Master Physician is also a Master Mechanic, in case you were wondering) and get back on that old dirt road.  I know my husband will be there.
I get to make the choice.
My husband doesn't have that control.

Right now, I will observe his visits.  And I have NO idea how to start reinvesting and falling back in love, so I won't.
I'll leave that up to my husband.

And I will rest.
I won't get up or get ready to get back on any road in any car until I know of myself that it's okay.  I will know.

Because of everything going on in my life right now, I haven't been able to post this... but yesterday I remembered one of my specialists was a team led by Dr. Skinner.
I've been working on recovery for nearly THREE years.  And in three years of studying and education, I have never found a program I resonated with more than AddoRecovery.  The free education I gained with AddoRecovery has sustained me and helped me understand many of the WHYs.
I recommend it to so many women, and I will continue to do so.  Forever.



Sidreis' Story (Short) from Addo Recovery on Vimeo.

Betrayal Trauma is REAL.  Even if you can't physically see the blood and the breaks, you can FEEL them.

It's a few days too late to join the latest session (SORRY!) but there's a new one coming up on the 17th of this month.

Please go to addorecovery.com/join... there's a team of specialists for YOU.

What Can I Do?

Less than a week ago, I got a book in the mail... a book about Pornography and Sexual Addiction.

****side note: thank goodness things aren't mailed in clear packages... our small town post master would know WAY too much about all of us.****

I couldn't tear into the book right away, but when I could, I TORE.  I dove.  I sat down with my baby and a thick blanket.  In one day, I'd read about half of the book.  The next day was cold and rainy.  My daughter went to school, I put my son in front of cartoon and my baby down for a nap, and I read in bed while the rain fell.
It was pure bliss -seriously.

****side note: it's amazing to me what qualifies as "pure bliss" now.  A few years ago, reading a book about sexual addiction wouldn't exactly put me over the moon.****

The book is titled, "What Can I Do About Him Me?" and the author, Rhyll Anne Croshaw, warns her readers in the beginning that the book could trigger feelings.  And she was right.  I had to close the book a few times because I was overwhelmed with feelings. 
I cried a few times.
I smiled a few times.
I sighed a lot.

I've only ever read one book about pornography/sex addiction before.  It was From Heartache to Healing by Colleen Harrison.  I have recommended that book time and time again.  It was my ladder out of rock bottom.

 

What I wouldn't have given to have this book as well.

It is clear, organized, concise -it gives rightly-placed hope... hope in YOU rather than hope in someone else.
For years, I invested my happiness in my husband's choices.  I hoped he would choose to read his scriptures when I wanted him to.  I hoped he would choose to pray every morning and night as I had felt he should.  I hoped he would quit looking at porn, connect with me emotionally, show empathy, love me the way I wanted to be loved, make me happy...

Rhyll gently, lovingly, honestly, and knowingly takes us by the hand and leads us away from this kind of thinking. 
She doesn't lecture.
She validates.
She doesn't cater to victim-thinking.
She understands.

It's a beautiful ride of a read.

It's the kind of book you buy 5 copies of and give them to the Bishop.  Why?
Because Rhyll has DONE it!  She has successfully breached the grounds of silence -she has broken the bonds of shame.  She has brought us into her kitchen with her and, through one-sided conversation, taught us how to take care of our neglected selves... without us actually having to SEE anyone or LEAVE the house or TALK to anyone.
The fear of talking about the pain going on in my home, life, and soul is just too shameful to admit to anyone... but reading a book sent to me in a covered package?  THAT I can do.

Realizing I couldn't control my husband's painful behavior made me feel powerless.
But reading Rhyll's words reminded me that although I can not control HIM, I can control myself and in so doing will find a different, greater kind of power... the power that comes from Diety.

One of the greatest tools I have taken from the book is a practice Rhyll and her husband took from Brene Brown: Vowel Check-in.
The Vowel Check-in uses all the vowels in a great easy-to-remember and well-covered check-in... I'm finding that it works great as a check-in with my Heavenly Father each night.

A) Was I abstinent today?  (For me, this means did I refrain from indulging in my addiction to try and control -not just my husband but others and situations as well?  Did I remain free from the fear that has controlled me in the past?)
E) Did I exercise today?
I) What did I do for myself today?
O) What did I do for others today?
U) Do I have any unexpressed emotions that need to come out?
Y) What was the "yay" for today?  What good things came my way?

A few nights ago, I found myself walking on eggshells with my husband.  I could tell he was cycling, and it helped me to detach.  We were planning on watching a movie together, and it felt really good to have the strength to say, "I don't want to watch a movie with you like this.  I know we've planned this night for a while, but I'd rather put it off than go through it like this.  You've been emotionally disconnected for a few days, and I was hoping tonight we could reconnect.  I've missed you.  I want to SEE you, but I can't.  You're not here.  Why don't you go do what you need to do to take care of whatever is going on with you right now?  We can watch the movie another time when we can enjoy each other."
He gave a few reasons as to why he was feeling so touchy -which were all true, I'm sure -but none were the ROOT of what he was feeling.
So I pulled the vowels out, and after about an hour and half, we had connected emotionally.  He admitted he'd been having a hard time fighting lust -though he hadn't acted out -and that he hated telling me about it because it made him feel like dirt.

But it's strange.  When he opens up and is honest with me about the details of his day, the little fights he had with lusts (even if he felt like it was a battle lost) are welcome sounds to my ears.  He tells me he noticed another woman, and he waits to see the hurt and pain in my eyes... but all I hear is HONESTY and it's so refreshing and wonderful and revealing that there's no room for hurt.  Not anymore.
I feel like each time he opens up to me, I peel off a piece of his hard covering and get a glimpse into the real, raw, vulnerable HIM and it's breathtaking.
He's an amazing man.

I haven't checked in with him using the vowels since then, but they were a great tool for that moment.  I don't want to force the check in on him every night.  If he'd like to check in, he can.  But I've found myself being more aware of ME as I go throughout my day, knowing that tonight I'll have my Father in Heaven to answer to.

Bottom line: if YOU are hurting, no matter the cause, no matter if you feel it is someone else's problem, no matter what: if YOU hare hurting, YOU need healing.
Rhyll shines a flashlight down the intimidating tunnel of recovery. 

A richer life is waiting...

****side note: I recommend this book to people currently in recovery from sexual addiction as well.  It will give you some great, real insights without shaming.****

Self Soothing

  

via jojoretroandvintage.blogspot.com

I'm in bed.


I'm wearing track pants and a maternity shirt.  Next to me is a book, a ball of yarn, a plate... there's chocolate crumbs and half-eaten drumstick.
(what.  like you've never eaten cold leftovers and cake for breakfast...)

And it occurred to me in the middle of my boil-a-lobster bath this morning: I'm self-soothing.  I'm in self-soothing mode.  I'm surviving to sooth.
Why?
Because stress, that's why.

Last week, I had pretty much the same amount of stress on me and I was doing much better... although I will admit that when my husband disclosed the equivalent of a dump-truck load of confessions on me, I listened and then went straightway to the kitchen.
"I don't know what I'm feeling," my brain said, "But I'm pretty sure it's negative and now I need chocolate."

But last week I cleaned my house on Monday.  I scrubbed it and aired it and played beautiful music through it.  Monday night I bathed myself and my children.  I styled my hair so that when I woke up on Tuesday morning all I would have to do is remove a headband and curls would appear! 

Tuesday morning, I woke up to a clean house.  I rolled out of bed and ten minutes later was completely dressed and ready for the day.  I ate better, was more available, accomplished more...
the rest of the week followed suit.

This week?  I woke up in the wake of a busy feelings-family-friends-food-filled weekend, and as much fun as it was, it's left me feeling drained and stressed.
My house isn't airy or clean or playing beautiful music.
And I'm in full-blown sooth mode which, as I know but never seem to truly LEARN, compounds the stress.

I forgot about Silly Sock Day at school and my sweet poor Kindergartner came home and responded to my apologies with, "It's okay.  Invisible socks can be silly too..."
I didn't even HAVE socks for her to wear.

I forgot to email my missionary sister about her own nieces blessing.
I forgot a play date.  I relied on Netflix.  I left food out all night -expensive food out -and it spoiled.
I had to spend $30 (one student's payment for a month of piano lessons) on dinner for the next night because I had invited friends over and couldn't feed them spoiled food.

And I've been near-tears all week wondering, "What in the h-e-eck-eck is my beef? Why was I awesome last week and a fat failure this week?"
Hormones are partly at fault, I will admit.  And I DID have one big "ah-haaaaaaaa" moment Monday night when I realized the reason for my weekend jelly bean and chocolate chip cookie binge was NOT so much because I was a lard-driven animal and MORE because I was a natural, cycling woman.
Luckily for me, I have a few natural supplements I can take to ward of hormone-induced depression.

Self-soothing has a place in my life.  A passing, fleeting place.
I stay in it as long as it takes for me to realize I'm in it, and then I get out.
Prayer, scripture study, good music, a round of yoga, a mopped floor, a salad, a conversation about Power Rangers with my son, a few minutes of solitude with my peaceful baby... THESE are my self-care.

I could make an educational t-chart listing my self-cares and my self-soothes... but I think I've made a pretty good illustration.
And you know what?  Self-care is hard.
Self-soothing is easy.

But, as I remarked in an embarrassingly tear-filled testimony from the stand on Sunday, hard work brings miracles.


And you MUST permit me to insert a little Manliness whenever possible:

 

via artofmanliness.com

Self-soothing? You've officially been checked.

It's time to move on to self-care... it's not going to be easy.

But (say it with me):

It's going to be worth it.

Miracles

   

via nal.usda.gov

I'm not okay with others not being okay with me.

I'll go to great lengths to make sure others are okay with me at the expense of my own comfort (I hate this.  I'm working hard on this).  In my marriage, I went to great lengths to make sure my husband was okay with me at the expense of my own peace... which is miles of worse.

I wanted to be different than other couples with problems.
I wanted to be tougher than issues.

I wanted to be okay.

So I said I was.  I guess I figured that maybe if I said it enough, I would begin to feel and believe it as well because what I actually was feeling was NOT okay.
But I hated that I wasn't okay, so I escaped.  I shoved the feelings down so I wouldn't have to truly experience them.  I watched a lot of movies.  I ate a lot of junk.
I spent a lot of time online.

And when he asked me how I was doing, I would say, "I'm okay."
And I would give the same report to the Lord, "I'm okay."

For some reason, I was content to have being OK be my goal -probably because I was so torn up inside that truly being okay seemed like a dream.  I'd forgotten what it felt like to be okay.  Just plain okay.

What was I?
I was hurt.  I was angry.  I was confused.  I was reeling.

With each near-daily confession from my husband, emotions swirled around me in a chaotic panic, begging to be unleashed.
But I was stronger than my emotions.
So I resisted the strong pull to give them any credit or reign... and I said, "I'm okay."

Last night, my husband opened up to me and confessed he realized he'd been acting out on his lust addiction in other ways -as in: ways that don't include porn.
I listened.
When he finished talking, his eyes were full of terror, apprehension, shame... I could hear his thoughts.
'How is she going to take this?'

And I answered out loud, "I'm okay."
We put the kids to bed, he went to bed, and I stayed awake.  I wrote and prayed and searched for pain.
Where is it?  Where is the pain and the anger?  Shouldn't they BE here?
I'm ready to give them reign for a little while.  I'm ready to feel them, handle them, learn from them.  I won't stifle them or pretend I'm stronger than them.
I recognize they aren't facts... I recognize that they are necessary... I recognize that they have a purpose.

I close my eyes and focus on what my husband has said to me.  I breathe in and breath out.  My brain hunts for any shred of emotion.
And finds peace. 

This can't be right.
This can't be normal.
There has to be more to this.

I pray and I pray and I feel only peace and clarity and then my thoughts wander and I think about the baby's upcoming blessing, the laundry waiting to be washed the next morning, the chicken that needs to thaw.
I think about a friend of mine who is going through a miscarriage and  has a white-knuckling porn addicted husband, and I think about how I want to save her.
I think about how I want to save everyone.
I wonder WHY. 
Saving is the Savior's job.  Why would I want such a heavy responsibility?  Why would I be so pompous as to presume that I have saving abilities?
I pray, I write.
I realize and write my fears: I'm afraid of my husband cycling because it brings anger.  I'm afraid of anger.
But I can divorce the anger.  I can leave.  I don't have to be around cycling anger, I write.
My fear dissipates.
I'm afraid my friend will endure unimaginable pain unless I intervene.
But she is in God's hands, I write.
Be still, I write.
Know that He is God, I write.
Let Go and Let God, I write.

I read a talk about serving for the right reasons because I found myself serving a woman yesterday and wanting to save her from the physical pain that was ailing her.  I wanted to jump in and start controlling certain aspects of her life.
Do I serve to save? I write.
Do I serve to serve the Lord? I write.

And I read a talk that gives me clarity.

"Observing and then serving is not always convenient and doesn't always fit our own timetable...Sometimes we are tempted to serve in a way that we want to serve and not necessarily in the way that is needed at the moment...ask, "Am I doing this for the Savior, or am I doing this for me?" [and] our service will more likely resemble the ministry of the Savior."

~Linda K. Burton

 And then I sit back.  I exhale.

I take in my miracle, let myself believe in it... I let myself believe that there isn't pain around the corner.  I let myself believe that I'm not a victim.  I let myself believe that I am more than okay.

And I FEEL it because it is genuine and true.

I feel genuine and true forgiveness -I hadn't even sat down to search out forgiveness.  I sat down to absorb, to meditate, and forgiveness found it's way to me as I put my pen to paper.

I feel forgiveness, I write.  It stops me in my writing tracks... and I realize that I didn't forgive IN that moment, but that I had forgiven him months ago.  Is that possible?  Is preforgiveness actually a THING?  

I stop skeptically searching for pain, and I bask in soft peace.

Miracles make it easier to sleep.

Founding Fathers

I love the website artofmanliness.com.

It's everything I love about life... it's old-fashioned and classy and masculine.  I just love a good, hearty dose of masculinity.

Want to learn how to carve a turkey?  tie a tie?  date a woman?  artofmanliness has your back.  

I don't spend much time reading their tutorials, but I love what they have to offer -and I can't get enough of the atmosphere of the site... I swear I can *almost* smell cologne wafting from the faux-wood background.

And I love it.

Yesterday I came across their Founding Father Motivational Posters, and I'm bound and determined to print them out, laminate them, and distribute them to everyone I know.

That includes you.

It's a virtual FEAST for your soul:

 

I should mention that I've been REALLY struggling with my own sugar addiction.  I'm nursing and I'm starving all. of. the. time.  My sugar addiction is running rampant.

 

Today I'm determined to try harder -aren't we all determined?  

But today I did something I haven't done since the morning I found out I was pregnant (in APRIL)... a Jillian Michael's work out.

It never ceases to amaze me how thirty minutes with Jillian makes me feel exactly like I have the flu: nauseated, shaking, weak...

 

I hate Jillian.

I also love her. I have her to thank for all the inches I lost last year.

 

And after spending thirty minutes with Jillian, I'm less inclined to eat the cinnamon rolls on the oven and more inclined to pour myself a bowl of ma's homemade granola.

 

 

The granola will make better milk for my baby.  Children are great motivators. 

My six year old daughter stood by my side during my work-out.  Fifteen minutes in when I was weakening and slacking, she was going strong.

 

"Mom, this HURTS," she said.  Yes, darling.  Jillian is mean.  But she means well.

   

And she is one of my tools -my tools to overcoming my own addiction.  My addiction has me so wrapped, so willful, so physically poisoned.  It seems a light thing -a sugar addiction -but what I'm dealing with is something more awful.  

 

It's moved beyond the realms of physical ramifications and breached the territory of my mind.  It is not something I can just... stop doing.  At this point, I am powerless.  I have been for a few years now.

 

My husband is worried about my physical health five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years from now.  He's worried I will die -physically.

Much like I am worried he will die -spiritually.

 

And so today is a day of tools -Jillian, my children, the words of the Founding Fathers!

I can eat right today.  

I won't think of tomorrow.

 

 

For more motivational posters from our Founding Fathers, please click HERE.

I only included those I felt applied to my situation today.

And I'll leave off with this one.  For no other reason than I have a slight obsession with Benjamin Franklin (have you READ his autobiography?  It's rad) and I love it: