Puzzles

The week before General Conference, I saw this Alice in Wonderland puzzle at Wal-Mart.  I fell in love.  I actually really love puzzles, but I'm so picky about them that I don't do them often.  Also, I've always had little kids around and you can't do puzzles with little kids around because

1) Destruction
2) Choking
3) Sanity.

But my youngest is almost 4, and my oldest is almost 10.  And look at that puzzle!  Look at all the details!  It wasn't a scenery puzzle with mostly sky or grass or water.  It has a river and flowers and a queen and sparkles and a tea party and cards and and and!
The kids and I put it together while we listened to conference.  I listen so much better if my hands are busy doing something.  It's a genetic thing.  Also a genetic thing?  Sleeping through conference.  We are a family of hard workers and we also sleep hard when there's noise.  So sitting down while people talk?
Let's just say I don't have a single relative that suffers from insomnia because there's such a thing as TV, and my relatives don't last through movies.

But with a puzzle in hand, I DID IT!

Since then, that puzzle has been done once by my mom and once more by us.  I noticed yesterday that the kids had started it over again.

As I looked at the 750 pieces strung together in a scrappy, rough fashion I thought about my own personal "cycle" type trials... I mean the trials that keep coming, coming, coming.
Shouldn't they get easier?
Shouldn't I have figured them out already?  Weeded them out?
Who am I kidding?  If there's anything I know about yard work, it's that weeds come back until you get down to the roots.
My Dad is pretty hard core with his tactics.  There's a type of tree that comes up rogue in our yard, and you CAN'T pull it up by the roots.
"Chop it off, drill down the center and pour the poison down the hole."

He's like a war torn sarg who never *actually* set foot on a battlefield.

Some of my trials are like 25 piece puzzles.  I mess up and stumble a bit, but getting them solved doesn't take too long.  And the next time the same trial creeps up, I'm all over it and have it wrapped up in seconds.

But then there's the 750 piece trials.
They take forever.  They consume me.
"What?  Dinner?  Oh... Isn't there cheese in the kitchen?  And tortillas?  There's three meal options right there, you lucky kid!  Go for it!"
There's so many mistakes and so much confusion and sometimes I tell the box IT IS WRONG BECAUSE LOOOOOOK and I swear the company forgot to put the right pieces in the box OR they didn't send enough.
I spend a lot of time studying the picture on the box, just as I spend a lot of time studying my trials in the scriptures and books.

When it's over and done, I'm always so glad I did it.

When the same trial comes around again, it isn't easy-peasy like it is with the 25-piece puzzle.  It might be SLIGHTLY easier, but it is still a huge time-consuming labor of love.  I still get frustrated and I might have even bribed a kid with money to find a missing piece.
Whatever works, right?  Survival mode.

Anyway, looking at the puzzle pieces strewn all over the card table this morning, I realized that there's nothing wrong with me.
Because today I'm in the middle of a 750 piece puzzle that I've put together before and guess what?
It isn't all that easier this time.

It's time to stop shaming myself for that.  It's time to stop the voice that says, "Come on, you've done this.  You know this."
Because YES, I've done this.
But that doesn't mean I KNOW IT.
It just means I'm taking longer to learn something REALLY worth learning, and God is kind enough to teach me.

Humility is the hardest won prize.
If I could bribe my way to the finish line, I'd be all over it.

The Terror is Over

On Saturday night, I went to the adult session of Stake Conference.  At the end of the meeting, the stake president had us read the account of Christ sleeping on a boat during a storm.

37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.

 38 And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?

 39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

I've read that passage so many times before.  I know I have.  But my life is different now -things looks different, I process things through different eyes and a soul that has been baptized by fire.

If Christ is our ultimate example, and he is able to sleep through "a storm of great wind," doesn't that mean I have that power within myself as well?  And if I have the power retain my peace and serenity during the storm, then surely I have the power to eventually calm the wind as well.

Addiction brings so many chaotic side-effects: physical, financial, spiritual, emotional!  How often I have felt like the disciples of Christ, feeling the need to shake Him awake -surely, SURELY He was sleeping through my storm!  

Don't You care?  I'm perishing, here!

Betrayal Trauma has been my deepest wound to date.  During an energy healing session last year, the woman working on me told me that I had come to earth with betrayal issues -that I'd carried them with me ancestrally. 

"When you carry it already within you and then it manifests in your life, it can almost be impossible to recover from.  It is just so hard."

Her words were a lifeline to me.  There seemed to be so many women around me suffering from betrayal trauma who were doing SO MUCH BETTER.  They seemed healthier, more active, happier in their own ways.  I felt so much pain and fear.  I was devastated.

Rhyll Crowshaw has often said that a woman's recovery generally takes 3-5 years.

After I read about Christ calming the storm Saturday night, we sang, "Master the Tempest is Raging."  Do you know how many times I've not been able to finish that song?  Tears have flooded (good use of the word flood, by the way) my eyes and I've just stared at the words on the page with pain in my heart.  The third verse felt dumb to me -like it was meant for someone else... someone going through a trial that was smaller, easier.  

Lyrics

1. 1. Master, the tempest is raging!
   The billows are tossing high!
   The sky is o'ershadowed with blackness.
   No shelter or help is nigh.
   Carest thou not that we perish?
   How canst thou lie asleep
   When each moment so madly is threat'ning
   A grave in the angry deep?
2. (Chorus)
   The winds and the waves shall obey thy will:
   Peace, be still.
   Whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea
   Or demons or men or whatever it be,
   No waters can swallow the ship where lies
   The Master of ocean and earth and skies.
   They all shall sweetly obey thy will:
   Peace, be still; peace, be still.
   They all shall sweetly obey thy will:
   Peace, peace, be still.
3. 2. Master, with anguish of spirit
   I bow in my grief today.
   The depths of my sad heart are troubled.
   Oh, waken and save, I pray!
   Torrents of sin and of anguish
   Sweep o'er my sinking soul,
   And I perish! I perish! dear Master.
   Oh, hasten and take control!
4. 3. Master, the terror is over.
   The elements sweetly rest.
   Earth's sun in the calm lake is mirrored,
   And heaven's within my breast.
   Linger, O blessed Redeemer!
   Leave me alone no more,
   And with joy I shall make the blest harbor
   And rest on the blissful shore.
5. Text: Mary Ann Baker, ca. 1831-1921.
   Music: H. R. Palmer, 1834-1907

The terror is over?  Are you kidding?  Peace felt like some kind of farce new-agey people posted memes about during their quarterly juice cleanses.  

I started my recovery 7 years ago.  That's more than 3-5 years.  That's almost *almost* double.  I've done a lot of stuff during that time: conferences, retreats, programs, workbooks.  I've felt myself fishing, fishing, FISHING for help, much like the apostles of old.

I tried everything that landed at my front door.  There was meditation and yoga and support groups of all kinds!  My cell phone was used more than my dish rags.  I called for help, I scrolled through articles.  There were sponsors (plural) and real life friends and online friends.  I prayed hard and long.  Sometimes I hated God, sometimes I ran away from Him because His answers were confusing and made no sense to me.  Sometimes I still do.

Here comes the big

BUT

During this last year, I have found peace in the wind storms.  Waves have crashed in my boat, just as they always have, and I have accessed this place of stillness and peace -no juice cleanse needed.

I have found contentment and acceptance, and I've realized getting present with where I am is the key to truly living life.

Things I knew in theory became understood.  

My finances -a big wave that have crashed at our door -are slowly beginning to still.  Why?  Because I AM STILL.  I'm putting them in God's hands.  My physical health is crashing in right now, and I know -I see now -that if I hold still and rest, the storm will calm around me.

I feel the truth of this.  I feel it fully. 

As I sang the 3rd verse on Saturday night, my heart burned within me.  Master, the terror is over.

The truth simply is this: when and if Danny acts out again, I will be okay.  God has me.  God has all of me.  It will be okay.  I will be okay.  

Pain and trials will come, and they won't be easy -but they will be different now.  I see it differently now.  Something has come undone and redone within me, and I wouldn't go back for any amount of money.

This takes a lot of work... working to let go.  The irony is not lost on me.  It isn't easy, either.  Church is harder now.  I hear things that don't feel right at all, and going to church isn't comfy like it used to be.  I listen to people judge others from the pulpit and I get so angry and THEN I JUDGE THEM, and so it is: church is the place I go to grow and sometimes it is awesome and sometimes it hurts like hell.

Those proverbial mirrors aren't fun to look into, but I'm glad I know they're there now.  I didn't know that before.

For whom God loveth, He chasteneth.

And wo unto Alicia when she is at ease in Zion.

She isn't at ease right now.  But guess what she is?  At peace.

Yesterday we cleaned the kids room.  I haven't taught my kids housekeeping routine stuff.  I've struggled with it in my own life, and working recovery for so long has taken precedence over dishes and dusting.  The kids' room has gotten so bad that it was dangerous.

Someone could trip or get mold poisoning, or something.

We banded together -the three kids and Danny and I -yesterday and we cleaned for 3 hours.  I asked the kids what they wanted for a reward for cleaning and they were united in their cause, "TACO BELL!"

Easy enough.

And kinda gross, but whatever.

As we worked together, I felt an old sort of feeling burning in my stomach and heart: goodness, happiness.  Those feelings always came up right after Danny relapsed.  The Honeymoon Phase was my favorite.  It felt so high and good and sweet and wonderful.  It is what kept me hanging on through the definitely NOT Honeymoon Phases.

Yesterday as my son disappeared under his bed and started throwing blocks and papers out, my oldest argued with Danny about WHY she NEEDED every RIPPED PAPER EVER, the youngest refused to put her kitchen stuff away until we chanted, "TACO BELL" and Danny and I passed the trash bag back and forth... I felt that old, familiar happy feeling.

But it used to hold a really painful element: I knew it was full of lies and false hope.  It was the doughnut kind of happy -it tasted so good while it lasted and was followed up with sickness and regrets.

But everything that happened last night?  The high wasn't as high as it used to be.  There wasn't that fake, shiny lining around it.  It just WAS.  And as we sat around a table at Taco Bell, I was happy.

I watched the kids stuffing their faces with tortillas and beans and cheese and laughed out loud. 

These days are rare and beautiful, and I can do something now that I couldn't before: I can show up.

The flip side is true as well:

I show up for the awful days.

I feel it now, I see it now.

I reach out like crazy -to God, within, and to others.

The terror is over, and now I look to God and work on sleeping through the storms of life.  I can pause and let go of giving circumstances more credit than they're due.  I am not my circumstances.

Which thing I never before had supposed.

There's Tomorrow

Tomorrow.

It feels so far away in the middle of a typhoon.

As I curl up in my bed with a belly full of chips of the corn and chocolate variety, I feel pain and shame.

I have tools.  I have tools right at my fingertips.  I also have dirty dishes at my fingertips and dirty hair and lots of folks who are way worse off than I am right now.

My typhoon is a fun fest of woman hormones, disappointment, and marriage stuff.  I've tried to find clarity and set boundaries and process.

Why can't I get up and drink something healthy?  That's easy, right?
Why can't I hop on my mat?
Why can't I let myself have one dang day where all I do is search for the bottom of the snack bag and NOT HATE MYSELF for it?

There's two tiny people on my shoulder -one is Glennon and she's telling me to be where I am and love my own guts.  The other is Jillian Michael and she's yelling at me about self-discipline and change and her eyebrows are scary and Glennon is whispering to me about loving someone who doesn't love themselves is also important but first? chocolate.

How do I get out?  How do I pluck my shame roots up and toss them over the fence?  How do I juice veggies and fight the voice saying, "Too little too late, sister"?
How do I stop streaming crappy Netflix movies?  Or get my kids to leave me alone so I can just stream crappy Netflix movies?

How do I move into acceptance?
I remind myself that circumstances are fake things about time and money and hustle.  I let go of the need to turn today around! and hit restart!

Today is just one of those foggy, hard days.
I used to earn my way through them, but now I'm just going to feel sad because, as Frost says, "Nothing Gold Can Stay" which means nothing sad can either.

I don't pin my hopes on Tomorrow, but Time gives me wonderful gifts like:
distance from pain and
clarity and
Tomorrow.

So Tomorrow it is.  Today can't stay forever.  Robert Frost wouldn't allow it.

On Repeat

Plucking Scarcity

It started with my bank account.  I overdrew by a minor math error -again.  Two bucks short, a thirty dollar fee -there wasn’t enough money.  Payday finally came, though not fast enough.

Five hours later, I’d paid for my daughter’s piano lessons, my son’s haircut, pulled cash out for school expenses, bought five food items and cut a check for 20 dollars to the cute girl looking for donations for a good cause.

My check was gone.  Gone!  How did that happen?  There just wasn’t enough money to draw from, and between the piano lessons, the haircut, and the shopping, there wasn’t enough time to THINK let alone make the Mother’s Day cards we’d planned to make.  What about dinner?  I crack open the rotisserie chicken I’d grabbed at the store -it’s tiny.  TINY.  There wasn’t enough for a family of five, no matter how careful I was about portioning.

As the three year-old fusses in bed and the kids fight their way through their bedtime routine, I sink, wallow and WEAR that moment… My Scarcity Moment.  Brene Brown started an entire book with a chapter on Scarcity -the lie we tell ourselves: what we have isn’t enough and who we are isn’t enough.

 I heard it all pouring out as I melted down in front of my husband.

There’s not enough money.

There’s not enough time.

The kids need more than I have to offer, they deserve more.

I’m the worst at my job, not proficient enough.

I am not enough.

That succession is lethal.

The effect I let my bank account balance have on me triggered a ripple effect of scarcity.  It started with circumstantial things (money, time) and transitioned very carefully into internal, personal things (parenting, self-worth).

 If self-judgement were a sport, I’d be semi-pro. 

Sometimes I play God.  I take His jobs on, looking very much like a three-year-old girl dressed up like her mother in lipstick and heels.

“I got this,” I shrug.  I exact judgement in all its reckless forms -on others, on situations, on myself most of all. 

Kim is my counselor, and she tells me how important it is to STOP. 

“When a self-judging thought comes up, be aware of it and counteract it.  You won’t always want to do that.  Sometimes you’ll want to just sit in it.  When you decided to sit in your self-judgement, have a consequence in place.”

“Consequence?”  My imagination vacillates between a stern school marm rapping my knuckles and kicking back on my plush bed in time out.

“What will you do if you decide to sit in self-judgement?” She asks, unwilling to give me direct order.  Kim knows how much I’d love to just be told what I should be doing instead of deciding for myself.  I can barely manage a menu at a fast-food joint let alone be responsible for following through with self-chosen consequences. 

“I guess… I have some positive affirmations written down.  I could read them all in front of the mirror,” I’d hate that.  Talking out loud to myself is pretty high up on the list of things that make me uncomfortable, “And reading a few chapters in a book about how amazing women are.”

Today I’m procrastinating my consequences.  I went a full month changing my hateful “not enough” thoughts into productive “enough and then some” thoughts. 

So what went wrong?  What happened?  What left me in that pit of self-loathing?

Scarcity.

How do I reverse the effects of scarcity?  It starts with resting up, refueling a depleted mental, physical, emotional and spiritual system.  Then I get present, quieting the rush and paying attention.

Gratitude somehow always follows.  As I close my eyes and feel the sunshine on my face, I feel grateful for life, for sun, for the moment.  As I feel the warm suds on my wet hands, the burden of dish washing turns into a blessing.  I’m grateful for blessings.

In those moments, I have enough money.  I have enough time. 

And if I hold still a little longer, taking deep breaths and letting the gratitude percolate, I remember: I AM ENOUGH.  Scarcity cannot survive a heart full of self-acceptance.  Like the weeds that grow in my lawn, scarcity keeps popping up.  I pluck, I pull, I mow, but scarcity is one of my weeds. Though I can’t keep it away forever, I find purpose and beauty in the plucking. 

Protecting Myself

Throughout my life, I've had an "ebb and flow" relationship with God.  With God and everyone, including myself.  It never felt really intentional, and as I felt distance to God, I would try and close the gap with prayers, scripture study, service, temple attendance, or anything that I felt would help.

But this time.
Something different is happening.

The ebb is of my own, intentional making.

WHY?  This is the question tugging at my heart and brain.  What is going on?  God has given me some hard answers to prayers, and I've sort of stopped asking him questions because of it.

Is it because I don't trust Him?  Because if I did, I would be asking more questions, opening myself up to more answers, trusting that HE HAS ME.

Maybe.  Maybe it is trust.  I've tried praying about it, talking with God about where I'm at, but it's really hard to talk to God about where I'm at when I don't know where I am, not really.

As I sat in my church meetings on Sunday, someone was talking about living up to our full potential.  They referenced a talk by President Uchtdorf in which he says, "let us not pass through life immersed in the three Ws: wearied, worrying, and whining."

I love words and wordy things, so I penciled the clever alliteration in my notebook, "Wearied, worrying, and whining."  I stared at the three words, and they seemed like a brief character description of myself.

Recovery work really feels like a polishing, grinding, burning, refining, and all of those other pain-inducing words.  It has been hard.  As I feel myself gain some footing on letting go of what I can't control in my marriage and with my relationships, I find myself just incredibly physically sick.
I feel God is saying, "You've learned to let go of Danny, you're learned you can let go of your kids and other relationships, you're learning to let go of your marriage... are you ready to let go of your health?"

This sucks, folks and friends.  It truly sucks.  I come from "hustle" stock -people who hustle like it's a competition.
Well, it is.  And we're winning.

What do you need to hustle?  A good, strong body.  I have Danish ancestry (lots of Danish ancestry) and Native American Ancestry and even some Spanish ancestry.  I am built to last with solid shoulders, long legs and arms with the potential to be filled with lots of hauling, heaving muscles.
I look a bit like a man.
But anyway.

That body -the one that came in 3rd in an arm-wrestling contest in 5th grade, the one who did chair sits longer than most kids, that one that did sit ups and ran miles and pulled weeds and drove tractors... it is DYING on me.
I feel betrayed by my own skin.

Wearied, worried and whining about summed up my sole existence.
How do I stop?  I wrote under the words. With my chronic health issues, how do I stop feeling weary?  worrying? whining?

These are questions for God, I told myself.  And THAT'S when it hit me.

There's no way I'm asking Him about this.  He is the Master Refiner, and refining HURTS and I can't handle more hurt.
Ergo, I built a wall between me and Thee.

Not coming down.
At this point, I don't think I can even handle feedback about how I'm dealing with stuff.  I used to look for ways to be a better person.  I'd come up with programs and goals and charts and stuff, but now I work recovery and the hard stuff FINDS ME before I have a chance to go looking for it.
I feel sanded down today.  Correction: I feel like I'm BEING SANDED and not by the pretty, yummy sandpaper that tickles... but by the coarse stuff that would peel skin off a cat.
Meeee-ouch.

I started to feel some shame about how I'm trying to protect myself, but it melted away.  God gets me.  I don't get God... I feel like a small child, looking up at a mysterious, wonderful world that feels untouchable and saying, "You hurt me and I don't want to hurt anymore."
When I was a kid, I would watch adults at parties and feel the same sort of feeling... those tall people who laugh at jokes I don't understand and say things like, "We'll talk about it when you're older."
Older.
Wiser.
A world away.

I was never content being a child.  I wanted to grow up and solve the mysteries held hostage in the world of adults.

Now that I am an adult, I feel more like a child than ever, and God is the One I'm studying, wanting to unravel his mystery world.

There's one thing I've figured out.  Adults get kids, but kids don't get adults.  And I'm finding that as an adult, I don't get God.  But He gets adults. He understands mortality.
With that little knowledge, I feel safe being where I am and being honest with God about it.

"I'm struggling to pray right now.  I equate You with pain, and I'm hurting a lot."

That was Sunday.

Monday I had counseling.  I was planning on reading my latest Step 4 inventory to my counselor, and I was nervous.  I've done Step 5 before, but it's always a little nerve-shaking saying stuff out loud to someone else.
The day started out fast and hard: kid peed in my bed, dog had the runs. I had health stuff going on, but we somehow all made it out the door and to my work.  My kids go with me, so it can get pretty hectic sometimes.
Yesterday was no exception.
When my shift ended, I loaded us all in the car and all I could think about was heading home.  But a thought crossed my mind, "Get the mail."
I hadn't gotten the mail in weeks because -as I was about to tell my counselor in a few short hours -I struggle with denial, and if I don't GET the mail, then there's NO MEDICAL BILLS.

*MAGIC*

But I listened to the thought I had.
I opened my box and found that there was a package -one I hadn't ordered.  Intrigued, I went back to my car and opened it up.
It was a Himalayan Salt Crystal Lamp, gifted to me from a friend.  I'd had my eye on one of those lamps for over a year!  But I'd reasoned myself out of getting one over and over, and now... here was one.  Sitting in my lap!  I couldn't believe it.
I drove home and plugged it in.

As I read my Step 4 to my counselor over the phone that afternoon, I sat next to my lamp and felt supported.  Every once in a while, I'd reach out and touch it, just to feel loved.

After I finished reading, my session was up.  I hung up the phone and felt raw (like cats probably do after their skin has been sanded off, right?).  I wanted to eat some fudge.  Well, MORE fudge since I'd already down a couple of pieces. I wanted to clean my house and earn my own love.

I decided the healthy thing to do would be to just rest, and when I went to my Amazon Prime Streaming Happy Place, I found that they'd just added a new movie to stream for free -one I'd eyed at the store a few days earlier and snapped a picture of so I wouldn't forget to rent it very soon.

And there it was, just waiting for me.

After the kids went to bed, I curled up next to my lamp and watched a movie.

It turns out that God is strong enough to reach through my protection wall and show me that He loves me deeply and perfectly and that unconditional love isn't pain-free, though it isn't always pain-filled.

God,
I'm grateful and I've cried about it.  I'm still afraid to let my guard down.  Pain still scares me.  Refinement isn't something I'm ready to paint my face and do war dances about... but I'm trying each day in my own way.
I am weary.  I am worried.  I whine.
But I'm also trying and I'm trying really, really hard.  You see me, and I am blown away by your perfect timing and perfect love.
Am I ready for our relationship to flow again?  I don't know.  But you've shown me that for You -on your side -the flow never ebbs.
I don't understand that, but I admire it.
Thank you, and I do love You, even as I stumble.
~Alicia

Sometimes

... I need a foot bath to make it through the hard questions.