Suzanne Falter's Blog, page 12

A Word About Feasting on Stress

This is a series of essays that have not appeared before on this blog. They were taken from my book, Surrendering to Joy, which I wrote in the year immediately following my daughter Teal’s death in 2012.

In America, we are addicted to stress as a nation and as individuals. It provides us with an identity and a holy reason for being, one that often replaces simpler, subtler experiences like being, feeling, and noticing.

If we are stressed then we are fighting ‘the good fight.’ In fact, we are only fighting ourselves.

I write this as I emerge from a lifelong immersion in stress. This was first noted by my fourth-grade teacher, Miss Brown, who wrote on my report card, “Suzanne seems worried all the time.”

In fact, between my alcoholic, borderline mother and my beleaguered father, and their ongoing financial drama –- about which I knew far more than any 9-year-old should — I had plenty to worry about. And then there were the school bullies who were usually nipping at my heels.

What I have come to understand is that stress is a learned condition, one which we create and consciously choose again and again and again.

In its own way, stress becomes habitual and even comfortable. Often, we don’t even know we are doing it.

Making the decision to take the last year off was one of the most profoundly difficult things I’ve ever done. I told myself I shouldn’t spend my savings this way, that I needed that money for my retirement.

Truthfully, I was more afraid to feel the cascades of deeper and deeper grief that were invading my body as the shock of Teal’s death wore off. In fact, being immersed in my feelings was about the last place I wanted to be.

So I did what I knew: I created large amounts of stress to feast on. Namely, I tried to run my business when I could barely concentrate on anything. Then, during my time off, I angrily obsessed over my former girlfriend, who had dumped me six months prior.

Was it a good thing we broke up? Yes. Unequivocally. I can now say honestly the learning was done there and it was time for us both to move on. And I am actually much happier now without her.

But I still gnashed my teeth. And so my gut churned on and on in that old familiar rumble while my grief waited patiently in the wings for its day.

This stress I knew. It was age old,  a perspective  I’d taught myself as a child. Do whatever you can to try to manage this wild, out-of-control rollercoaster of a life , baby, because it’s pretty much all you’ve got.

One day I journaled in exasperation and Spirit’s guidance to me was succinct: “Your attachment to anxiety is your attachment to your former partner, for she provides the mix of anxiety and adrenaline you need. You are feasting on stress. That’s the only way to put it.”

When I asked why, I got this:

“It puts you in control in an out-of-control situation. You know what to do when you think things to death by worrying, loathing, and obsessing. That’s how you stay out of your deeper feelings. By spinning your wheels you can forget how much pain you are in.”

So true.

It’s ironic because when we’re immersed in our stress we think we’re feeling our feelings. Actually, I’ve learned that obsessing angrily over something you can’t have or fretting over a needed result is a topline emotional experience. It’s like an electrical shock to your heart.

Behind all that stress lies the real emotion, which in my case was deep, wrenching grief and a considerable amount of fear.

When I say we are addicted to stress, this is what I mean. It’s like our addiction to Krispy-Kreme donuts, episodes of Downton Abbey, or shopping for shoes. We do it when we’re bothered or bored.

Behind bothered or bored, there’s scary stuff, like the boss, husband, or parent who humiliates and controls us. Or the credit card debt that feels like it’s getting out of hand.

Our myriad fears, regrets, and daily woes stack up like so much firewood in our hearts, until they become the grief and the pain that we just can’t admit.

These are also the very same things we assume we can’t change.

But after a while, of course, everything must unravel. That is the way of Nature and of life. But instead of dealing with it head-on, we find ourselves overworking, overeating, having financial panic, or, in my case, angrily obsessing over someone who dumped me.

There just doesn’t seem to be any other way to manage it.

Yet there is. Anti-stress programs lead us first to meditation, yoga, and counting to ten and slowing down, which is where the light of day can dawn on our feelings.

But will we go there? Will we have the courage to admit that something is wrong? That change needs to be made by us and not by anyone else?

This is where the emotional rubber meets the road. We can stop feasting on stress when we can finally admit we had a part in creating the problems that weigh us down.

In my own case, I fought like hell the sad fact that my partner was not in love with me. I knew it months before she told me, but my weeping heart could not admit it. I loved her beauty, and the way we could laugh together. But at the end of the day ours was a loving friendship that we kept trying to force into a box labeled “Love.”

Was this the deep intimate relationship we both longed for? No.

Despite all the twists of my imagination that refused to see the truth, it simply was what it was, for better or for worse. In my acceptance of this truth, just as in my acceptance of Teal’s death at the age of 22, I have found release.

At the end of the day we have only one choice. To see, own, and embrace what is.

The end of all stress means having the courage to honor our feelings as sacred channels of the truth, and listening to our bodies as keepers of that infinite wisdom.

Herein lies all that is good and whole in life. And so it is.

***

Reprinted from my book, Surrendering to Joy .

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On Loving My Imperfection

This is a series of essays that have not appeared before on this blog. They were taken from my book, Surrendering to Joy, which I wrote in the year immediately following my daughter Teal’s death in 2012.

THIS JUST IN: We are imperfect. All of us, always and forever.

And here’s the great news. Within that imperfection actually lies our perfection. Perhaps that is the point of this crazy rollercoaster ride we call life.

If this sounds like a koan or a word puzzle, it is in a way. I say this as a recovering perfectionist because everyone has to find his or her way through this truth to truly get it.

What I now see in this great unfolding is how raggedly I’ve run myself throughout my life. All in the pursuit of that invisible ghost, perfection.

Last week I commented that I was doing nothing but healing right now, and doing my damnedest to say “No.” As in, “No, I can’t go out for tea, though I would love to” or “No, I can’t show up and be anything but somewhat of a mess right now.”

No, I can’t be Superwoman at this exact moment in my life.

That “No” is sacred to me, and a bit strange and unfamiliar at the same time. I’ve begun to see my life as being divided into two phases: “Before Teal’s Death” and “After Teal’s Death.” And within that distinction is a clear and powerful lesson.

Before my beautiful daughter’s death, I was a driven, relentless, harsh taskmaster in my business and a very bossy wife. I seldom used the word “No” because I had no patience for it. Nor did I like those who flung that word back at me. I was a “Yes” girl. Proudly.

If I came up with a business idea at 3 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, then I expected my team to be available to hash it out with me then and there, and have a sales page up by Monday evening or Tuesday at the latest. My modus operandi was always, “I drive myself relentlessly so you should, too.” Needless to say, team members came and went with alarming frequency.

A note in Teal’s journal reads: “Mom increasingly intense and grumpy before each Spiritual Marketing Quest event. I really have to speak to her about this.”

That’s true. I felt I personally had to pull 150 rabbits out of my hat – all by myself. I kept forgetting, of course, that I had a fantastic business partner and a loyal, effective team to support me.

My life before Teal’s death was all about me, me, me. I was driven by my secret belief that if I didn’t clamp down and control every aspect of everything that things simply wouldn’t get done. Or they would be done poorly.

My pain was also about my desperate attempt to hang onto my success. I believed I had to be successful at any cost. If I wasn’t, I feared the bottom was simply going to drop out.

Then, despite my efforts, the bottom did drop out and my beautiful, compassionate, soulful daughter suddenly died. Like a surreal slap in the face, something happened that no amount of doing could have prevented.

In the space of three hours I went from chatting over dinner with her in a nice restaurant to looking down at her lifeless body, comatose and in critical condition, in a hospital trauma unit.

As I stood there helplessly, I knew that this was all part of a larger plan.

No matter how much I planned or strategized, I could not control reality. All I could do in the end was embrace it.

I remember putting my hands on her feet, the only part of her body that was exposed. At that moment the extent of Teal’s brain damage was unclear. No one knew if Teal would die or survive in a barely functioning vegetative state for the rest of her life. Or maybe the impossible would happen and she would wake up and fully recover.

The situation was truly unknowable.

A nurse said to me kindly, “This must be so hard for you.”

“I can’t fight this … it’s simply what is,” I heard myself say. All of my insistent organizing of life and those around me had suddenly come to a screeching halt. “Life is change,” I concluded.

“I’m so glad you understand that,” the kind nurse said. She had clearly seen so many fight the inevitable when, of course, there was nothing to be done.

Since Teal’s death, I have slowed down to what I would call a human and humane pace.

Three months after she died, I stopped working, i.e. drumming up ways to make money that might or might not involve what my soul was calling me to do. I had taken the requisite six weeks to get my feet under me again. Then I jumped back in the fire and tried to launch a business I’d been building for many months.

My heart wasn’t in it, of course. My soul wasn’t either. Both actually thought I was kind of crazy – and I suppose I was. I was simply terrified to let go of my old way of being, and just “be” with my grief, my shock, my heartache.

Please God don’t let me feel these harrowing feelings, I thought.

Finally, sanity and my business coach, Andrea, prevailed. “Let go,” she advised, and so I did, grudgingly. I gave myself a strict two months before I intended to buckle down and get back to work.

Thankfully, I’m still in that letting-go process. January came and went. May came and went. And still I was not ready to get “back to work.” In fact, I’m not sure I ever will, at least in the same way.

I’ve decided this is my work: writing, reflecting, being in the flow of life and seeing what my ultimate superior, God, has in mind for me on a day-to-day basis. I’m done with strategically organizing my business for maximum sales, overworking, and controlling everyone around me to make sure they jump through the appointed hoops.

In fact, after making amends to the various staffers who I left somewhat bruised, I closed that business down completely. Now I am in a period of intense listening, a process that honors my imperfection, instead of my would-be perfection. And so I relax into the great inevitability that is life, enjoying each messy moment as it comes and goes.

This grief is a place of supreme letting go, rich with possibilities. For here I have made a new and unexpected friend, happiness. I am lit from within now, and my old, blissful child-self emerges just a little more each day.

Perhaps this is something we can all take from Teal’s death – the understanding that all of that striving and doing we fill our days with is just smoke in the wind. By allowing in uncertainty, we truly make our mark in the world.

Won’t you join me in this beautiful, nebulous field of dreams?

***

Reprinted from my book, Surrendering to Joy .

The post On Loving My Imperfection appeared first on Suzanne Falter.

Learning to Forgive My Difficult Mother

This is a series of essays that have not appeared before on this blog. They were taken from my book, Surrendering to Joy, which I wrote in the year immediately following my daughter Teal’s death in 2012.

The other morning, as I lay awake in the post-dawn light, a dream fragment meandered through my mind. I saw my mother’s favorite Liberty scarf, one she gave me, with a hole worn clean through it.

It was not a big hole. It had not been cut or torn; it looked like a picked-at, worn-through sort of hole.

And it was not the work of mice or moths. It was the work of my greatest undertaking: restoring my self-esteem after my mother’s petulant, erratic care.

I am not here to point fingers and assign blame to a woman, now dead, who did the best she could with skimpy emotional means. Yes, I’m pissed right now. But who cares?

The bottom line is that the hole in that scarf is emblematic of a larger truth. As soon as I dreamed the image, I saw that this hole could not be repaired. There was no patch that could be put on it to hide it.

Rather it was a hole that had to be owned, seen and accepted. I realize now that the veil of my mother’s infinite ability to charm me has worn through. It is my job to finally tell the truth and own what happened in my childhood.

I’m inclined to love charmers of all kinds: weavers of big tales, blue-eyed beauties, charismatic front-of-the-room types. How I want to believe their clever, seductive stories – just like I wanted to be seduced by my mother and her Grace Kelly appeal. This has gotten me into trouble more than once, for I was a girl with a big imagination and I still am. I wanted my life to play out in sunlit lace, just like a really good romance circa 1962. And sometimes it did.

 For as many dark recesses as our family slid into, there were also gorgeous highs.

Coming in from sledding to my mother’s amazing spaghetti dinners. Trips to her best friend’s house to swim and eat take-out real Philly cheesesteaks. Blissful shopping trips downtown to Bonwit Teller’s to pick out the perfect outfit.

How I have feasted on these memories, playing them again and again in my mind – even as I navigated the utter chaos of life.

There’s a word for this. It’s called denial.

I can’t remember much of the abuse my borderline mother dealt me because I was too busy hanging onto the fantasy that my childhood was “just fine.”

This fantasy existed because it was necessary to protect my soul from the plate hurling, the fights, and the name-calling. I went to bed scared and woke up scared, never knowing when Mom the Monster would emerge again. I lived on the edge of my nerves throughout most of my childhood, terrified I would make a slip and do the wrong thing.

I assumed everybody lived this way.

Lately, my sister and I have been having some powerful conversations. Unlike me, she remembers exactly what happened. And why. And when. Our past helps explain why I have chosen some of the love partners I have. And why I have shrunk from my own power again and again in this life, out of nothing more than fear of reprisal.

I see now that my mother was rendered jealous by all that I had to give – except for those times she was actually proud, God bless her.

The very sad truth is that my mother really did give me the best she could, just as all mothers do.

How could she not? As mothers, we are biochemically wired to deliver warmth, food, love and shelter to our kids. Even the most severely psychotic among us must respond some way and somehow. There simply is no other choice.

Yet when there is a thin margin between your duties as a mother and your own mental illness, there is hell to pay. With that hell comes all the attendant baggage.

Now I consider the hole in Mom’s scarf an omen of sorts. It’s a warning to not rush myself in the healing process, nor to throw the book at my mother like a stern traffic court judge. That tattered hole is a warning to take good care of myself as I tread these rough waters, a warning to observe, record and feel, thoughtfully and thoroughly.

And to remember that despite the harshness, my mother truly loved me. She gave me that scarf one day as an act of love, even though it was one of her favorites. She wanted more than anything to avoid being the vindictive, erratic shrew that her own mother was.

Even in her pain, Boo told me how she loved me again and again, and I know it is true. Just as most of us do, no matter how sad or distorted that love may get.

Now, as I own what happened, my most tender feelings are beginning to emerge. And I am sinking into the surrender that reality really is the best choice. Always.

What could I have done to prevent my mother’s addiction and abuse? Nothing. And what could she have done to prevent it? Not much, given what she was dealing with and how little support she gave herself along the way.

As with everything, it was all part of God’s most perfect design, delivered for me to deconstruct one day so I can share it with you. For in this writing is my own healing. If you can relate to this, perhaps yours is as well.

God bless you, Boo, wherever you are.

Slowly I am finding my way back to gratitude for all that you once were.

***

Reprinted from my book, Surrendering to Joy.

 

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The Very Temporary Nature of Suffering

This is a series of essays that have not appeared before on this blog. They were taken from my book, Surrendering to Joy , which I wrote in the year immediately following my daughter Teal’s death in 2012.

Suffering seems to be all around me these days. Oh, yes, I almost forgot: I see how I suffer, too.

One friend is angry at her dentist. Another is furious with her former spouse. What Spirit is showing me more clearly than ever is that this suffering and resistance we cook up time and time again is both critical and temporary. It’s simultaneously a fearsome reality and a grand illusion.

In truth, our suffering is nothing more than an excuse to check out and play small for a while. Honestly, we may need it on some level. For we plug into our pain just like a lamp enjoys a socket. We literally become electrified with fear, greed, envy, hatred, resentment, anxiety, terror, panic and lust for all that we believe we cannot have.

We become consumed by these emotions until the moment we decide to look up – and then somehow it all starts to lift.

Teal was a big one for moving through these stormy seas quickly. Even as a very small child she would have her rant. Then, just as suddenly as it came on, she would give her little shoulders a shake and move straight back to joy.

I used to quietly admire this quality of hers, for she was 100 percent authentic in her upset. There would be a panic that her math homework wasn’t going well and she would flunk a test. Or when she was older, there might be a tearful breakdown around “what the hell am I doing with my life?” Grief would rattle through her at warp speed, and there was something healthy about it.

We used to laugh that she needed to have her ‘two-week cry’. Every couple of weeks, pretty much on schedule, Teal would call me up and have a sob about amorphous things. Sometimes it would even be about nothing at all; she just needed to cry. I’d listen and she would move through it. Then her usual radiance would come streaming back.

So Teal taught me about the temporary nature of suffering. For it was always with great grace and apparent ease that she moved in and out of her pain. Never once did she cling to it because she thought it would get her something or because she “needed” it. She expressed her sadness simply because it was there.

How easy it is for us to assume there will be some kind of reward or payoff at the end of our suffering. For me, that shows up as the angry thought that “So and so is really going to pay this time!”

Yet there is no reward to toxic spews, just as there is no justification.

For many years I labored hard in the mines of advertising as an underpaid and, I thought, unappreciated junior copywriter. Day by day I wrote ads for things like “Doan’s Little Back Pills.” Then I’d walk away at 5 o’clock hating my work, hating myself and convinced this life I’d created was all a big mistake.

In these sad years, I told myself I could do no better, that I somehow needed this ill-suited job. And so I forgot God’s most sacred principle: We are all divine in our ways, and when we force ourselves to hang onto something that doesn’t fit, it’s a sacrilege.

This is the thing that I notice again and again these days.

Suffering can be a choice, like a punishment we feel we have to be oddly loyal to.

In this way, I felt I had to stay in the love relationships in which I suffered and hung on month after difficult month.

All of it fed my persistent, dogging sense of shame at the time. And so it is with all prolonged suffering. We hang on rather than walk away because we mistakenly believe it’s all that we’ve got.

But it’s not, friends. In fact, it’s far from it.

Only by making the conscious choice to let go of the pain and swim back to wholeness can we move ahead, tiny snail-inch by snail-inch. Isn’t that the purpose of our slow crawl here on Earth?

The point of life and all of its hurdles isn’t to prove anything to anyone. It’s to discover, leaf by leaf, and to unfold, petal by petal.

The purpose of our struggle is to set us right again, simply by learning to maneuver through life.

Only by wading through the pain to the other side can we finally, actually grow. So we right the child within us who was abused. In doing so, we discover compassion for ourselves and the world.

It is in setting our minds to reclaim our wholeness that we build our most effective strategy for life. That wholeness demands that we let go of our suffering. So I become more and more aware of my own fragile little cages of pain, and I let go of them, one by one.

Once released, through prayer, meditation, and sometimes through forgiveness and making amends, they transform into flowers lifting into the sky. No longer needing to serve any earthly purpose, they disappear and are forgotten.

So I find I can stand a little taller and stretch a little further, empowered once again by the grace of God flowing freely through my veins.

It feels good to be alive.

***

Reprinted from my book, Surrendering to Joy.

 

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Is This Crazy Contraption Seriously Going to Work?

This is a series of essays that have not appeared before on this blog. They were taken from my book, Surrendering to Joy, which I wrote in the year immediately following my daughter Teal’s death in 2012.

See if this sounds familiar.

You write a book, build a business, take a job or create something based on guidance, a hunch, or a screaming instinct that you have. You do it because you know – you really know – you are meant to do this thing.

But in the back of your mind there is also doubt. It feels squeamishly tender. You are scared, dammit! Do you seriously have to do this thing? Really?

This is where I find myself as I emerge from my grief.

I am a changed woman with a permanently changed offer to the world.

I’m talking about my writing. A book is slowly accumulating steam, patiently biding its time. It seems to be lodged somewhere in my veins, waiting for the moment when I’ll open one and write.

One rule of the Universe I know by heart is that if I’m not clear on my transformation – and I can honestly stand behind its value – no one will be. I must own the power of this emerging work down to my toes.

And like anyone facing their deepest truth, I’m scared. It’s not that I fear I can’t sell a book or make my living from this work; I’ve proven in the past I can do that. It’s more that I fear the tender, deeply vulnerable rightness of this work, and the place I have to go to produce it.

I fear the raw power of what I experience every time I sit down and put my hand in that flame.

It’s as if every step of my life has prepared me for this point. From my days studying art history and learning how to really look at things and write about them, to my stints as copywriter, failed novelist, and guided self-help author the first time around.

Yet, it is mostly Teal’s death that has prepared me for this work. From the moment I stood looking at her stretched out before me on the hospital bed, encased in tubes, wires and monitors, I knew the moment had come.

I knew she would die and that I would be forced to be reborn. I knew the truth was finally going to have its way and, for once, I could not stop it. Like all of us at that moment of truth, I was ripped wide open and all the falsehoods in my life were wiped clean at once.

This burning away is a process we all must succumb to one way or another. Perhaps it happens through the end of a marriage or the loss of a job. Maybe it happens with the death of a parent, a serious illness, or the bottoming out of an addiction that has to end.

Sooner or later, all of us must fall off the apple wagon of our own pretensions and dissolve into the nothingness that God requires. To fight it is nothing less than pure folly.

We are transient beings on this planet and we are here for one purpose alone – to experience our own sweet, tender fragility and gain strength in its expression.

We have to know this truth and surrender to it fully, letting it show us the way.

Most of all, we have to trust the deep and lasting value of what is born anew. It’s the old “Sally Field problem” – we are being called to know our value in the world.

Yet somehow we are wired for complete denial of that fact. When Michelangelo was working on the Sistine Chapel, he wrote in his diary, “I am no painter!” Mark Twain wrote of his classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: “I may very well pigeonhole it or even burn it.”

Our reticence around our truth turns out to be quite normal. And I have to just keep reminding myself of this fact as I cycle back down to writing once again.

There is always perfection in God’s plan for us. You can trust it and so can I. We may feel overly sensitive along the way, but that is how it is to be stretched as we grow.

All that is required, ultimately, is our willingness. Are we willing to surrender and “face the music” of our own discontent? Can we allow ourselves to find the path back to our deeper truth, our purest voice?

I, for one, can only say yes. How about you?

***

Reprinted from my book, Surrendering to Joy .

 

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Last Minute Holiday Self-Care (You Can Do It!)

If you’re harried, if you can’t seem to get a jump on the Christmas madness … or even if you’ve already had too much eggnog, take heart. You can always retreat to self-care.

You just have to be willing.

Willingness turns out to be the key that turns this particular lock. Because it’s all too easy to assume that just because Aunt Millie has always expected you to arrive with freshly baked Christmas cookies you must, yet again.

I propose we take back the holidays as a necessary respite for ourselves. And sure, we can show up in good cheer. But we can also do that far more simply … if we’re willing. Here are a few ideas to that end.

Ask yourself what’s really ‘Good Enough’ … then do it. If you’re harried, chances are you are over producing. You’re simply doing too damn much. Ask yourself for a little slack. Then be willing (there’s that word again) to just slow down a bit. It may feel uncomfortable at first, but trust me here. Once you allow it, your natural self-compassion will prevail.
Notice if you’re frantic because you’re avoiding grief. Sometimes I show up at a holiday party ready to eat a lot of Christmas cookies. Mainly because that particular day I may really miss my daughter, Teal, who died in 2012. It still seems impossible all these years later she is gone. So I’m left feeling hungry for something I cannot have. At such moments it helps to stop and breathe. Notice if you’re acting a little compulsively (could be with cookies, shopping, gift giving, just ‘doing’ in general.) If so, give yourself a great big warm hug of compassion. Then ask yourself. What do you want that you cannot have? Might be time for a good cry.  In fact, it probably is. So go ahead and have a good sob. You’ll feel better.
Ask for help. Just do it. Oh, how we hate to ask for help. It’s an old saw, and I keep on repeating it because it’s true. Asking for help not only makes your job easier, it allows those who enjoy helping to do something they love. In fact, there really ARE people out there who want to help you. The first time I realized this, it seemed incredible. These good souls are the ones who really get that giving is a gift in itself. So go ahead … ask someone you trust for a bit of assistance. You deserve it.
Take a little break to connect spiritually. It may seem like the furthest thing from you mind in the swirl of holiday madness. But may I gently remind you that this is actually the point this time of year? Whatever your form of spiritual connection may take, from a slow meditative walk to a service at a nearby  mosque or temple, just give yourself that precious time. Perhaps it’s quick — a note tossed into your God Box. Or a five-minute or even two-minute meditation. Just go within. Settle in with your Spirit of choice. Then allow that healing to begin.
Let go of expectations. And be willing to be surprised. It’s easy when we’re bound by tradition to assume there is only one way any holiday is going to go, based on past experience. But what if this one was totally different? After all, your cells have been completely replaced since last holiday season. And you, undoubtedly, have learned a few things as well, as have those around you. So why not shift your expectations to a state of curiosity. What will happen next on this particular holiday season? Let go and stay loose.
Carve out critical time for yourself. Yes, you can shut the door and have ‘me’ time — even if you have to hole up in the bathroom while baby is napping or work associates clamor outside the door. This is where your strength comes from — and that strength gets depleted so you must replenish it. Give yourself a series of five minute breaks throughout the day if you have to. Then use that time to breathe deeply and calmly. Don’t get on your screens, but just breathe instead. And let your mind empty out as you return to peace. You will find unexpected ideas pop in, resolving problems perhaps. And you may notice feelings bubble up. It’s all good … and it’s all you. Good work!

Hope these ideas have provided you with a soothing bit of self-care, for that is always my goal.

Happy Holidays! I so appreciate being on this road with you.

With love,

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Self-Care for #MeToo Feminists

“Do I still have to clean up before dinner parties?”

A reader recently asked me this question.

This brings to mind images of a cheerful 1958 housewife wearing impeccable aprons with freshly coiffed hair. She smilingly sets down a tray of perfect little triangle canapes on the freshly dusted coffee table. The hors d’oeuvres are topped with Spanish olive slices that she spent a good part of the afternoon preparing.

It also evokes the image of the downtrodden wife at the beginning of the movie Puzzle, as she laboriously spends an entire day preparing a birthday party for … herself. Which she then dutifully cleans up, entirely alone.

As women, how do we reconcile that ever-giving part of us with the angry, fed up, #metoo feminist we also harbor? And what does any of this have to do with self-care?

Well, it has a lot to do with it actually. Let’s take a closer look.

No, you don’t have to clean up before dinner parties. Nor do you have to even throw dinner parties. Unless you want to.

 Here’s the thing – some of us love others by cooking, cleaning and hosting. I’m one of those people. I have a big birthday coming up, and I’ll spend it by taking up residence in a house by the beach with some dear friends. We’ll talk. We’ll do puzzles. We’ll sip wine. We’ll walk. And I’ll definitely cook for everyone at some point – but that’s because I want to.

In fact, I need to.  It enriches me.

This is entirely different from being the Good Wife who diligently vacuums, dusts, cleans and cooks for a crowd with a smile, and then washes up the entire mess afterwards by herself while simmering with silent rage. Meanwhile Husband hangs with the guys and then eventually stumbles off to bed. Why? Because for a lot of women, that scenario is just easier.

It’s simpler to do it yourself rather than nag, implore, insist, rant or cajole for help. You’ve fallen into this pattern, and so you put up with it, year after wearing year.

This is where our self-care falls apart, and why there probably aren’t more dinner parties happening these days.

Let me be clear. Not all male partners and husbands are insensitive slobs who won’t help. A lot of men are wonderful helpmates and full-on partners in this department. I know a few who do all the cooking and cleaning at parties themselves. Yet, they are still definitely in the minority.

Real self-care demands we tell the truth about our wants and needs. And it’s not always easy.

I know this from personal experience. I had a husband for 25 years and we loved throwing dinner parties. But I definitely fell into that pattern of doing most of the cleaning and cooking that was involved. He wasn’t lying on the couch, mind you … generally, he was outside cutting down trees, or burning brush, or stacking firewood. He was doing manly things.

Meanwhile, I was doing the ‘womanly’ things inside. We fell into the usual neatly prescribed roles.

I attribute a lot of this to the fact that I came of age in the Sixties and Seventies. Back then, my Barbie doll’s lips were always painted lipstick red, and her permanently flexed feet only fit in spike heels. My mother literally had a job writing a column for House & Garden Magazine called ‘The Happy Housekeeper.’ And my dad? He was painting all those illustrations of the deliriously happy wives for the major magazines.

Of course, Mom was a celebrated party giver. That’s where I learned this behavior in the first place. Being a traditional wife and hostess made me feel safe and secure. And it also kept me held fast in a straight marriage, despite the fact that I was actually a lesbian. And a feminist.

It actually worked. Until the day finally came when it didn’t, and I left.

Self-Care is about giving in to who you actually are – in spite of everything.

God knows I didn’t want to leave my cozy nest. I loved my husband. He was a good man. But when you’re gay, your gay. This is not a fact that can be fudged, avoided or whitewashed. No matter how hard you try.

Looking back, I can see now that there were many times of great joy – enough that I could ignore my ever-present lesbianism. Raising our children was one of the peak experiences of my life, and I will be forever grateful I got to do this.

And yet, there came that moment when I couldn’t go on as I had been. When I had to finally tell the truth about who I was, and make a break with family tradition. As I drove my moving truck across the country from upstate New York to San Francisco, I had a lot of time to think about what I had just done. I cried all the way to Ohio, but then state by state, I began to calm down.

What I realized was that I was scared, yes. But I was also surrendering to something bigger than the role my Mother had handed me all those years earlier. This move felt raw and all-consuming. Yet, it also felt right, in spite of the broken hearts and the grief we would all endure.

It was right because I paid attention to that small, still voice within. It’s the one that always reminds us of the big things we can do in this life, if only we listen.

Ask yourself what’s not working in your life right now. Then act accordingly.

The answer to this potent question may be surprising. I know it was for me. I hung on to the uncomfortable truth that I needed to come out as a lesbian for a good five years before I had the courage to actually do so

Really, I was waiting for my children to grow up to the point that they could cope. By the time I decided to leave, my son was just heading off to a year in Taiwan as a high school exchange student, and my daughter was already gone, living the life of a singer in Austin, Texas.

I had money in the bank, a successful business, and a new business partner who happened to be a gay man living in the LGBTQ Mecca of the Bay Area.

It takes a lot to examine the facts of your life, and acknowledge they are no longer working. Especially if love, comfort and children are involved. But I can promise you this – there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, if you are patient enough to get there.

Many of us give up because the process of changing our life is too difficult. And most of us don’t even need to make sweeping changes. Sometimes it’s just a small thing that’s needed – like renegotiating who does the dishes, or buys the groceries.

This is where the fifth and final lesson comes in. In some ways, it’s the most important one.

Be willing to let go, and stop doing all of it your way.

As women, we are competent at a lot of things. And we like them done right. And yet …

When we move towards what we need and we ask for help, something big shifts. We no longer see ourselves as the only one capable of handling that particular aspect of life. Instead, we let go a little bit. We allow others in. That’s when they show up to help us.

This means we will no longer be Masters of Our Domain ( or perhaps Mistresses?) Instead, we become a little more vulnerable, and that is when surprising things can happen. By not needing to control, say, how spotless every dish is, we discover something wonderful.

Life gets easier. Seriously easier. And often in unexpected and unexplainable ways.

Once I made my big break, I found challenges to be sure. But I was also energized because now I was living my truth. Effortlessly I lost 25 pounds. I fell in love. I magically found a perfect apartment. Each day something new popped up to discover.

It was as if the world conspired to support this new plan of mine. Perfect teachers showed up at perfect moments. My work as a marketing coach burgeoned until it exploded,. Then it burned out, which led me to the next right thing, which was writing fiction.

And now, looking back eight years later, I can see that my willingness to stay open and just see what was next was what kept me on track.  Today I have a wonderful marriage, meaningful work as a writer, and a great home. I am surrounded by terrific friends, meaningful community work and a lot of support. I literally no longer want or need a thing beyond what I already have.

I am happy. And really, that’s all we might hope for in this life, isn’t it?

So in answer to the question that started this little ramble, no, please don’t ever clean up or host parties or do anything because you are ‘supposed to’. Do it because you want to, or don’t do it at all. That is our #metoo lesson in spades, friends.

Above all else, listen to yourself. Take the risk and act on your needs.

Then let go and let the Universe support you to have those needs fulfilled. Let yourself reach for the star of happiness, wherever it is. And let yourself understand that this, too, has been given to you.

All of this is a gift – the good, the bad and the ugly. We just have to dial in our truth, and let it unfold as it will. That is literally our only job.

May these thoughts serve you well as you, too, expand and grow.

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How I Learned to Stop Fighting — and How I’m Healing My Anger

I’m a very nice person … perhaps too nice sometimes. And truthfully? Underneath that well-groomed, well-behaved exterior, a tiger lies in wait.

The fact is I can get angry. Very angry. So I’ve had to learn how to work with the behemoth that is my anger.

Here’s how it goes.

Someone around me is having a bad day, or maybe a particularly harried moment. They snap. My hackles go up, and I snarl back. But then – instead of storming out, or allowing the moment to escalate into a back and forth that becomes an invective-hurling tirade – I retreat.

Or at least I try to.

I take myself off to another room, I close the door, and I do something I’ve found to be immensely helpful. I ask myself what’s going on.

In those tense moments, it’s so very easy to imagine the issue rests entirely with the other one. My mind can so easily spin and snap. How could she say that? What exactly did he mean?

I understand that I am the one who’s having the big reaction. Psychotherapists would say I am triggered.

Rather than being able to calmly let the other person just have his moment, and give him a compassionate reply or a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, I have to run down memory lane. In a nanosecond, my psyche replays all the times I felt shamed, or afraid, or bullied, or abused.

So instead of being present in the moment with that slightly grumpy person, I’m back in sixth grade, being humiliated in the girl’s locker room. Or my long-dead mother is standing in front of me shaking her finger, reminding me how selfish and impossible I am.

The path back to shame and anger is so well worn, I just have to go there.

And yet, there can be course correction.

What I’ve come to realize is that when I’m triggered, the other guy seems patently wrong. Just wrong … no matter what. My oversized upset is usually far bigger than the situation merits. Which is why holding my tongue and retreating is such a good idea.

Once I’m alone, the first thing I do is to allow myself to feel as upset, outraged, fearful and bewildered as I want. I give myself a break – knowing that this psyche has some dings, and that I will eventually work my way back to a calm frame of mind.

I also remind myself that moments like these are inevitable … and that I can learn from them  every time.

Instead of spinning endlessly through the story of what just occurred, I take a tender look back into my past. Sometimes I can even remember a similar time from childhood when I felt so powerless, or vulnerable, or afraid.

If I need to have a cry, I do. Or perhaps I do a little journaling in the moment. Either way, I sit with my feelings until I feel myself calm down.

Then, most importantly, I remind myself not to take the other person’s upset personally. Sometimes, this is the hardest thing to do – because like I said, that path of shame and rage is so well worn.

The truth is that the other person’s upset probably has nothing to do with me. Chances are that she also feels horrible in that moment.

And, of course, I need to clean up where necessary. Did I cause some harm here? I open my eyes and take a good hard look, because I also know this: I am imperfect — and I’m going to make a lot more mistakes in my lifetime.

If there is some personal responsibility I need to take or an apology I need to make, I do it immediately. A clean slate also helps my psyche stay calm and relaxed.

The bottom line is this: when we own our anger – really own it, by sitting with it and even exploring it – we can heal it. These days I’m not as angry as I used to be. Instead, I find myself getting humbler and humbler.

Each time I sit with my triggers, I understand just a wee bit more about this complex, crazy creation that is me.

So my tiger is learning how to lie down and relax.

And that makes life all the sweeter.

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For Every Woman Who Doesn’t Have Time to Go to the Bathroom

I know. Life is intense. You feel pulled in every direction, and long ago you lost sight of what really matters most.

Instead, you’re in survival mode as you rush from dropping off kids to hitting that first meeting, all the while worrying about your kid’ recent ADHD diagnosis, not to mention that annoying twenty-something guy who appears to be horning in on your job.

But you will get through this. Mainly because you always do.

You will drag yourself home to your so-called sanctuary and order the pizza that no one else (i.e. your partner) seems to have the time to do. You will even make a salad and enforce the ‘Drink Your Milk First’ rule, as well as lovingly play with Legos, read a bedtime story, administer baths, sign report cards, and even … maybe … pour yourself a glass of wine when the dust settles.

Someone has to keep this whole wagon train moving forward, so it might as well be you, right?

Well, no actually. It doesn’t.

We are our mother’s daughters in so many ways. Especially if our mothers loudly sighed, and trudged off to do the laundry muttering about why no one else around here seems to be able to start a load. We, too have inherited the Mantle of Martyrdom.

The Pew Research Center has found that mothers were far more likely to significantly interrupt their work time to attend to children’s needs than fathers. And even though women in the U.S. represent a full 50% of the workforce, they still devote more time than men to housework and child care.

So no, you’re not alone if you feel like you are giving all the time. In fact, you’re in good company. Which is why it may be time for a change.

As an advocate for your self-care, I invite you to stop and take five minutes to answer a few simple questions.

1. Do you find yourself running – literally running – to the bathroom because otherwise you can’t finish your work? Or your mummying … or …?

2. Do you find it hard to actually ask for help … even though you know you need it?

3. Does the concept of self-care seem to apply to everyone else beside you?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, I urge you to consider something important. It could be your own behavior enables those around you to turn into big time slackers, leaving you to carry their weight.

What would happen if you were to give a polite but firm ‘No’ and set a few limits? What if you were to simply explain to your spouse that you’re not available to do the laundry or buy the groceries anymore?

You don’t have to explain why. As Ann LaMott has been quoted as saying, “No is a complete sentence.” And so those who traditionally ‘don’t cook’ or haven’t ever actually done the laundry, or fulfilled X, Y, or Z task at work get a new opportunity to excel.

Just remind them of that with a smile.

Or, if you’re a single mom, it could be that you need to find some support. Who else is in the same situation and might be willing to swap child care hours so you could, say, make it to the gym … or to that extension class you’ve been wanting to take? What teenager in the neighborhood would like to get a little babysitting time in?

Do yourself a favor. Remember that you are only a human being … and that you have a just as much right as anyone else to take your time, to rest and renew and to walk, not run, to the bathroom.

Not only that, you have an obligation to set the necessary limits and boundaries so you can really give your work, your family, and yourself the very best. A bedraggled employee or mom rarely rocks the house. Instead, she may devolve to the point of meltdown, and that brings everybody down right along with her.

Therefore, ask for help. Set a limit. Be creative if necessary. It really is part of your job to do so.

Then take that bubble bath, that walk in the woods, or that journaling time at your favorite café. Or that vacation. Or that meditation class. Or find a job in a place that truly supports its employees.

Invest some time in you, and you will discover something extraordinary. You’ll find out that you really are a powerful woman, and that the world is far more supportive than you knew.

May you enjoy the journey!

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Seven Ideas for a Happier Life

I woke up this morning with the most beautiful insight. I realized I genuinely love people. Like … everyone. It wasn’t always thu

This sense has been a lifetime in coming. Mainly because I spent a lot of my life mad at people. And who can blame me?

I was Susie Codependent – forever controlling, cajoling, managing, and manipulating. I thought it was my job to force reality every step of the way … just to be on the safe side.

So when life didn’t give me what I wanted, I was mad. That’s what happens when we suffer childhood traumas. These can be anything from severe bullying to having an addict parent to the illness or death in the family. When this happens, we build ourselves tough little cages of steel to live in … and so we suffer.

Mind you, a lot of us were exceptional children. We were the kids who were wise beyond our years, who knew how to cope with any disaster. We were the responsible ones who stayed late helping the teacher after school – usually to avoid the chaos at home. And we were often the tender kids who couldn’t play sports but wrote awesome poems.

This is the gift of severe loss. We have heightened sensitivity, and an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. We have anger – yet we have empathy as well. We feel the pulse of life a little more deeply.

So in adulthood, our work is to take down this jerry-rigged defense system we’ve build around us. And sometimes it takes a real disaster to make that happen.

Losing my daughter in 2012 and letting go of my former life did the trick for me. Immediately my perspective shifted. I relaxed and have turned the spotlight back on me.

Now these have become my guiding principles. They’re simple, they cost nothing, and they don’t require any ‘doing’. (No, you don’t have to meditate, though that’s always a help.)

1. I don’t need to make anyone happy but myself. It’s actually my more important responsibility.

2. I really can – and do – say ‘No’ whenever I need to now. The sky doesn’t fall. It’s great!

3. No one has to march to my tune but me. Everyone else has a right to live their life EXACTLY the way they want. As do I. If that means we need to go separate ways, so be it. It’s just part of God’s plan.

4. Things usually work out just fine. Once you’ve been thru the worst thing that can happen and you emerge better for it … you learn to go with what comes. Really, truly. Things do work out.

5. Stop worrying. Turns out worrying doesn’t actually help – and it just produces a lot of agita. So I try not to spend time there anymore.

6. We can’t force reality. What a shocker! So thought I could. Kind of hilarious when you think about it.

7. In the end, all we’ve got is love. Turns out accumulating stuff is highly overrated and somewhat lonely. But love really does heal all wounds.

May my little list help you in some way today … or next year. Written with a hug … and with you in mind.

Namaste,

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