You Don’t Need it, but Here’s Your Permission

It is the dead of winter where I live.  It’s the part of winter where you are over it, ready for it to be green again, and absolutely fed up with ice and frigid temperatures.

We are in the part of winter where restfulness starts to tend toward restlessness.  

I should have known when I drew the Tower card as my tarot card of the month for January, but I did not foresee getting COVID the day before I was supposed to fly out for a big week-long conference.  Or that my first ever momcation completely by myself would be cut short by a severe ice storm.

Rest for me has been difficult this winter.

It is every winter of course, but this year it hasn’t looked the way I wanted it to.

I had hoped for more independent time to do fun things, to journal, to do some healing, to read loads of books and meditate.

Instead, rest has looked like skipping the dishes a couple of times.

Or leaving my Christmas tree halfway undecorated.

And doing one little piece of self-care every day.

I have an oracle deck called the Sacred Self-Care and this has been great inspiration for self-care.

It can be something as small as singing.  I sang in a choir for many years, but sometimes I do forget to just sing.  The reminder has been nice.

So I guess today, this is my reminder to you, to do something small that brings you joy.  That makes you feel alive.  That gives you inspiration.

If you needed someone to give you permission to just rest today, I hope you hear me when I say you have it.

Rest.  

Regenerate.

Incubate.

Nurture.

You deserve it.

Do you believe in magic?

What is magic?

At some point in our childhood, we are taught that magic does not exist. 

“It isn’t real.“

“It’s make-believe.”

“It’s just in the movies.”

At some point, the wonder and hope and dreaming is squashed out of us.

Or at least that’s the way it feels sometimes.

But I am an adult who chooses to believe in magic.

To embrace it, to create it, to make it a part of my everyday.

How do I reconcile that?

What does that mean?

To believe in magic.

For me it’s not movie magic, but I think that makes it more real.

It’s the dance of fireflies at dusk.

Setting out to go thrift shopping and finding just the thing you were hoping for.

Getting lost in a good book.

Setting goals and looking back after a year to know that you achieved them.

The smell of Christmas time.

The sound of a baby giggling.

Seeing a doe and fawn in the woods while hiking.  Standing still, hushed, to stare back at them.

Sharing your heart and soul with people who truly get you.

The crisp, cool feel of sheets on a freshly made bed.

Listening to your intuition.

Looking yourself in the eye in the mirror and speaking your truth.

A sunset turned gold and pink and orange and violet.

The melt-in-your mouth sensation of your favorite food.

Hearing your toddler express thoughts with new words.

Sitting in silence with your own thoughts.

Dancing without a care.

Looking up at the night sky.

Healing old wounds.

It’s all magic to me.

The little wonders, the physical sensations of living on this earth in this body, the power of writing down your intentions or speaking them into existence.  

Magic is what we create.

It is what we choose.

Magic is making the decision to be intentional in our lives.

To live on purpose.

To soak it all in.

To be present.

To be alive.

I have found magic in being alone.

I have found magic in being with good friends.

I have found powerful magic in being a mother.

It’s always there, waiting for us to reach out and claim it.

I choose to live my life magically.

Join me here if that sounds fun.

‘Normal’

Today’s post is brought to you by a very special guest-writer. My youngest sister, Lois Thomason, shares her motherhood experience. Lois has a very poetic writing style, but her experience is deeply sorrowful. I will issue a trigger warning, as this post addresses stillbirth and the grief that comes with it. If you are not in a healthy space to read that kind of content, please don’t scroll past the photo.

I chose to pair this post with the particular photo below because I believe there is still so much to learn about pregnancy and post-partum. Look at how much has changed in the last 50 years. My hope is that by shedding light on the losses that still occur, that we can focus our resources on learning what causes these terrible tragedies. Maybe our children will look back in 50 years and remark at how far we have come.

This is Lois’ story, as she chose to tell it:

I don’t remember the first time I heard my baby’s heartbeat. I know for a lot of mothers, this is a pivotal, earthshaking moment. For me, it would become just one in many of a series as I entered the longest year of my life.

Multiple hospitalizations familiarized me with the routine. The cold gel and the scratchy bands holding hard plastic monitors in place, the staticky whoosh of the fetal heart.

All of that to say, when the nurse placed the monitor on my stomach, and the seconds counted away silently, I knew it wasn’t normal. That I was going to spend the rest of my life with a new “normal” that I never asked for or even dreamed of. A normal where my son will never grow to be more than a painted plate in a china cabinet, an album of photos that I force myself to look at, every now and again. A normal where my memories of him are tainted by the purple on his face; the red slash of a mouth that couldn’t, wouldn’t ever, draw breath; the way his skin was already beginning to tear.

I don’t remember the first time I heard my baby’s heartbeat; I didn’t realize when I was hearing it for the last. Instead of pattering feet, I have ink-prints on a ceramic saucer, an urn full of ashes that I can’t quite talk myself into retrieving from the morgue. And still the world moves forward, and I with it; flowing on like a river – every day a little further from a time when “normal” meant something just a little different.

little “t” traumas

“Trauma isn’t what happens to you, it’s what happens inside you.” – Gabor Maté

A while back, I saw a hypnotherapist for several sessions, addressing some mindset issues, imposter syndrome, and remnants of childhood traumas.  

I found this incredibly beautiful and helpful, but I see a holistic practitioner who is not covered by insurance, so I hadn’t had a session in a few months.

In that time, I experienced some new traumas which I never fully processed so I booked a one off appointment for yesterday.

The full story is not mine to share and I won’t get into it today, but one of the unresolved points of trauma for me involved an interaction with a family member.

I was the person who broke the news to this family member and it was a jarring moment.

I would ordinarily describe this person as emotionally unavailable.  Truly, we don’t discuss hurt feelings or emotions.  There is very little vulnerability shared.  

They are also someone that I have looked up to as a role model for a long time.

And when I called to share the news, I did not expect to be met with the screams of grief.  The kind that I hope you have only heard in movies.  Followed by sobs.

To be burdened with the sudden burst of emotion was a traumatic moment for me and I didn’t realize it until my hypnotherapist named it as a trauma.

I had been hesitant to call it that because it seemed so insignificant in relation to the primary loss.  

But something inside of me snapped under the weight of that agony.  And that is all that matters.

I share this today because that moment was so freeing.  To finally name my trauma.

If you are holding past trauma in your body because you have been afraid to name it for what it is, I want you to know that it doesn’t matter how big or small someone else thinks that event was.  Name it.  I give you permission.

And I hope you find healing.

The Longest Night

I often refer to my year of unemployment, from March 2020 to April 2021, as “the Pandemic year”.  I know the pandemic has dragged on well past a year, but to me that was the year that the world seemed to come to a halt. 

It was during this year that I rediscovered my spiritual self.  The year I tuned back into my body and the seasons.  That was the year that I learned to love winter.  Dormant.  Restful.  Preparing for new awakenings. 

This year I’ve felt like the challenge of this winter is to learn to love night.  For so long, I’ve dreaded winter and part of that has been because the days are shortened and the darkness comes so early in the day.  I’m slowly, but surely, leaning into that.  Learning to appreciate it. 

The twinkle of lights, the bright full moon, the early showing of Venus and the other planets. 

The heat and warmth of a bonfire. 

The sun shining on my bed right at naptime. 

The beautiful gradient sunsets. 

On this, the longest night of the year, I want to celebrate the darkness that encourages us to rest, reflect, and spend a little more time with our loved ones.

Here’s to learning to love the night and sending our little ones to bed when the sun goes down.

Happy Solstice, all.

A Fresh Start

New Beginnings.  Welcome to my website.  I’ve been sitting on this domain for several months now.  I purchased it with the intention of broadcasting my coaching practice, but work and health and recent personal events made that feel too heavy for me right now.  

For several months, I shared my thoughts on pregnancy, motherhood, and parenting on Facebook and on Tiktok.  And then I stopped.  I felt like it wasn’t making a difference and that I probably looked really silly.  

But last week, one of my short essays popped up in my memories.  I read through it and even a year later, I found it so relevant and so helpful that I had to stop and pause.  Why did I stop sharing?  Writing those weekly posts was enjoyable for me and received overall positive support.  So why did I stop?

For a number of reasons, if I’m being honest.  But the biggest one is that I told myself no.  I told myself that the work didn’t matter.  I told myself that if I am honest about who I am and what I believe, then I will make people angry.  And I told myself that I was reaching too far, thinking too highly of myself to think that I have something new to offer the world. 

But today I choose a new beginning.

In my spiritual practice, I honor new beginnings every month.  It’s a routine that I find comforting and inspiring.  It’s a monthly reset to help me focus back on what is important.

And recently I’ve been convicted to raise my voice more for women’s issues.  Equality.  Identity.  Freedom.  Those values have always been at my core, for as long as I can remember.  

Today I am committing to sharing my thoughts once again. I will share a new post every Tuesday and we will see where the road takes us.

I have long said that life is a great journey.  I invite you to join me.