The Most Generous Act

"Life sucks. That's it. It just sucks."

That's what my beloved friend said to me today. She (and I hope you, dear reader) knows me well enough to know that this is not a statement that describes my point of view. Yet, it clearly and succinctly describes hers -- at least up to now.

I feel so sad, knowing that this belief lies upon her heart today. I imagine how heavy it must be, holding her bright spirit pinned relentlessly beneath its unforgiving weight. My own heart dances every day, footloose in the certainty that life is beautiful, loving, and forever bringing me gifts designed for my greatest good. I want this dancing lightness for my friend, as I want it for all who suffer from this crushing belief that "life sucks."

When your childhood leaves you with an empty treasure chest -- none of the deliciously glittering bounty of the 7 Childhood Treasures mined or polished -- this belief that life sucks is the outcome. Without Trust, I could not believe that life "has my back." Without Independence, I would be unable to separate my real life from the daily circumstances that seem to be my life. Without Faith, I could not hold onto a higher purpose to carry me beyond the rollercoaster of "stuff that happens" every day, to everyone. Without Negotiation, I will not get what I want....

See how this goes? If I seem to be struggling alone, if I seem to BE the ups and downs of the journey rather than the one navigating them, if I see no purpose for my life, if I cannot get what I want.... Those colors on my brush do paint a picture that could be titled, "Life Sucks."

Issue Queen

I have become this...The Issue Queen. Or, at least, AN issue queen.

If you're a regular reader, you may remember that I recently started working with a new healer, whose work opened my eyes wide for a deeper understanding of trigger management (read "Waking from Nightmares"). I did hear this doc say on my first visit that we'd be finding some "issues in my tissues." I thought it was a great phrase, a good brand for his work, but didn't realize the full implications. This healing is calling upon my entire chest of Childhood Treasures!

Turns out that I have signed up for a pretty intense peeling of my personal onion, requiring me to find Trust for this new healer. Some of these issues we're waking up are very familiar, yet I've kept the reality of them at a distance for so long, I stopped seeing them as problems. Yeah, sure, I thought.... I've got issues; no big deal. Yes, I have triggers; no big deal. You know...I manage my reactivity.

Well, HA! and double HA! HA! 
The good doctor's work shouts at me, "MISSY, wake UP!!! You have TRIGGERS like angry bees trapped in a hive and they are taking up WAY too much of your time. GET IT?????" Just clarifying:  the doc is not shouting at me...the impact of his treatment has the megaphone. My awareness of my boundaries, my Treasure of Independence is what keeps me from confusing the doc with his results!

LOUD, this wake up call. In my face, shaking it's fist, spittle flying off its lips onto my cheeks. The issues are coming out of my tissues with big, stomping feet, yelling at the top of their lungs, crashing about in my life. Sheesh. Kinda dramatic.

Family Union

Families.... What are they? As the place where once we found insufficient support for, or outright barriers to, our childhood mining efforts, can they help us, now as adults, to dig up and polish to a gleam the 7 Childhood Treasures that enable a successful life full of purpose and joy?

Having just returned from my biannual family reunion, I believe I can answer my own question with a resounding yes! Putting on my cherished "side" hat of Anthropology (my 2nd major, paired with Child Development and a minor in Psychology), I begin with a definition. In fact, I begin with three of the many definitions of family. According to Dictionary.com, family is all of these:

1. A basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not
2. Any group of persons closely related by blood, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins
3. All those persons considered as descendants of a common progenitor

Observation of the ethnology at our family reunion made visible the intricacies of all three.
 

Waking from Nightmares

I jerk out of sleep as if from a dream of falling. My heart is pounding faster than seems possible, an automatic machine gun inside my chest. I cross my palms over my heart and feel it pulsing against my ribcage.

Night after night, I have been waking this way, stuttering also the sleep of my cat companion, Caramel Sundae Bear. He speaks his annoyance, shifts and re-settles, grumbling, and then blesses me with the forgiveness of his steady, rhythmic purr. My heart slows….

Why? Why am I waking, in every night’s most wee hour, as if from a nightmare? The question becomes a prayer and is instantly answered. The still, small voice tells me that I know this midnight manifestation for what it is:  the physical echo of an emotional allegory that is currently stomping around my life. I am not waking from a literal nightmare each night but, metaphorically, in the light of day, I’m waking from a nightmare that I’ve been dreaming for decades.

Today I Met a Miracle

Today I met a miracle...and it was me.



When I present the 7 Childhood Treasures, I often speak about a freedom that is our birthright, the freedom that young children demonstrate in spontaneous, completely-in-the-moment expressions of who they are. Young children, in their natural state, are never inhibited by regret for the past or fear of the future. They live in the Now of their own greatness.
  
Not sure what that looks like? There's a video that circulates now and then on Facebook...maybe you've seen it? A girl of about 4 is standing on the bathroom vanity

counter, her long, blond, corkscrew curls bouncing as she half-talks, half-sings to herself in the mirror. Her little spur-of-the-moment ditty simply catalogues the many ways she likes her life. She begins:  "I can do anything good...." and continues, "I like my hair. I like my pajamas. I like my cousins. I like my brother. I like my mom. I LIKE MY WHOLE HOUSE!" She wraps it up by going back to her opener as she climbs down to the floor, "I can do anything! I can do anything good!"
 

Family Baggage...Unpacked

Wow! It's been a busy month and a half!! I've been offering a series of 7 Childhood Treasures workshops in St. Louis...and my family convened for a big celebration of Mom's 90th birthday.

Have you ever noticed that, when you're with your birth family, the adult costumes everyone walks around in most of the time seem to shift their seams and zippers in revealing ways? But it's not body parts that emerge; rather, it's our former child selves. The sibling alliances and rivalries, the pecking

orders, the secrets we keep.... All these immodest private parts begin to poke through openings we thought were sealed. Your past is no longer contained inside the carefully sewn exterior self you tend and mend, day by day, in the adult world in which you now move.

Yes, there's nothing like a family gathering to suddenly make you realize three things:

1. Your baggage is gaping wide open, with its tumbled contents on display.
2. Most of those contents have, in fact, already been pulled out and draped all over your frame by well-meaning family members who are more comfortable with this familiar version of you.
3. All that costuming conceals not one of the vulnerabilities you most want to hide.

Sigh. Ain't that just the pits?

A New Alternative to Fear

You’ve all heard, no doubt, what happens to us humans when our survival response is triggered. Yes? The most-often-repeated version is “fight or flight.” Psychologists like me, along with many others outside that field, know there is a third instinct in the face of fear:  freeze. Fight the perceived attacker, run away, or become immobile, incapable of response, shut down. (See the lizard named Beans in the movie Rango for a classic example.) Those are the three options available when, in the face of perceived threat, the most primitive, reactive part of the brain takes the steering wheel on this ride we call life. Some of us have a strong "preference" for one; others of us make use of any of the three, depending on the situation.

I’ve become convinced that there is another alternative, one that blends the 7 Childhood Treasures of Trust and Independence. But before I tell you what it is, a word about the perceived threat or attacker. Before I can climb up from the depths of my reptile brain’s forced three-way choice, first I have to adjust to accept one hard fact. That is:  whatever drives me out of my huge and hugely logical neo-cortex, and into the gut-instinct to become invisible, flee, or defend…well, it may not be an actual threat or an actual attacker at all.

I’ve written of this uncomfortable truth before…that your reality is unique to you. Your belief that some person or situation is a threat to your safety is just that—a belief. It often derives, not from an actual circumstance of danger in front of you, but from a subconscious tour taken by your experience of that circumstance. Your incoming sensory perceptions—sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures—register a little snapshot of events in front of you. That multi-sensory image then takes a little stroll through a few filters in your neural network, created by early childhood experiences