Woohoo

Editing to do....

My sister is an author of Christian romance.  I get the privilege of helping with editing.  A new book came tonight.  Chapter 3 I am loving the story.  I feel such joy that her talent is shared.  http://laurelhawkes.blogspot.com/ 
Laurel Hawkes is her pen name. I love that she shares her stories with me.  Sometimes we talk about her characters while walking at the park on Saturdays.  I wonder what people over hearing us think we are talking about people in an actual place besides the stories in her mind.

I get to photograph her covers for the self published books.  One of mine:

https://www.amazon.com/Laurel-Hawkes/e/B00J625XDM

Betrayal

I was having an awesome day.  I started the morning baking a birthday cake for our granddaughter.  I was on a roll, dishes were done, blog was written, then off to church.  Great meeting, I went to another meeting about 40 minutes in my body felt overheated and lousy....I tried to push through, my body betrayed me.  My mind shrieked I had 3-5 minutes to get home.  Fortunately church is less than 5 minutes from home which is a good thing.  I walked in the door, I didn't have time to take off my glasses or take out my hearing aides and my body collapsed and I was asleep in a kind of nap that feels like I am drugged.  Crumbs.  Such plans, tossed out the window.  I was so disappointed.  I was barely moving by the time family arrived for dinner.  Thankful our son helped finish things up and the meal was ready.  My body does this on a regular basis.  It is so frustrating for me.  I want to love my body but I hate the constant feeling of betrayal.  I've known since I was 15 that my body and I were not friends.  My goal is to make peace with my body and today was a big disappointment.  Heavy sigh.  Tomorrow is another day. 

Morphing again

I am on my 8th year of blogging on this space.  8 years since I graduated from college. 8 years since I changed counselors.  8 years since I started working at the high school.  So much has happened in these 8 years.  I was noticing many of my post were centered on PTSD which was the main issue and the way I coped was using multiple personalities.  I survived but thriving wasn't happening because I became my own worse enemy.  Facing my past, remembering and healing was a long slow painful process.  I integrated over 10 years ago.  With all the different stresses in the past years, I stayed integrated.  I still struggle with the symptoms of PTSD, low self-esteem, insomnia, intense levels of shame, flickers (tiny flashbacks that last only for seconds, no less annoying but not devastating), poor self-care habits, and the list can go on and on because PTSD touches almost every aspect of my life.  Some days it really kicks my butt all around the room and leaves me a crumpled lump on the couch shivering and exhausted.  So I kicked that stuff over to my other page. 
https://ptsd-acceptingcopingthriving.com/blog/

Now I am feeling like I am neglecting this page.  I gave this a lot of thought.  I thought about dropping this one like I did my picture blog.  I thought about mirroring my other blog but that seems a bit redundant.  This week I tried something new called pour painting. I am experimenting with paints.  A couple of years ago I reignited crocheting as a thing to do while I watch TV or need to keep my hands busy.  I am exploring other areas in my life that have nothing to do with PTSD.  I am Thriving.  I am interested and excited about stuff I would like to share.  I also struggle with attitudes of myself and other people on all sorts of ideas. I am thinking of sharing these new activities and ideas here.  Sometimes they will overlap with my PTSD page but lots of times this is about me growing and changing.  One of the things that I finally figured out that living with multiple personalities was a powerful survival tool, it left little time or energy for relationships, friendship, creativity, exploring, experiments, just about everything was focused on survival instead of living.  I am glad I integrated.  I made the choice and did everything I knew how to do to move towards that goal.  Then I arrived and was so disappointed that so many problems were still there dissociating, forgetfulness, confusion, disjointed time, and other struggles were freaking still there. I wasn't impressed.  Now, I learned so many different tools that I am for the most part really happy.  I enjoy my family, friends and job.  I feel like I can accomplish what I put my mind to do.  I didn't know life could be so awesome.  I still have problems, I didn't find an easy button.  I discovered the joy I feel is in the challenge of living.  I don't know what this morphing will look like, no more than a caterpillar understand that he is the butterfly.  I hope you will join me in the journey of exploration.  I already follow some of your blogs.  If you are writing a blog and would like to share it here leave a comment with a link. 

My art work is speaking for me:

Easy Button

was stepped on by a dinosaur. 

Lately I am a bit irritated with people complaining that life is hard.  In my opinion, they are on the wrong planet.  We are on a molten rock covered mostly by water whirling through space at a tremendous speed around a burning ball of fire that a flare up at the wrong moment we could be a blackened ball hurtling through space at a tremendous speed.  I am a believer that we are sent here to Earth as a testing ground not a country club.  However, I also have an understanding of those that are hurt, frustrated and angry when people say we chose our lives of hell.  I remember when I had cancer someone told me that I had cancer because I hated myself.  Really.  Wow.  Not only did I have a serious illness that causes the loss of body parts it is my fault for hating myself.  I took this in and thought for a moment then replied, "Do you plan to tell a parent of a baby with cancer that the reason their baby has cancer is because the child hates himself?" (By the way, 16 years cancer free.) 

I do believe that we came to Earth on purpose.  I also kind of figure that Heavenly Father told the spirits waiting to come to Earth that He had a seriously messed up mother that needed some special children and my kids volunteered.  My kids have stood by me through a lot of really tough times.  They encourage me, delight me, and love me.  It was painfully humbling to understand that in some ways I am the worse thing that happened in my children's childhood.  I was inconsistent, sometimes distance, sickly, and exhausted.  They learned to fix their own bowl of cereal by the time they were 3 years old.  They knew that I might take them somewhere and drop them off and not remember where they were. I would promise to do things then not have the energy to carry out my promise.  I didn't talk about my childhood.  I didn't share memories.  I kept them as far away from my family as I possibly could for as long as possible.  They took on responsibilities far beyond their years because my broken body couldn't do what needed to be done.  My children grew up and moved out before I found out that I had PTSD.  I don't believe any of us, my children, myself, or anyone else could possibly grasp the pain and suffering that the body is capable of living through.  I like the quote, "We are not human beings having spiritual experiences, we are spiritual beings have human experiences."

Determination

Or Just plain stubborn.

I watched my granddaughter move a tire that was as big as she was across a field.  She determinedly balanced the tire and inched her way across.  I was so proud watching her determination.  Her mother commented on how stubborn she was.  My thought for the day, determination is the positive side of stubborn.  To continue that chain of thought is passionate is the positive side of anger.  Courage is the positive side of fear.  If you felt no fear, there would be no courage.  Planning ahead and problem solving is the positive twist to worrying.  If you never worried about the future there would be no need to plan ahead.  My research on the uses and functions of emotions is an on going project I started in counseling.  I am discovering more and more how we rob ourselves of living fully refusing to use the 'so-called' negative emotions.  Perhaps my living without emotions gave me a different view and appreciation of the power of emotions.  Or it may be that I was raised by a mother that purposefully used emotions to manipulate others.  Intentionally and on purpose she thought about the best way to emotionally manipulate me.  This is a very person research on how this all works.  To protect myself I went no contact with my mother.  I wish that I did not need to do this to stay healthy.  I wish I could have a healthy relationship.  The last conversation I had with her was her talking down to me with intense contempt that I was so stupid that I believed her threats of suicide.  She told me she only said it to control me.  The fascinating side of dementia, all filters are off and a person says things that they would normally never say.  I realized then that was how she controlled me all through my teenage years.  Everyday coming home I would work to take care of mother and do my homework, never realizing at the time her threats of suicides were that of a master manipulator and not a suffering mother.  Her admission released me from every wanting to interact with her again.  This is why I continue to research and investigate what emotions are, how do we use them and how can they be beneficial instead of wrecking havoc in my life. 

Mosaic heart

On the Facebook PTSD group there are several members lamenting their brokeness and trying to make sense of senseless suffering.  They see themselves as ugly and defective just like I have for years.  Recently I am pondering on how the Japanese mend their broken bowls with gold.  I am taking this a step further in the my art challenge.....

Shattered tiny pieces make up a mosaic picture.  Bits of glass create a stain glassed window. 


If you are interested in exploring the 30 day challenge go to this link.....

http://www.determinedtoshine.net/30daysjournaling

Winds of change

Let's go Fly a Kite. 

I was introduced to winds of change in Mary Poppins movie.  As a child I was sad that Mary Poppins left when things changed.  As an adult I was sad when my counselor left.  Before he did, I felt the winds of change.  I couldn't put my finger on what was different but I felt the change.  I was devastated when he told me he was leaving but I wasn't surprised either.  I know with hind site that for me to move forward he needed to let me go because like a frightened child that I was I clung to him.  Now I want to go fly a kite, up to the highest height.....Oh let's go Fly a Kite. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lXH9O94jak

I am pondering and sorting through the changes that are happening.  To me, I am feeling positive changes.  My perspective of myself is changing.  My belief in what is to come is with wonder and excitement.  This is a different kind of feeling than I believe I experienced before because I don't feel an underlying base of fear that I won't meet the challenge.  I look at the future and accept I will have problems but I will face them and tackle them even if they come in dozens.  I am challenged in ways I didn't believe I could do and I feel I am meeting those challenges.  I don't know the future but I am ready to say, "Bring it ON!" 

My life is underconstruction

Last week of Vacation

For school, I have two weeks of Winter Break.  This past week I tackled a job that I have put off for years.  I didn't make a huge dent in the project but I do see progress for the first time.  This is not a New Year resolution.  Far more important it is a change I am instigating in my behalf.  I deserve a place to create my art work.  As long as I can't move around my sewing room except by small path ways it does not help me to be the best I can be.  Sewing the costumes for the play I learned 2 things.  Organizing my time carefully I have more time than I ever dreamed.  I love sewing again.  I fell out of love with sewing when I made it my job.  The year I sewed for 9 plays in one year, my family nearly divorced me.  I was so focused on producing what someone else wanted I didn't have time for my own family.  Staying away from sewing for years was easy when my legs swell up to painful proportions.  Four months ago I started cleaning soy out of my diet.  During my costume time, I sewed for hours with only minimal swelling that by taking frequent breaks almost completely disappeared.  I am changing my diet because without soy I am feeling better.  I am changing my environment because I deserve a place to grow and create.  I am changing my perspective because that is a fairly predictable occurrence when I change how I view myself.  I deserve better than what I am giving myself.  The only way to make my space and life better is to change how I treat myself.  Change will occur, because I am setting in motion the behaviors that create that change.  I love the meme going around online that congratulates everyone on 2018 and asks what they predict for the year.  The other character says 2018 will have flowers, because they are planting seeds.  I predict that I will see positive changes this year because I am setting them in motion for my benefit.  I am enjoying creating art.  I want to continue.  I need a space and my materials available.  I need to change my space to fulfill what I need with my life.  I am embracing change. 

Into the New Year

Hello Everyone I hope your first day of the New Year was filled with something that you enjoy.  I did something I usually don't do.  I bought fabric to make a blouse for myself without looking at the price and agonizing over how much I paid for it.  (Yes, it was on sale but even if it wasn't I have a coupon.)  I have a love/hate relationship with clothes.  I design exotic and beautiful things that I would never have anywhere to go that would be appropriate for what I design.  I don't know why I felt so....giddy just because I didn't compromise or talk myself into something that was good enough but much cheaper.  I also did things like wash dishes, cook dinner and normal adult things.  I spent sometime watching football with DH (darling husband) and about an hour exploring pouring acrylics art technique.  It is fascinating to me to see all the ways people use paint.  I also joined a group that are art journals and sharing in a group online.  One of the art journaling page that I did recently.  It is free to join if you are interested:

http://www.determinedtoshine.net/30daysjournaling

So far, day 3, I am enjoying this.  I am doing some drawing, photography and plan to explore other ways to create art.  Trying hard not to limit myself to what I already know.  This page is from Day 2: