Caregiving

Headlights are necessary when driving in the dark. There are actually laws governing this now. When I was younger I had a nasty habit of forgetting to turn them off, resulting of course in the dead battery. Headlights were a huge part of my relationship with AAA. Luckily for me the car industry created the automatic headlight control. They turn on when it gets dark, and they turn off when I turn off the car. Problem solved.  Read the rest of this entry »

It’s October. The weather has turned cooler and I finally had to break out the jeans and long sleeved shirt. As I suspected the 10 1lbs that I gained truly showed its colors as I tried to button my jeans. Not only am I sad about the end of summer, I am also unhappy with my weight gain and the tight fit of my once comfy blue jeans. UGH!

Having to squeeze into a pair of jeans is just not fun. I could buy a bigger pair, or I could lose the 10 pounds. I just cannot bring myself to purchasing a size up, so I choose to lose the weight. How I long for last year when I could slide them right on as I struggle

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Ever notice that there many types of hair braids. We have the scalp braid, swiss braids, french braid, herring bone braid, african braids, cornrow braids,and of course the classic English braid.

So many braids.

About 12 years ago, my 6 year old daughter Carly loved to have her hair braided. She wanted the French braid. I used the classic English braid because that was the easiest, and honestly the only one I really knew how to do. Read the rest of this entry »

Ever since I can remember, my 18 year old daughter Carly has been decorating her body. It started when she was just 18 months old when she decided to paint herself with mud. I should say wallow in it because she was covered from head to toe. It did not stop there. She continued her decorating experiment with makeup. By age 2, Carly was painting her face with eye shadow, blush and lipstick. When I say, paint, I mean applying it with such vim and vigor that it created a clown like affect. She reveled in it.

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It never ceases to amaze me about the power of attitude. Attitude is your outlook or perception. The way you think affects your emotions and creates your attitude or energy. Your attitude can be affected in so many ways. Past events, experiences, what people say, the list is endless.

My 22 year old son Brandon had been having a a negative attitude in one area of his life. When he was younger I would tell him, you need an attitude adjustment, change it or I will change it for you. Over the years he has learned tools and techniques to change and more importantly, understand how attitude can really effect you.

On this day I finally asked Brandon to rate his happiness on a scale. He said 95%, except for this one area. What was interesting was that the outlook that he had in that 5% permeated into other areas of his life. He was more impatient, easy to anger, spoke negative. His frame of mind was seriously affected. So, I began to ask lots of questions, which seriously pissed Brandon off. After the explosion came the quiet conversation. I began pointing out how his attitude in this area was seriously affecting him and his life. I asked him what changed.

It soon became apparent that Brandon had begun to listen to the people that he was surrounded with on a daily basis. Low and behold, most of them had negative and nasty comments about the current situation. He took on their attitude! After some more questions and dialogue, Brandon started to remember what he was like when his attitude was positive. I reminded him of all of his skills and strengths that he had built from all of the adversity that had come his way. That those strengths were always with him. The skills and tools a constant companion.

We then discussed once again, how attitudes and thinking have a huge influence over us. How when our attitude is positive, how life looks great, and the potential for good things to happen are there. Same goes for the opposite. I asked him to remember when he felt like that, and how his life looked.

Food for thought.

The other day Brandon came down the stairs and was this happy go lucky person. He had this air of enthusiasm about him. Finally I commented. I said, “Brandon, your in a great mood. What happened?” He said, “I changed my attitude. I decided to be grateful for the things I do have.” I said “really?” He said “yep and I feel so much better.”

Amazing. Although the circumstances that have been causing Brandon to feel negative had not changed, he changed his perspective about it. He decided to listen to what was good in his life and not the negativity. He chose to change his attitude.

Interesting how attitude is a driving force  in creating your life.

How does your attitude create your life?

Grief is a normal reaction to a loss. Heartache is the effect of the wound that is in your heart.  It is a partnership, and the pain is inevitable. As a result of the deep, intense emotions and feelings it feels out of control, like you are going crazy. You are not, you are experiencing grief and heartache.

Think of it like a wound that we have on our physical bodies. The difference is that a wounded heart cannot be seen. Now, if you don’t take care of the physical wound, it will become infected, take a long time to heal or never truly heal. Heartache and grief are the same.

Healing from heartache and grief involves being willing to hurt more now in order to someday hurt less. It is the process of going through- not over, around, or under. Just like a physical wound, with care the process of mending begins and eventually a scar forms. The scar is the reminder of the event. Like a physical scar as it fades, the wound to our heart can fade as you heal and re-learn how to live once again.

So how can you begin to heal your wounded heart?

Honor, Express, Learn and Practice or better known as H • E • L • P™

Honor your emotions and feelings. Acknowledging and validating them is the first step towards awareness. They are real and you are normal. Remember emotions and feelings ebb and flow.

Express and experience your emotions, feelings and thoughts. It is a rollercoaster ride with many twists and turns. Expressing eases the pain and begins the process of healing.  Crying, journaling, writing, listening to music, art, talking to someone, support groups are some ways that you can express and experience your emotions.

Learn how to raise your awareness, to cope and take responsibility and action for healing yourself.

Practice awareness, coping strategies, action and positive thoughts to create new possibilities in your life. Be patient grief has no timeline.

Time can heal, however it is what you do with the time that helps you heal.

The other day I was having dinner with my husband, son and girlfriend Margie. My son Brandon was talking about the sleep over that his sister Carly had with her girlfriends the previous night.

Since Carly will soon be 18, Brandon was baffled as to why she had a sleepover. To him, a sleepover was for when you were young. So, I said, it’s a girls thing, you know so they can giggle, laugh, and talk about girl stuff. Immediately following that comment I said, when you are an adult, it’s called lunch. With that, Margie looks at me, agrees, we start to laugh and share a moment of understanding and knowing. Read the rest of this entry »

It will be 16 years this summer that my mom passed away from metastatic breast cancer. She was loud, warm and very opinionated woman, who had a way about her that made each person in her life feel extremely loved and very special. I spent a tremendous amount of time with her in the last few months before she passed away.

We had many conversations that were deep and profound. One of the last things she said to me was, “Sharon, walk your own path”. At the time I was
35 years old, and I “thought” I knew exactly what she meant. It took me about 7 – 10 years to begin to see what my mom was really saying to me.

Sixteen years later, I see the deeper meaning. It came to me this past week as I was walking a labyrinth. One of my dear girlfriends had been asking me for weeks to go with her. I was always to busy. Life has a way of creating synchronicity and I realized that I needed to go.

A labyrinth is not a maze. It is a winding spiral path to the center. When you reach the center you walk the spiraled path outward. It is a true metaphor for the journey of life.

I walked the labyrinth. What was so interesting was along the way you need to stop because the person in front of you has stopped. Sometimes you stop should to shoulder. Other times people literally move out of the way for you. When you reach the center, you journey outward. On the way back you come face to face with other people on their way to the center, and the dance
begins again.

As the very end of the labyrinth, my mothers’ words came to me.
Walk your own path.

I realized that we really do walk our own path. Each in a different place in life, to either stop us to learn patience, to realize that we may need to walk around obstacles or bump right into them, learn that we can be shoulder to shoulder and still be in different places in life.  The most important meaning is that the journey is never traveled alone.

When you walk your own path, you are discovering your true self. Once you reach the center, you now begin the journey of taking that discovery out into the world. Along the way their are people on their own paths, helping each other to discover different meanings, teach us to grow and realize that each of our paths is unique, and one in the same.

Put on Your Oxygen Mask First!

Have you been on a plane and heard the flight attendant tell you to put on your oxygen mask first? The immediate response is, “No way, I need to take care of my kids (husband, mother, best friend, stranger in the seat next to me…). The idea clashes with our instinct.

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