Monty vs Bo

The battle of: Never being happy with what you have or the saying "you always want what you don't have" is even true in dogs.

Walking my dogs today, I started smiling because I realized that our new puppy Monty was trying to be like our big boy Bo. Even though he is a Mini Dog he is trying with all his might, digging his back legs into the ground, to caught up with Bo.

I couldn't help relate that short walk to US! How we spend most of time in life digging our hind legs into trying to be something we are not. Spending energy on wasted effort in a losing battle. If we spent more time on being the BEST little dogs we could be, we would make more progress. We are all given individual gifts that can be under utilized when not cultivated.

Acknowledging weakness does not mean weak but shows respect for talent and abilities that we may not have and excelling in our strength takes courage to let go of the big dog complex. You never know what you may find when you put your energy into finding out who God made YOU to be: You my touch some people in your sphere of influence that likely no one else will touch!

Teaching Gratitude

If character is caught not taught how am I doing on teaching my kids gratitude?

The rocks sit on my counter with the words that we said out loud of all the things we were thankful for... BUT does that teach true, genuine gratitude for life, things, people, time, movement, air, wind, sky and sea? Does saying it, writing it or talking about it change the heart?

If it was a recipe, what would the exact ingredients be to make gratitude happen in me, in my family?

1 Cup Unconditional Love (even when they scream I hate you)

1/2 Cup of Awareness of the needs around you 

2 Cups of Thoughtfulness and Gentleness

1 1/2 Cup of Forgiveness and Patience

2 Tbsp of Resilience 

1/2 Tsp authority and authenticity

A dash of Consistency 

Bake on HIGH - FOREVER

If only it was this easy to add a couple things in a bowl and MIX.

 I would roll my eyes when my mom would say "Change attitude for Gratitude"

but now it is a motto that stays with me daily.  May I continue on being radical about grace and relentless about truth to stage a background of graciousness for the upcoming adults that are following my lead.

Let Go and Let God....... show you HIS plan

That phrase can be defined many different ways but for me it has one meaning "Donna stop trying to control everything, be still and let me direct your path". It was scripted across the wrinkled lines of my forehead in 1999 when I found out I was pregnant. Very shortly after getting married and moving from Florida where your environment includes beaches and palm trees, to Dallas where there is NOT, I learned that I was with child. 

Living with my dad, completing an internship and teaching 20 classes a week was not a world I particularly wanted to bring a child into but nevertheless I was going to have a baby.  Well I thought I was going to have a baby until the second visit to the doctor showed a slow heart beat. It's funny that something at the time, I thought was so insignificant could make a lasting impression on my life. "What does that mean" I asked with a naive partial smile?  "Not sure" Doc says "let's do some blood work to check hormones levels". 

Anyone that has been in this spot knows what that means, when your hormones show low, your baby is not able to survive. The hours that you wait after the blood has been drawn seem an eternity of unknown darkness, a period of waiting that cultivates patience. Patience comes hard in a hurry-up society! (Swindoll)

After multiply trips of giving blood and my hormones bouncing up and down giving false hope, the silence of the stethoscope when he placed the cold metal around my belly for one last sign of hope, proved that the "Baby is not breathing your hormones levels are down Donna, it is time to schedule your D&C".  Not the acronyms you want to hear ever in a life time. A D&C procedure may clean out the uterus but it also strips the soul of life giving energy that once carried a brief  glimpse of motherhood.  

Starting each day now making two school lunches, it seems hard to believe that I once was on a path of not ever bearing my own child. 

The tears came hard and stayed too long for a cherished life I had not known along with the pain came a false sense of control. I began to think I had the kind of power or influence to eliminate the possibilities of this happening again. On a mission to solve the great mystery of miscarriages, I followed the " I am in control" journey that took three years for me to learn,  Let Go and Let God show you HIS plan.  



It was a day like any other day, beginning the same but ending forever changed. The clock struck 2pm and it was time for an espresso, trying to pull into the right hand lane to park, I looked in the rear view mirror and my son who would of been 4 by this time was sitting in the middle of the back seat in high back car seat and he looked me right in the eyes and said "I am ok mom". I could barely get the car to the side before I burst into tears unable to even leave my car. Paralyzed with fear that I had seen a ghost and trying to figure out what it meant and why and if I had taken too much allergy medicine.

We hold onto the past SO tight sometimes that it restricts us from moving forward. Two days later I was pregnant and I remember seeing the + sign on the pregnancy test on that Martin Luther King Day in 2004 and it ALL made sense. HIS plan not mine. 

I took heart from the words of British author James Stalker who wrote, "Waiting is a common instrument of providential discipline for those to whom exceptional work has been appointed." 

Do they know how much I love them?

 

 I had one of those AAH-HA moments yesterday. I was adding another notch in my belt of accomplishments and when the pat on my back I was giving myself faded, I was not left with this heightened sense of achievement but a true sense of drive to not only do more but to give more of myself as a mother. 

Drivin by my own sense of the "not being good enough" syndrome,  I continue to work more, harder, faster and smarter in hope that I will arrive at a place of worth. But what I had not realized before, is the worth I was given was not sustainable. The list of things I have done like skydiving, running a marathon in Ireland, teaching Pilates in Paris,

 graduating from college again, certified in this and that, making money, losing money, buying a house, having a baby............................... the list goes on and on. BUT! What struck me is not a single thing in my life mattered as much to me as each day that I had mothered my kids well. The enormous and continuous responsibility of teaching a child to be a person, is worth all the notches in my belt times a million. 

If I win the race but have not loved well, I will only live with regrets and a huge bucket full of pictures.  I want to pass on the gift of patience, gentleness, kindness and self control to my children not a big bucket of pictures of the once was and used to be's.

Will they know how much I loved them by going back to school, will they know how much I love them by buying a bigger house, will they know how much I loved them if I earn a million dollars, will they know how much I loved you Lord if I never spend time telling them about you? I pray my time is better spent in learning to give of myself instead of giving to myself!

Journal Entry to my Daughter -Dec 31. 2010

Dec 31, 2010

The end of another year-The Beginning of more lessons, more pain, more joy, more memories, more, more, more, of everything. I am ending this year with clear focus, so much joy of the family we have, anticipation of the new lessons and in much celebration of YOU. Brilliant You!

We just returned from a magical family vacation in Destin, Fl. You were with your cousins and we played on the beach for hours. You loved creating very unique sand castles. Such a treat to JUST BE!

You did remarkably well on the long road trip and I am so proud of you.

Since the day your Aspergers diagnosis was confirmed, it has been easier for your dad and me to understand you-the whys, hows and what's we need to do to help you. I know now that sometimes you do not understand what is going on around you and you get very angry as your way of coping.

Daddy and I are trying to find ways to teach you how to manage your challenges. We love you so much and when you are able to read this I hope you realize how loved you are. 

Happy New Year Baby Girl! I love you, I love you, I love you.  

Mommy

Jan 9, 2012,

Hard to believe we are now writing 2012. I feel like I could jump back into 2010 and relive everyday. It is so vivid in my mind the celebration and acknowledgment that I was not crazy. My life was crashing down around me and I thought,  I, me, Donna Fisher was losing my mind and in fact I may have been but the truth was that my life was truly crumbling. Work, Family, Marriage, Emotionally, Physically and Mentally in pieces. Like humpty dumpty sat on the wall and down came Donna Fisher in a big fall. 

I would relive the fall knowing now that in the chaos and pain came a new life inside of me. Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost sooooo lost but now I am found. Found because I was lost! What a concept to realize you have been lost all this time and to survive hurt, pain and deception which opened your eyes that through it all NOW I am found. 

Everyone has a story of why they are, why they do, who hurt them and who did them wrong, who left and who should of left. You only have two choices: Stay in that blame and shame Game OR realize that we are ALL lost and can be found if we would start looking inward not outward. 

My sweet girl has to learn how to read peoples cuing, she gets frustrated and so angry daily in response to others not being able to understand her. What most of us find so easy and take for granted she will never be able to do. The battle of socialization will haunt her forever and the feeling that something is turned off with her will be her shadow. I need to learn the task of looking inward if I am going to be able to teach her. To search deep within my soul to what matters most so I can be a good example to the naive blue eyes constantly watching me!

Forgive but NOT forget

That old saying forgive and forget does not work for me. I think it is just another way for us to brush things under the rug. We say the words I forgive you, force our self to forget the pain and as we say in Texas "Cowboy Up", then carry on with life.

But what happens when we forget is, there is a chance it could happen again. A chance we could fall into the same trap. The patterns or habits we have lurk around every corner are relentless,  the anger we feel toward pain that others have caused us is debilitating and destructive but does forgetting really help change this from occurring. Are we free from anger and do we break habits because we forget? NO! Forgetting does not help, it debilitates us from future maturity and growth.  

Making a U-Turn from destructive patterns of behavior or putting a hand up to the demon inside all of us that shouts are worthlessness.  Building NEW patterns, new behaviors and new responses takes diligence, perseverance, determination and if you have to FAKE it till you MAKE it, but DO not forget the past in fear that we may repeat it, like parachute pants and jelly shoes.

The New Year brings HOPE that patterns can be broken and we can free our self from the haunting nightmare of settling, loneliness and depression. Does action precipitate feelings or the other way around?

Valued or undervalued, my opinion, and all things said straight UP with me! ACTION BABY all ACTION to create new habits by doing NEW things, not just ordering new food on the menu but surrounding yourself, all the senses, sight, hearing, vision and taste with a new creation. A creator made in complete perfection that we may be made whole. The feelings WILL follow along with the appreciation of the new YOU and the work necessary to obtain it.

Melody so sweet that contentment is the result. Let nothing outside of your NEWNESS inside, not magazine pictures, not TV shows or adds, not Internet, not friends, not books, not your own thoughts that could divert you from your goal of creating a more PERFECT you! 

Perfection is not bought, contentment is not earned, peace is not obtained IT is a U-TURN from anything that is NOT those things. 

This is how you arrive at your destination. 

Make a U-turn this year and fill your moments with all that is right, good, and true!

I am right behind you.... please caught me when I fall and I will!

Happy New Year

We all have some poop in our pants!

My son, Kendyl, is a jolly guy. Happy, funny and witty!  He is both a lover and a fighter, which in today's terms means metro sexual I guess. He goes anywhere, will talk to anyone, will try almost everything (except weird looking food), loves to just be or be crazy.

Picking him up from school, I typically find a young boy that is smiling and full of energy. He loves to play but will work hard too. His quirky smile is contagious and those blue eyes take your happy meter up a notch.

This, set my heart on fire, love of my life boy taught me that everybody has poop in their pants.

He was giggling at school pick up, then rushed over to hug me (the moment I wait for all day) but THEN he sternly whispered in my ear "we need to go home right now".  "Bud you OK" I ask?  "No No I have poop in my pants"!  "WHAT" I almost scream, but contained myself.  "What Happen"?  He tells me the story as we rush to find sister and get in the car. Right then a life lesson shines in the car like the sun on a rainy day.

On the outside, as the world looks at us, we are smiling but really we ALL have poop in our pants. We wear the "I am OK" mask, while waddling through life trying not to let anyone notice our extra baggage.

Skyler, his sister asks whats wrong, "why are we rushing"? I said "Kendyl had an accident, let's go quickly". Skyler says "did you pee in your pants?" and Kendyl says "noooo".  Skyler then says in a loud screaming voice "oooh you pooped".

Time stopped for a brief second as I watched his face. He looked as if he was going to cry but he waited to see her response. We all do this... if our poop is acceptable to others we feel OK about it!  Skyler laughed like it was no big deal and then Kendyl went from almost crying to laughing and the situation dissipated BUT had Skyler mocked him, the ending would of been different.  

At times we mask the pain of rejection with false confidence or stuffing our pain inside neither a good ingredients for maturity and true self acceptance. The sooner we accept that everyone has some poop in their pants the better we will all be for it!