Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Photos from hanging out with the herd today...

Cali (Sweet Cali will be crossing the Rainbow Bridge on Monday.)

Cali

Cali



Rayn

Rayn

River

Splash

Winter (I love how his body disappears into the clouds...it's as if he's part of the heavens above.)

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

On being an empath

I’ve known, since my late teens, that I pick up on other people’s emotions. It’s called several things: Empathy, Clairsentience, or Clairempathy. The first time I remember it was when I was about 18 and I walked into a friend of the family’s apartment and was flooded with a wave of depression. It was so very different from what I had been feeling that I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it wasn’t mine. I wanted to run from the apartment but couldn’t, so I just sat with it, wide-eyed and weirded out.

Fast forward to yesterday: I went to pick up the kids from school—Daniel was bubbly and Loreli was quiet but within five minutes she was bubbly too so I put her quietness behind me. They were home for about a half an hour when a sudden “fullness” in my chest hit me. Kind of scary! Soon after I had a tightness in my throat. Yikes. I checked the internet for heart attack signs for women. What in the world?

Took the kids outside to play with friends while the moms talked. The feeling lessened a bit. Came back inside to make dinner and the feelings increased and a headache was forming. After about 30 minutes I also added a feeling of panic and then I suddenly wanted to cry.

A lightbulb went off. Wait, wait! I know what this might be!

I asked Loreli to come upstairs with me and we curled up in my bed. “Just wondering how things are going in school…” She said they were okay but then stopped and said, “No, they’re not. Today was bad.” She’s been dealing with a couple of little girls who are bullying her and a bunch of other kids in class. Ugh.

I said, “Before you start telling me about it, can you find the feeling in your body?” Loreli said it was in her chest and her forehead.

No wonder my heart was feeling so icky and I was working on a headache!

She continued to tell me about the “mean girls” at school and what they were saying to her. She so desperately wanted to say something back to them but felt like she shouldn’t for fear of retaliation. I asked her where she felt that in her body…can you guess where? Yep, her throat felt tight.

As she was talking, the physical feelings I had been having slowly lessened their grip on me.

It was only 2.5 hours from the onset of my “symptoms” to figuring it out. The time frame is getting shorter! YAY!

I recently had a bout of “symptoms” (panic, fear, lots of crying) that lasted four days—I was so freaked out! I cried to Brad during that time, “I don’t know what’s going on! I can’t figure out why I feel so terrified and panicky!” It took two days of antidepressants before I could figure out what was going on and, again, it had to do with what was going on with Loreli. I’ve never taken antidepressants and now that all of this empath stuff is making itself clearer, I’m so very happy with the crazy side effects that I felt during those two days. Without the side effects I might have spent more time on antidepressants, stuffing the empathy down, instead of using it!

Now, to figure out how to hone it to a sharp edge but also not slice myself to smithereens. It’s useful if I can help the person, but if not, I don’t need it!

This all makes me wonder, how many people are in the world, suffering from depression, anxiety, etc who are actually untrained empaths just sucking in other people’s feelings?

I’ve been struggling with this for my entire life. It took Loreli’s pain, what felt to me like a near breakdown, and 45 years to start to figure it out.

When I can remember to do it, I ask myself, “Self, what were you feeling 5 minutes ago when you were alone?” I usually realize that I was feeling fine and dandy 5 minutes ago. And then either someone I love or a random stranger at the grocery store came into emotional contact with me and poof! I’m suddenly feeling THEIR feelings and not my own anymore.

Is that weird or what?

It is quite the experience to unravel my feelings and someone else’s. It can be really useful too. With Daniel I often know what is going on with him before he can verbalize it. That’s been going on since he came home at 7 months. I have had a few times that I have consciously been aware that my physical symptoms were actually Daniel’s but they have been “quieter” things like stomach aches or headaches. With Loreli I’m guessing that the reason they arrive in me so acutely is because they are triggering a similar feeling in me.

With Brad…well, Brad can get frustrated easily and I will be frustrated right back at him—the whole time feeling completely confused.

It’s just been in the past few weeks that I’m fully recognizing this. The Completely Confused part is key and the piece that I need to watch for. Completely Confused is a big clue. If I’m feeling Completely Confused and a negative emotion, the alarm bells need to start ringing—LOUDLY! Completely Confused is a sign for, “This emotion is NOT YOURS!”

I was writing in my journal a few days ago:

When something brings it front and center and I pay attention, I recognize it for a few days. But life often gets in the way, I forget, and just go back to what is “normal”. I’m beginning to see that this is a huge mistake! How will I ever be able to use it as the gift it is if I don’t practice on a daily basis?

I also noted that I had been seeing bald eagles nearly every day. I decided to look up what the eagle might be telling me and wrote in my journal:

Visually, everything about the eagle's appearance is sharp. Streamlined, sleek, chiseled. This prompts our deeper minds to hone our thoughts and skills. The eagle commands us to tailor our intelligence and talents in a form that best suits our needs. We all have inner abilities, but when the eagle shows up - it's a clear sign it's time to use these abilities in a laser-like fashion to bring about focused change in our lives.

Well then.

It’s time to stop pushing this aside. Time to figure out how to use it! And if my own experiences weren’t enough to want to make the changes, I’ve also seen some empath signs in Daniel—I refuse to let him wander through life without knowing how to work with it. As I learn, I’ll teach him too.

So, not only do I wonder how many adults are out there, stuffing this “gift” but also, how many children are coming into our world learning to stuff the gift from their parents? I think it’s very possible that we are all born with this gift but are never taught how to use it.

Have you ever thought to ask a child, “Do you think that this feeling you are having belongs to you or someone else?” I sure haven’t, until now…

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

"Payback" by Loreli

Hooo boy, did I want to explain my side of this post! But I've refrained :-) 
I do want to add that "Hiro" is a part of Loreli. The part that helped her survive the loss of her Mom at 3, the two orphanages that came after, and then finally coming home to be our daughter. Without further ado, here is 9 year old Loreli's first post:

Today we went to the library because I had finished all my chapter books and the first thing I wanted to do when we were done was to start one of my books. But Mom refused, so when we got out of the intersection, she asked which book I wanted and I told her. She held up a book and when I said, “No.” she said, “Wait until we get home.”

Then I threw a fit and started talking under my breath. Mommy started talking, “I did something nice for you and you treated me like crap. On top of that I took you out of school early!”

Daniel said something but Mom didn’t answer. “Guess she’s not listening.” he murmured.

Mom said, “I’m specifically talking to you Loreli!”

Then I started talking under my breath. “I’m always in trouble and Daniel’s not!”

I was mad.

We were about to pull into our neighborhood and then Mom said, “And you, Daniel! You didn’t want to stay too long at the library and we did what you wanted too! We easily could have stayed an hour but we only stayed for 20 minutes!”

Daniel said, “I’m really, really sorry and I won’t ever do it again.”

We were just getting out of the car and Daniel started kissing Mom’s butt saying, “Hi Mommy!” He waited a second but didn’t hear an answer. “Mommy…” he started.

Mom said, “Just be quiet for a few minutes.”

When we got in the house and took off our shoes, Mom started to say, “You can have a snack and then do chores to make up for your behavior back there.”

Then I got to share why I started acting like that. Hiro calls that attitude “payback”. Hiro feels that after I’ve had a good time she acts up because she wants to, NEEDS to, ruin the fun time because she thinks we’re getting closer to Mommy or Daddy or Daniel and she thinks it’s scary because back in the time of the orphanage every time we were getting closer to someone I was sent away.

And now that I’ve been in 3 other different places (except for here) and I’m thinking, in my little brain, that if I get any closer to my family I’ll be sent away to a different family. And if I got close to another family I would get sent away again. And so once I start believing I can trust my family then I start thinking about what it was like back in the orphanage and that’s why it’s hard for me to believe I would ever be staying with one family.

I told Mom this and she said that she understood. At the end I said I was sorry and next time I would show my anger in a more appropriate way. I need to be more nice when I say it and not get mad over little teeny things. Next time Mom says, “I’m talking to you Loreli.” I won’t talk under my breath.

And next time I’ll concentrate on other fun things that will happen in my life instead of worrying about the bad things that could happen.

That will never happen.


Friday, September 5, 2014

Why I write about the hard stuff...

I received a couple of comments recently, asking if I’ve thought about Loreli reading my blog and,  whether I should be writing it at all.

I’ve thought a lot about this topic. I even stopped blogging for a couple of years because it didn’t seem to be accomplishing anything. I felt as if all I could do was complain and document bizarre behaviors and my feelings surrounding them. There were no answers to be had.

I think we’ve come a long way in these past two years though. First with buying my mare Rayn and learning how the horses help. I’m also in the middle of a two-year coaching program where I'm learning to partner with horses to help others heal, and now we have the Family Intervention Program (FIP)—it feels like the puzzle pieces are finally clicking together. I feel that now, I write with a purpose. Yes, I’m still talking about behaviors but I’m also describing how we are working through them and how that looks and feels to us. Yes, I'm talking about the nitty gritty details but, God is in the details.

However, the question still remained within me—what will the kids think? Many nights over the past few weeks I've gone to bed thinking about this question. Recently in the middle of the night I woke up to this idea: What if Loreli were to write blog posts too?

The next evening, I talked to the kids about what I write about. They were both fascinated that I wrote about THEM. I asked if they would like me to read some of the posts to them and they said yes. Loreli, again, was fascinated and wanted to talk about it. Daniel was done after the first post about him, but he is a different kid. Much of his mulling over is done in his own head, to come out later with fully formed thoughts/opinions or questions, while Loreli’s is done verbally. It's that whole introvert/extrovert thing.

After Daniel went to sleep, Loreli and I continued our conversation. I asked her if she would be interested in writing her thoughts on my blog. She wanted to know more. What could she write about? How honest could she be? I told her she could write about anything that was true. I told her it was safe for her to write anything, even if it seemed scary or maybe hurtful to me, or the family—if it was honest, it was okay. I talked to her about rough drafts and final drafts and she remembered learning that in school. I told her sometimes I write things and decide not to post them for one reason or another and that was okay too.

I read Loreli a few of my recent blog posts about her and again she was really interested--we had some in-depth conversation about each one. I'm always flabbergasted when she speaks like an adult. I debated on reading Are YOU My Mother? to her and felt my way around it. I knew I wanted to talk to her about this anyway, so, I went ahead.

I held back tears when I read this part:

It's a song and dance, like a routine, that happens around adults. It's a "Hey, hey! Look at me! I hope I'm amazing enough for you to want to take me home! I'm so silly! I'm so crazy! I'm a little girl! I'm a young woman! If I could figure out what you wanted I'd be that so you'll love me enough to take me home! Watch me pose! Oooo and ahhh over how cute and precocious I am! Do you love me now? Will I belong to you? Or you? Or you? I don't care who, just please protect and save me! Someone...anyone...please..."

I am heartbroken. How did I not recognize it?

...and Loreli said, “It’s okay Mom, just take a deep breath.” 

When I got to the end she asked that I re-read this part:

Having survived all that she did, why in the world would she ever believe that she is really staying with us forever? Of course she has to try to win over the next adult, in her mind, they might be her next short-term parents. I’m sure her mother told her she loved her, the orphanage workers probably told her the same but those people are no longer in her life so obviously saying, “I love you, you’ll always be with us.” means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to her. Why would it?

She said, “That part. I really feel that part.” With tears in her eyes she fanned her face and said, “Deep breath Loreli.”

I hugged her and said, “It’s okay to cry, this is seriously big stuff. Crying is normal. We’ll just be big cry babies together okay?”

We had a few moments of crying and hugging before she pulled back. 

I said, “We WILL get through this. We will learn to trust each other and our relationship will be stronger. We just have to keep working on it, both of us.”

One of the things we talked about as far as blogging was the idea that there might be some parents who would be surprised to learn that their kids might feel the same way Loreli does. She was very taken with that idea. “Maybe it would help the moms understand their kids better?” I said I thought maybe so. I was very happy to see an empathetic response.

Holy smokes, all of those words to say, “No, I’m not worried Loreli will read the stuff I write and freak out.” 

I write for lots of reasons: to help me sort out my thoughts, to share my ah-ha moments, and because I want to give a voice to adoptive parents. As adoptive parents we often feel unheard, judged, and isolated. Isolated from friends who say, “Oh, that’s just what 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 year olds are like. It’s just a phase.” Isolated from our own parents who don’t understand why we can’t just parent the way they did, who say,  “Oh for heaven’s sake, you survived.” Isolated from our community who say, “What happened to their real parents? Why did their real parents throw them away? Are they real siblings? Bless you for rescuing them.”

Adoptive parents often don’t tell the truth because most people don’t understand. We live with our feet in two different worlds--Parent World and Adoptive Parent World--it's a tough straddle.

I’m lucky. I have family and close friends who understand. My community is adoption friendly. I have an entire herd of twelve horses that I work with, who understand and help me on a daily basis. I can tell the truth more often than not. But so many of my fellow adopters can’t. They have to hide the pain and grief. They soldier on. Without a voice.

I write so the adoption community knows that there are people out there who understand what they are going through and I write so the non-adoption community might understand, a little better, what their friends, family, and coworkers who have adopted might be going through.

And yes, I write because I have to tell the truth. And yes, that truth can be hard to read. And yes, I understand that there are some out there who feel I tell too much of the truth. To them I want to say, “I hear you and understand your concern. I disagree, but I hear you.”

*******So, stay tuned for future posts from my 9 year old daughter. I moderate all comments before posting them so please don’t worry about Loreli receiving negative comments.

Here are some of my favorite quotes about truth telling:

“Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe.”
― Barbara De Angelis

“Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.”
― Spencer Johnson

“In a room where
people unanimously maintain
a conspiracy of silence,
one word of truth
sounds like a pistol shot.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.”
― Mahatma Gandhi


I received a couple of comments recently, asking if I’ve thought about Loreli reading my blog and,  whether I should be writing it at all.

I’ve thought a lot about this topic. I even stopped blogging for a couple of years because it didn’t seem to be accomplishing anything. I felt as if all I could do was complain and document bizarre behaviors and my feelings surrounding them. There were no answers to be had.

I think we’ve come a long way in these past two years though. First with buying my mare Rayn and learning how the horses help. I’m also in the middle of a two-year coaching program where I'm learning to partner with horses to help others heal, and now we have the Family Intervention Program (FIP)—it feels like the puzzle pieces are finally clicking together. I feel that now, I write with a purpose. Yes, I’m still talking about behaviors but I’m also describing how we are working through them and how that looks and feels to us. Yes, I'm talking about the nitty gritty details but, God is in the details.

However, the question still remained within me—what will the kids think? Many nights over the past few weeks I've gone to bed thinking about this question. Recently in the middle of the night I woke up to this idea: What if Loreli were to write blog posts too?

The next evening, I talked to the kids about what I write about. They were both fascinated that I wrote about THEM. I asked if they would like me to read some of the posts to them and they said yes. Loreli, again, was fascinated and wanted to talk about it. Daniel was done after the first post about him, but he is a different kid. Much of his mulling over is done in his own head, to come out later with fully formed thoughts/opinions or questions, while Loreli’s is done verbally. It's that whole introvert/extrovert thing.

After Daniel went to sleep, Loreli and I continued our conversation. I asked her if she would be interested in writing her thoughts on my blog. She wanted to know more. What could she write about? How honest could she be? I told her she could write about anything that was true. I told her it was safe for her to write anything, even if it seemed scary or maybe hurtful to me, or the family—if it was honest, it was okay. I talked to her about rough drafts and final drafts and she remembered learning that in school. I told her sometimes I write things and decide not to post them for one reason or another and that was okay too.

I read Loreli a few of my recent blog posts about her and again she was really interested--we had some in-depth conversation about each one. I'm always flabbergasted when she speaks like an adult. I debated on reading Are YOU My Mother? to her and felt my way around it. I knew I wanted to talk to her about this anyway, so, I went ahead.

I held back tears when I read this part:

It's a song and dance, like a routine, that happens around adults. It's a "Hey, hey! Look at me! I hope I'm amazing enough for you to want to take me home! I'm so silly! I'm so crazy! I'm a little girl! I'm a young woman! If I could figure out what you wanted I'd be that so you'll love me enough to take me home! Watch me pose! Oooo and ahhh over how cute and precocious I am! Do you love me now? Will I belong to you? Or you? Or you? I don't care who, just please protect and save me! Someone...anyone...please..."

I am heartbroken. How did I not recognize it?

...and Loreli said, “It’s okay Mom, just take a deep breath.” 

When I got to the end she asked that I re-read this part:

Having survived all that she did, why in the world would she ever believe that she is really staying with us forever? Of course she has to try to win over the next adult, in her mind, they might be her next short-term parents. I’m sure her mother told her she loved her, the orphanage workers probably told her the same but those people are no longer in her life so obviously saying, “I love you, you’ll always be with us.” means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to her. Why would it?

She said, “That part. I really feel that part.” With tears in her eyes she fanned her face and said, “Deep breath Loreli.”

I hugged her and said, “It’s okay to cry, this is seriously big stuff. Crying is normal. We’ll just be big cry babies together okay?”

We had a few moments of crying and hugging before she pulled back. 

I said, “We WILL get through this. We will learn to trust each other and our relationship will be stronger. We just have to keep working on it, both of us.”

One of the things we talked about as far as blogging was the idea that there might be some parents who would be surprised to learn that their kids might feel the same way Loreli does. She was very taken with that idea. “Maybe it would help the moms understand their kids better?” I said I thought maybe so. I was very happy to see an empathetic response.

Holy smokes, all of those words to say, “No, I’m not worried Loreli will read the stuff I write and freak out.” 

I write for lots of reasons: to help me sort out my thoughts, to share my ah-ha moments, and because I want to give a voice to adoptive parents. As adoptive parents we often feel unheard, judged, and isolated. Isolated from friends who say, “Oh, that’s just what 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 year olds are like. It’s just a phase.” Isolated from our own parents who don’t understand why we can’t just parent the way they did, who say,  “Oh for heaven’s sake, you survived.” Isolated from our community who say, “What happened to their real parents? Why did their real parents throw them away? Are they real siblings? Bless you for rescuing them.”

Adoptive parents often don’t tell the truth because most people don’t understand. We live with our feet in two different worlds--Parent World and Adoptive Parent World--it's a tough straddle.

I’m lucky. I have family and close friends who understand. My community is adoption friendly. I have an entire herd of twelve horses that I work with, who understand and help me on a daily basis. I can tell the truth more often than not. But so many of my fellow adopters can’t. They have to hide the pain and grief. They soldier on. Without a voice.

I write so the adoption community knows that there are people out there who understand what they are going through and I write so the non-adoption community might understand, a little better, what their friends, family, and coworkers who have adopted might be going through.

And yes, I write because I have to tell the truth. And yes, that truth can be hard to read. And yes, I understand that there are some out there who feel I tell too much of the truth. To them I want to say, “I hear you and understand your concern. I disagree, but I hear you.”

*******So, stay tuned for future posts from my 9 year old daughter. I moderate all comments before posting them so please don’t worry about Loreli receiving negative comments.

Here are some of my favorite quotes about truth telling:

“Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe.”
― Barbara De Angelis

“Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.”
― Spencer Johnson

“In a room where
people unanimously maintain
a conspiracy of silence,
one word of truth
sounds like a pistol shot.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.”
― Mahatma Gandhi