Posted by Tagged with hobbies, rest, Selfcare Posted in Uncategorized

Plant Lady?

I’ve never paid much attention to plants. Lots of people own house plants. Some more than others. I always just saw these small green things as a luxury that I could pass by. When I’d walk into Trader Joe’s and see the plants, I would admire them, but never consider buying one because I was usually mentally adding up the cost of groceries and would rather eat than spend the money on something to look at.

Then one day I bought a plant and realized, “gosh, I really get a lot of joy out of being around this tiny living thing.”

I told my friend Melinda, “I have this one flowering plant in front of my house and I just sit and look at it every morning as I drink my coffee, and it makes me so happy”.

She said “Wow. If one plant makes you that happy, just imagine if you had a whole bunch of them how happy you would be”.

I start noticing plants everywhere I turned. Last winter, I bought a couple plants at IKEA and started watering them. I was so shocked that they stayed alive more than a month. One of them even started growing like crazy.

What is happening? These plants are staying alive! The one that surprised me the most was this one.

I got it as a gift from my daughter’s friend, Jose, last spring. It died for a week and then it came back to life and it’s been flowering ever since. I brought it inside and it is still going strong 6 months later. It’s like the little plant that never quits. It has died and come back to life multiple times. This little pink beauty reminds me that we cannot predict the future. So much is out of our hands, but we believe the best for people, and sometimes they surprise us.

My favorite houseplant right now is this one.

It started very small when I got it last winter. It has grown so much, and I love it. I am so easily impressed since I never expected these small living things to stay alive.

Here are a few other plants I’ve enjoyed watering that are no longer with us. (I guess they are not all meant to have a long life).

Do you love plants? Give me your best tips. I think I’m a plant lady on the verge of conversion!

Posted by Tagged with mothering, parenting, rest, Selfcare Posted in Uncategorized

A Brush with Self Care

As a nurturing mother, oldest child, and natural born helper, I didn’t give self care much thought until about 5 years ago. I didn’t have a clear understanding of the word.

I thought Self care = Selfish and I had been taught clearly from childhood that being selfish was bad. I still remember clearly the Sunday School song:

“Put Jesus first and Others second and put Yourself at the end of the line, And you will find true Joy in your life through J-O-Y. I loved that song. I lived it with great pride.

Then, I spent 12 years as a full-time stay at home mom with no time to myself. Add a few major life challenges and finding out I was pregnant with baby #4, and I reached major burn-out.

Over time, the realization came that I was not feeling the least bit joyful. I resented never speaking up for myself and always giving up my needs for everyone else. Through some therapy, I realized that I had lived my life treating everyone else kindly, but not being kind to myself – At All.

I have begun thinking of this topic of self care as Self Kindness

Love is Kind. I cannot truly love the people in my life unless I love myself. I began giving myself permission to rest from always caring for the needs of others. I had to figure out what was restful and then make time for it”

As a young mom, I remember coming to the end of a day after the kids had finally fallen asleep and the house was quiet, and thinking “Now, I can FINALLY rest” . I’ve earned it!!” I defined rest as a small compartment reserved for when the work was done.

Life can be hard. Really hard. There were days and weeks and years when the urgent drowned out the important in my life, and the only break I got was 5 minutes in the bathroom with the door closed. Self care for me started with a decision. I would make a daily choice to be kind to myself and at times that would mean saying no to the demands of others.

I have been gradually adding daily practices that have helped me find rest. *Candle light *Journaling *Drinking coffee *Walking *Going outside in nature *Turning off my phone *Time with friends *Reading *Smiling and making funny faces at myself in the mirror.

After intentionally trying to be more kind to myself for the past 5 years, I have noticed something. I call it a Brush with Self Care. Imagine a paint with water picture. The brush dipped in the water symbolizes self care. When you take the time to dip your brush and apply it to the pages of your life, you will begin to see colors emerge. The colors are the hidden talents, the things you never knew you loved, and the gifts that have been hiding in plain sight.

Posted by Tagged with Artists, personal transformation, Selfcare, writing Posted in Uncategorized

Finding the Artist Within

Free Yourself….it’s time for a burst of what I call midlife creative.

Freedom to express the creativity inside you is a great gift. We are all born creative. We all have this gift. The reason we hold back from accessing this gift is because we are afraid to break the rules or disappoint the people we care about. Creatives often feel trapped in a world where they are being asked to fit into a box or color in the lines when all they really want is permission to let the explosion of their true selves come out. Buried inside is a massive amount of never before seen beauty. It needs to come out, but the fear that holds them back is that others will not see their expression as beautiful.

Midlife Creative is first of all a realization. My hope is that those feeling stuck as they enter the 2nd half of their lives will ask themselves the hard questions. What am I made to create? Where do I find joy and delight? Who are the people in my life who cheer me on to be my best self? Its time for so many of us to step out of our comfortable, people pleasing existence and into a truer picture of who we want to be. It’s time for some of us to clean out our closets and get rid of what doesn’t fit anymore. Its also time to dust off an old instrument or hobby that we have set aside or explore something that we have always wanted to try. Poets, writers, dancers, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs, dreamers, and artists, I say to you….”Come awake and Come Alive…this is your time to live your best life!!”