Tag: Love

Walk barefoot in the grass

Sara Moser3 Comments

Or walk shoeless on the beach. Connect with the earth.

Ok, I know it it the middle of winter. I realize that your environment is likely to be very cold, possibly snowy. I hope you’ll read on anyway! I live in southeast Texas, and a few days ago we had a wonderful warm day in the 70’s. I had been feeling emotional, cranky, and wanted to blame someone besides myself for my irritability.  In other words, I wanted to pick a fight with someone, and absolve myself of responsibility for my own emotions.

A few years ago when I felt this way, which was quite often, I would become reactive to other people, including, to my sorrow, my children. I was in a difficult marriage with a difficult person, but I made it worse by being extremely reactive. Now I share life with a peaceful person, my children are all grown and gone, and I knew that I needed to keep looking inside myself for a loving response (to my own emotions.)

I left work at 4:oo and drank in the warm sunshine as I walked to my car. I called Robert and said, “Let’s have a picnic in the park!” I wanted to feel the grass on my feet, gaze at the sky, and let go of the insanity in my head, which comes periodically in spite of  everything. By the time I got home, he had packed some food, and we grabbed a blanket and drove the half mile down the street to the park.

feet in cloverWe had about 30 minutes before the sun went down and it started to get cold. I took off my shoes and buried my feet in the clover. I walked a bit, did a few yoga stretches, then lay on my back and absorbed the cloudless blue sky above the tall palms.  I felt the tension and static leaving me, peace returning to my inner being. We lay there until the sun was almost gone and it was too cold to stay, food and drink forgotten. I took this sunset picture that evening. Apparently this was all very needful and beneficial for Robert, too. We were both getting ungrounded from the busyness of daily life, needing to take time to stop and be in nature.

This experience is what I call grounding. It has something to do with connecting with the earth, and getting recharged.  It’s like we have all these ions that get  out of whack , fuzzy, and if we can connect with the earth it puts everything back in alignment. That’s what it felt like to be outside, touching the earth and embracing the sky and the sun. ( No this isn’t scientific, it is my personal experience and opinion.)

I’m very grateful that I can walk outside barefoot occasionally even during the winter months.  I live on the third floor and work on the fourth floor, and so have become more purposeful in literally connecting with the ground when I start feeling like a porcupine, and meditating on its own doesn’t completely bring me back to center. I love being outside, watching birds and nature, sunrises and sunsets, so I probably need to stay in the south.

What do you do to ground yourself, especially during the winter?

 

My sister and I

Sara Moser2 Comments

Daily prompt – Agree to Disagree

Immediately I thought of my sister. Ellen is two years older than me, and we love each other dearly. We’ve had many parallelisms (is that a word?) in our lives, but in so many ways we are different, and so there are a few things that we just don’t talk about.

We both married at 19, the first time, and without expecting it, we both had more than the usual amount of children – she had 5, and I, 7.  They are all grown now, but we did have our differences in raising them. I homeschooled, hers were public schooled. I was pretty bossy back then, tried to convince her to do things my way quite often. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have been so pushy. Each of our children have become awesome unique individuals, in spite of and because of their mothers.

We both divorced our children’s fathers after long marriages – mine 23 years, hers 29. We both married again, me within months, she took a little longer.  We both divorced after much drama, difficulty, and grief, around the same time. No arguments there.

She met Todd right after her divorce, and married him a year later,.  I dated a bit before I met Robert, my boyfriend, and there is no talk of marriage at this point. We are blissfully cohabitating, something that I never would have dreamed of doing in my younger days.

The biggest things we don’t talk about, just silently agree to disagree about, are religion and politics.  She goes to church every week, and is a conservative Republican. I quit going to church two years ago (although I have strong spiritual beliefs), and although I don’t affiliate with a political party, definitely have made a strong left shift in my voting.

She lives in Arkansas, I am in Texas. She has her own business, Ellen’s Airbrush. I work in a hospital and have only just begun to pursue artistic endeavors. My sister inspires me,  but I am glad we live 400 miles apart. We have lovely short visits, and know we are there for each other.

Sara and Ellen 2014

 

 

Looking back at 2014

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fireworks

A year ago, 2014 was a blank canvas. Now, as I look back on it, the days, weeks, and months are painted in colorful designs, with some fireworks and a few black marks.

My granddaughter was born one year ago today, and her presence changed the course of my year. I wanted her to know me, so I’ve visited at least weekly, glad that she is only 40 minutes away. She has gone from that small, helpless babe in arms to an intensely curious, beautiful person who can run, not just walk, and who definitely knows her “Sassy”. (That’s me) Her mother doesn’t want pictures of her on the internet, or I’d post one.

Here are some highlights from the year, besides the sweet baby:

I had incapacitating back pain in January, missed work, went to chiropractors, had to become less active. I had thought I would get back into running, but there is still residual pain, so I have become much more sedentary.

In March and again in April I went to the Chopra Center near San Diego and in addition to learning something about Ayurveda and levels of consciousness, took up meditation on a twice daily basis. I didn’t really know what I was doing, sometimes still don’t, but I know that the continued practice is life-changing, in ways I can’t really explain. I am generally calmer, less reactive, and more in tune with my own rhythms. I highly recommend it. I wrote about it here.

In June I started this blog simply because in that moment I had something to say and thought it could be meaningful to someone else.  I wrote facing fear because those thoughts were burning in me and I wanted to get it out and own it. After I wrote it, I thought oh God, what have I done, now I have to keep writing! And have found the blogging world to be delightful and fascinating.

In July my youngest daughter moved out, and in August my second oldest son got married. My entire family was reunited for the wedding. I learned that letting go goes on and on and on, because children grow up to be adults with ideas of their own. It is the hardest thing, yet as I let them go, I also become free. I wrote about my empty nest.

The last day of August my sweetheart and I moved in together. We met in August of 2013, and it hadn’t taken too long before we were spending as much time together as we could. It didn’t make sense to keep living 30 miles apart. Having been married twice, living together without asking for the government’s approval just makes more sense for me, at my age. At least for now.

The rest of the year was pretty uneventful until this month. My family is pretty scattered and we don’t make a big deal of Christmas, so Robert and I decided to take a cruise, a first for both of us. The jury is still out on this experience. It was fun, but also exhausting. I think I prefer going to a destination and staying there for a while. Glad we went, though, and glad to be home.

Sara on cruise

Thanksmas

Sara Moser2 Comments

For the last several years, the gathering with my  seven children during the holiday season has been between Thanksgiving and Christmas, due to the complications that come with adulthood, like work, and relationships. We’ve gotten away from gifts, for the most part, and simply enjoy the presence of family we once shared daily life with.

My five offspring still in Texas, along with a few significant others and one grandbaby, got together for what used to be “Mom’s Black Bean Enchilada Dinner.” That was always a favorite, and favored this time of year because turkey is plentiful at other tables.

This year my daughter, the one with the baby, took over the cooking duties and hosted the gathering. I live in a small apartment, and really didn’t want to do the work of cooking. And Hannah wanted to use organic, non GMO ingredients, as has been her philosophy for at least 2 years. She is a really good cook, and I was happy to turn it over to her and have it at her house.

Great. Date set well in advance, yes RSVP’s all around — a-and — the baby gets a bad cold, won’t sleep, mother exhausted — so I spent half a day at her house “helping”. It involved a lot of baby holding, which was nice, but before everything could be put together, mother and baby disappeared to nurse and sleep and I, along with Robert and another daughter, put the casseroles together and cleaned up. Way more work than I had counted on, and I went home and crashed.

But– yesterday, when we all got together, it was all worth it. The food was good, the company was great, and we all had a good day. Five siblings reuniting, reminiscing about their childhoods.  Hannah says she’s not doing it again, others suggested doing something completely different, or catering. I know a lot can happen in a year, and the most important thing is to keep getting together with family, whatever that looks like.

Here’s my Thanksmas tree.

Christmas tree 2014

I am thankful for my family. And actually, am thankful for the empty nest, because I don’t have the energy it takes to have a full one. I am thankful that my kids are all ok.

And life goes on.

What do I have?

Sara Moser3 Comments

The last two years have brought many changes in my life. I got out of an unhealthy relationship,  moved, my two youngest offspring left home, and  I am now sharing daily life with the man of my dreams.  The only thing that didn’t really change during this time has been my job. I have been at it for nearly 5 years, and have been very thankful for the security and regularity it has provided during all these transitions.

I set some intentions relative to how and where I would live, and they have manifested in amazing ways. Yet I find myself continuing to ask myself “What do I really want?” This morning as I found myself pondering, I decided to focus instead on what I already have.

Peace.    I have been on a search for peace for years. I tried to find it through religion, friendships, moving from one relationship to another, but none of this worked.  I finally learned that I was looking outside myself for peace. Even expecting GOD to provide internal peace when I kept looking for people to make me happy didn’t work. While I was still married, I went to Al-anon meetings, and that program was the first place that I learned that I needed to take care of myself. I finally  became strong enough to make healthier decisions for me, as in getting a divorce instead of holding on to a fantasy.  Re-examining my beliefs about God, religion, and spirituality and beginning to meditate daily has led to the most peace I have known in my life – because I have found it within, instead of expecting it from outside myself.

“The world around us will never be peaceful until we ourselves are at PEACE WITHIN. If we are fighting and angry on the inside we will never experience the opposite on the outside.”
― Angie Karan Krezos

Love.   The greatest thing in life is to give and receive love. Without doubt, I have always been loved – I had a good upbringing with loving parents, have been in love relationships, and have had the love of my children, which I would have to say is the most special of all. I have generally taken care of myself, but until I began in earnest a quest for enlightenment, didn’t realize that I hadn’t been truly loving myself, which had the effect of an inability to give love unselfishly. Unselfish love doesn’t demand anything in return, yet attracts lovingkindness.

“Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Be true to yourself. How you treat yourself sets the standard for how others will treat you.”  ― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

Freedom.   When I focused on the chaos around me and in me, I attracted chaos.As I learned that peace and love had to begin with me, I began to attracted peaceful and loving people into my life.  As my life changed, and I disentangled myself from that which didn’t serve me well, I began to experience a buoyancy of spirit. I also did something I’d wanted to do for a long time – divested myself of homeownership along with numerous possessions and embraced a more minimalistic lifestyle. This lightness of spirit plus minimalism has led to a sense of freedom that I’ve never known. I must add here that the fact that my 7 children don’t live with me anymore also contributes to that sense of freedom.

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” ― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

As I ponder these ideas, I am thankful for every step of the journey that has brought me to HERE.  A huge life lesson is to learn to live without regrets, whether it be about how I failed my children, or wasn’t able to stay married, or wasted money. All those things were part of what I was supposed to learn. I have no doubt that I have more lessons ahead of me. I plan to meet whatever challenges lie ahead with peace, love, and hope.