Mama and me on a girls' trip to Williamsburg, VA

 *

I see your wool coat

reminding me of young you

fresh and beautiful.

*

I opened a book.

There was a card from Mama.

For You. Love, Mama.

*

Her sentiments live.

She speaks through her written words

supporting me now. 

*

I feel like crying.

I live in beauty and good

yet dark pulls at me.

* 

April 18, 2015

The polish expression “Not my circus, not my monkeys” has finally made it to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where I live and work. I have a client who has been telling me about their use of it in her home. This week another client brought me a copy of the expression off of the internet.

The reason these clients are showing me this expression is because this is very much what Disentangle, When You’ve Lost Your Self in Someone Else is all about! They know that we talk about and work on boundaries often. We work on letting go of things and people not in our control. We work on learning to develop and manage our own circus.

I am glad that this old expression has made it to our popular culture. I am glad people are noticing that sometimes we are trying to manage someone else’s monkeys, that we are in the arena of a circus that is not ours to be in. And behind the fondness for this expression I believe is the realization of the craziness that can come from chasing someone else’s monkeys.

This is what can happen when we lose our self in someone else, when we are over-functioning in someone else’s life and under-functioning in our own. These are the ways I describe codependent behaviors. I still find that people are reluctant to look at their codependent behaviors. They steer away from the codependent word; they have reasons to justify their involvement in the lives of others. So I am very happy that a colloquial expression helps people to identify the importance of noticing if they are dealing with someone else’s circus and monkeys, and I am glad we can all laugh at this image.

Disentangle, When You’ve Lost Your Self in Someone Else offers four areas of skill development to help with learning to work with the monkeys in your own circus and to really practice “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”

Welcome to my new BlogSpot!

Thank you, Grace (www.graceduval.com), for making this possible for me and all who visit.

This photo was recently taken by me on my front porch here at our old clapboard home on the James River. It is time to plant, time to plant lots of new things, including thoughts and words. 

And that's what has happened for me since mid-February. I have fallen into haiku. Yes, that's how I am expressing it. Many of my thoughts and feelings are in that form which I am now calling In the Wake of Grief: Haiku of Mind, Mood, and Mindfulness. No, I am not making an official book out of this writing, but it is quite a little volume that I will be sharing some with you here.  I believe that many of the haiku reflect, hopefully, mental health and recovery which I work with and write about.

Both my dear Mother and Daisy, the border collie, died last September, 2014. In the months that preceded their deaths,  I was beyond busy, torn by where to be and with who, low in sleep, and really on auto-pilot. I must have started to wake this past February as these words and feelings began to come to me. I welcome them. I trust them. They are part of my grief process. And I want to share some of them with you, hoping they may offer their own form of mediation and meaning for you.

Mixed with these haiku will be my comments, essays, and thoughts.

I thank you for taking the time to spend time with me.

*

She was in my dream,

running, bouncing, full of life,

still very alive.

*

Thinking of the road
to my piano lessons,
I thank you extra.

*

It's time to let go. 
The mullein's tall, dead remains
are begging for rest. 

* 

Another Lesson from Daisy for which I am grateful:

Sugar cookie dough and vanilla ice cream really do help the medicine to go down: Why force a solution when I can notice and follow a sweeter, easier, and effective path that is there all along if I will get out of my own way full of fears and control and allow life to flow.

On April 15, 2014 Daisy turned 18 years old. We were blessed with another full year with Daisy and a birthday celebration on the 15th with treats and a gold ribbon tied to her collar.

Later that month I wrote an essay entitled "Another Year of Lessons." Here at this Thanksgiving time of the year - yes, I have not yet rushed to Christmas - I want to share a few of the lessons I included in that essay:

Every day is a gift: Yes, every day is a gift and not to be taken for granted. Life is precious here and now. Each morning when I wake I want to remember this. And each day that Daisy wakes, I want to remember this. As Daisy’s veterinarian has repeatedly suggested, “Enjoy her.”

Walking an old dog promotes mindful walking: Practically speaking, Daisy’s slow moving style has helped me greatly to practice my mindful walking and to learn how to shed hurry and busyness and replace it with presence and peace.

It is fun to sit together in the shade and feel the breeze on our faces.

It is fun to walk together in the dark with me noticing the stars and lightening bugs while Daisy enjoys some night sniffing.

Thank you, Daisy, for this abundance of lessons that just keep coming.

Helping and fixing come so naturally to me. I readily extend my self to others. Nothing’s wrong with this until it goes too far. As I told you, I so want to fix Daisy’s aged body. I so want to remove every drop of pain and, quite honestly, create her youthfulness again. Daisy and I are both servers. She is a greeter, a protector, and a herder. I am a helper and fixer, even professionally. A “Lesson Learned” for me about these helping behaviors is:

How can I serve my self?

If I am not mindful as I give and help and serve, this is the question that I forget to ask and answer. In the midst of our important work of helping others, it is very important to remember our self. In fact, important is an understatement. It is imperative to remember our self. It is our very self that is doing this serving, and without the health of that self, no serving can be done. So how can I serve my self? I believe that in order to answer this question, we must check in with the thinking, feeling, physical, and spiritual aspects of our self. I believe we want to give equal consideration to each of these important parts of who we are and ultimately integrate them into a healthy self.

In being loyal and committed, it is important for me to consider my self as well. This does not mean that I must always have my way or attend to my needs without consideration of others. It does mean that as I deeply attend to someone else, or for that matter, some cause or activity, that I also connect with me. Is what I am about to choose good for me? Will I feel okay about me and my choices if I am acting out of my devotion? Am I starting to feel compelled to say or do things that may be driven by my devotion? Has my devotion blurred into an obsessive watching and checking to protect my self from abandonment by this object of my devotion?