It's messy these days. Life.

When the storms came in 2020, our respective worlds were shaken. What was a tidy-ish terrain that I was navigating, discovering, and shaping to fit my desires and current construct for the needs of the season I found myself in, in a flash, there were "trees down", bridges washed out and what were easily navigated paths connecting parts of "my world", now muddied and unclear. 

The isolation, shifting to online learning for my teenagers, racial reckoning, the political climate, the collective grief regarding the loss of so much and so many in the pandemic...not to mention the adaptive processes to safely navigate our livelihoods, pivoting so we can continue to serve our people...it is A LOT...a lot of work...and a LOT of perspective checking, processing, and receiving Grace for the moments we're in. 

We are in the thick of it still and YET, at the end of the day...take off those boots; put your feet up and breath deep; grateful that you can. A season will come when you can relish some barefoot moments, slippers and flip flops, but for now...we are called to work. Lace up those boots; you're stronger than you realize and "your world" needs your participation in not only surviving this challenging 2020-2021, it needs your attention to forging new paths, bridges, clearing the debris to shift and shape the terrain anew. This storm is still here...and you can solidly plant your feet to keep discovering, keep learning how you co-create the space you are LIVING on/in. Onward, Momma...

​There is work to be done.

In a recent Facebook Video, I shared some imagery that has been "on loop" for me.

When I labor, it's an intimate, powerful experience with my baby, my body, and my God. I recall laboring with my 3rd baby through the night of my daughter's 13th birthday. I drove a van full of teens to the bowling alley and a friend retrieved them so I could participate in laboring. 

My then teenage children invited friends to the birth and at after finishing a contraction, deep in my "zone", I raised my head to assess the room...who's here? everyone okay? we're all good?

At the end of my bed there were four 15 and 16 year old boys. When I saw them, I simply put my head back down and opted not to try connect with them...but rather return to where I could "do my work well".

The point of this share is to say that in this pandemic, I have respected my Land of Lisa (where I can engage well with my responsibilities and my people) and while periodically raising my head to view the changes taking place in the world, to stay informed, learn about what's going on and to make best choices for my work, myself, and my tribe. 

...and yet respecting my need to "do my work well"; I return to "my world", my contraction where I can participate. 

Maybe this imagery is helpful for you too...I'm interested in your thoughts.

I've said that I hung my cape up long ago...yet as I've learned to "live in the Land of Lisa", on my healthiest "map" **, I have moments that I observe as pretty darn super! Don't get me wrong, I cross those healthy boundaries and have moments that are less than stellar, but those are less frequent since discovering (and staying tethered to) ME at my healthiest. When I miss the mark, I learn and grow deeper into what is true for and in me.

My children have been my greatest teachers and as the years have gone by, I am more and more grateful for the lessons (and heartbreaking moments) they have provided...they have refined and shaped me.

For me, SuperMOM isn't doing ALL the things ALL the time. Rather, it's recognizing that I do some things right...I have intention for the greatest good and my attempts to right some wrongs in the world is a valuable contribution. Nobody expects the movie hero's to wear their capes all day and night. When people would call me "super mom", I would reject the name in an attempt to let their feeling of being less than super be normalized. I denied the cape...yet...I am super sometimes...and so are you!

My dear father in law once told me that if he had the opportunity to do it (parenting) all over again, he would just make different mistakes. Freedom, yes? We're doing what we can with what we've been given.

I beg you to please see your skills, notice what you do RIGHT and connect to your intentions. We miss so many of the moments that could increase our confidence and competence to act from our innate wisdom because we are distracted by what's wrong, what threats need to be addressed (often before they are a reality), and what gaps need to be filled. Centering in our wisdom can be as simple as a 1 minute meditation, deep breathing, a walk, or a talk with a friend...please see yourself as SUPER MOM. Not that you are perfect, but that you are someone's hero.

Each week, for now, I'm doing live calls on Fridays and one of the emphasis is regarding the physiological changes that happen when we are perceiving threat. We MUST tether to what is RIGHT, in us and "our worlds". Do, please, look in a mirror, see what is healthy in you...nourish her...and glimpse the moments that her cape can be seen. 

Very here for you.

Happy Mothers Day!
Lisa

**to learn how to create your "map", listen to the free session recording. Once your brain has imagery to operate from, you increase the amount of decisions congruent to that vision. 

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​The current events have been overwhelming for many. I am receiving coaching each week for my own well-being because I am, like you, also experiencing the stress of this odd story we're witnessing.

For the time being, I'm committed to making myself available each Friday at 12:30 PM EST for a FREE Coaching session using ZOOM.

Click this link: Zoom Meeting
Or log in using:
Meeting ID: 882 892 104
Password: 012684

If you missed the call from last month when our COVID-19 storm was really getting underway, the recording can be found on my website HERE.

Please join me on Fridays and invite a friend who could also use the support. I will share some self-coaching techniques, some tips, and will leave time to open the conversation for some actual coaching if anyone is willing to share their challenge. Our success in navigating this rapidly changing season we're in requires our resilience. I'm here to support yours!
​
I look forward to sharing moments with you! While we are physically distancing, we are not alone. 

Be well,
Lisa

It has been recognized that we have been experiencing grief globally. Initially, I had been so "on" and reactive to the COVID-19 crisis as it unfolded, not simply the constant media and fear based triggers, but the complex adaptations of kids home from school, clinic facility plans that needed to be researched, supported, and implemented and all the other wild challenges we've navigated...like finding toilet paper...that I wasn't taking time to slow, process, and tune into my feelings. I tend to be an over-functioner when stressed. 

Once the dust settled a bit (kids in routine, office procedures in place, toilet paper supplied for now, screen/media limits implemented, etc), I felt deflated and tired...unmotivated and less "functional". I normally operate with a fair amount of efficiency, function, and efficacy. I had stopped being so busy that I could "hear" my body talking to me and with a brief pause, I was reminded of how I felt after my mom transitioned in 2017. Spent...my energy tank was empty. I came across an image from the book Power Vs Force that provided a visual of why I felt so low...grief is near the bottom of our feeling vibrations. When I recognized that I was, indeed, in deep grief, I moved toward accepting my state and situation...and in that moment, I felt a shift toward higher function and greater ability to participate. 

Dr. Brene' Brown recently published an interview on her Podcast Unlocking Us with David Kessler, author of Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief that I found very affirming and insightful. Multiple articles have been published that also give voice to this shared experience of grief we're having. I am not alone in this experience. YOU are not alone in this. We are "in this" together. 

One of the most important behaviors I've been leveraging to cope is to pause and name what I'm feeling while recognizing that I am NOT my feeling, but rather it is a valuable visitor here to bring me awareness. Often, when I sit with my feeling, I can ask it what it would like to bring me...behind it is a gift. Looking beyond my fear, I see the innate wisdom that wants to protect me from harm. As my Aunt Sandy would say "Fear, you may come along, but you do not get to touch the controls." I can say thank you for my grief, it tells me I see value in what I'm missing right now...be it people, my familiar routines and behaviors, what was...and points me to my values...towards gratitude for what IS, what I do have, not simply what I don't. I can appreciate and accept...elevating my participation toward function and well-being. 

Notice you and your state of being. You have a responsibility to care for yourself. Be encouraged to stand in your sphere of influence to mirror health, hope, and courage. In the Power Vs. Force image, fear is just one rung above grief. We don't operate from our highest states when we're afraid. In fear, completely different hormones run through our bodies, creating different results than when we're accepting, appreciative, and operating from a place of Hope.

We can change our physiology by changing our thinking and connecting to the gifts our feelings bring us. Please consider your feelings and what gifts they provide.

The image below is a useful image reflecting how fear impacts our behaviors.

Be well.
​Lisa
​

The impact of COVID19 is rippling far and wide...there is no way to truly distance and separate our lives from the current events. Our lives have changed and we are navigating some new terrain. The new challenges along with the many fears converging at once is tipping the scale for many. Finding ourselves overwhelmed and "threatened" puts our body into it's "fight, flight, freeze" state and reduces our ability to engage "well". WE CAN SHRINK THE OVERWHELM and engage with our innate brilliance for wise decision making. Intention and attention are our responsibility.

While I've assisted hundreds of women in creating their versions of the healthiest and happiest "self-maps", some of those "lands" have experienced a massive storm that has changed the ability to "navigate as usual". I liken it to "My world" being littered with debris to sort though and limbs down preventing the normally easy access to parts of my map. I'm reminded that exercising, reflecting, and learning coping skills vs panic will be the game-changer in how we treat ourselves and each other on our "map". 

I heard a sweet distinction of what we're really being asked to do is PHYSICAL distancing...not social distancing. We ARE NOT ALONE in this and the isolation often felt in motherhood before this crisis our culture is navigating has been heightened to extremes for many. 

We can practice scaling back; to turn the dial from the enormous big picture into what is manageable right now. We CAN shrink the overwhelm by tuning into where we ARE. Just NOW...recalling what matters most in the moments we're in and discerning what our next right step is. (Frozen 2 anyone?)

I recorded a call on Friday, March 20th to help with some of these perspectives and some self-coaching techniques that can help guide you as you discover a new "map" of what "your world" can look like. I referenced "Zooming in and out" like Google maps, but also how we approach our list of areas to tend to. We can change our approaches, we can change our expectations, and we can change the way we measure our progress. 

I encourage you to give the recording a few moments, I am a little "rusty" using the tech that I did, but eventually got into a flow and the content may help you engage more efficiently and effectively in "your edited world". 

My "Land of Lisa" still has much of the same areas I'm committed to "visiting" regularly, but the way I "touch" them looks a bit different right now.

I hope you'll give yourself reflective time with the worksheet to explore what matters to you, how you can imagine areas of your life healthy and well right now...and over the next few weeks/months. By developing a picture, you can more appropriately make decisions congruent to that vision AND notice more often that you ARE living in a way that you desire. We do not have to be victims of our circumstance, but rather developers of a new world we can be inspired to create.  

I'm interested in your feedback and if you found this helpful. I plan to do some Facebook live videos to address and coach though some specific challenges some of the moms in "my world" are facing. Please tell me yours. We're in this together

UPDATED 3/27/2020
My notes from a webinar I attended about how we can dial back to our present moment:
​
By stimulating the vagus nerve, we can create a qualitative difference in our nervous system (our interface for interpreting our world - internal and external) 
We can orient to safety (internal - our safety is not "out there") by:

• Breathing calmly and deeply
• Rubbing our neck, squeezing our arms, legs, head, press in, wrap up
• Be honest about how we are feeling and then "come home"/re-center
  • name how we're feeling (out loud)
  • affirm that our feelings are normal
  • even though I feel scared, I'm safe
  • even though I'm nervous, I'm safe
  • even though I feel ________, I'm safe
• MOVE - build in multiple times a day to move right now
• Stay connected to relationships that matter and nurture our well-being (honoring that we are ALL in this)
• Gargle
• Splash cold water on face, finish showers with cool water
• Engage with what intrinsic interests  
• See your chiropractor

Other points worth noting:

• We "borrow" from each others nervous system (I referenced mirror neurons in my call) - notice when activated so we can self-regulate
• We can notice, practice and model self-regulation to grow the skill and expand its impact
• The world is saying "hello" to our nervous system; we can keep coming back to our truths, our safety and be an external regulator for others

Completely FREE - NO EMAIL NEEDED

No, not everyone can relate to your specific troubles YET if we zoom out far enough, we can find the areas that we CAN connect and relate; where we come together for common good. It's in choosing LOVE and respect that we can change the trajectory of our culture. I am grateful for the past, the present and I remain hopeful for our future. We are a human race and the areas we choose to give our support matter. 

I choose to connect to what's right in us, what works, what we aspire to experience and how we desire to serve the greater good. Our experiences always seem to come back to perspective.

Healthy, wholehearted Life is a practice; a continuing to choose participation, growth, contribution, and to receive the sweet gifts that come through the moments where we put in the work. 

Onward, fellow boat mates...
In "it" with you,
Lisa
​

Guest article written by Karen Weeks of www.elderwellness.net

Most of us moms do much more than just the job of parenting. We wear many different hats, and one role that some of us take on as we get older is that of caring for our aging parents. Sometimes that means you’re a 24/7 care provider, whereas others have one or both parents on our minds even if they’re living on their own or in a senior community. In all of these situations, the underlying thread is concern for our senior loved ones’ health and well-being.
 
When You Worry About Safety
 
One of the greatest health and safety concerns seniors face is the risk of falling. According to the National Council on Aging, about one in four adults over age 65 falls each year, and 20% of those falls result in serious injuries. No one wants their loved one to become injured, and these injuries often lead to seniors losing mobility or independence. As worrisome as this risk is, caregivers can play a major role in helping prevent falls. The best thing you can do is talk to your loved one about risk factors, such as whether any medications make them dizzy or whether loss of vision is a concern.
 
Your loved one’s overall health and well-being is another top concern. One of the hardest things you have to do as a caregiver is to recognize whether your loved one is able to stay safe and healthy living on their own. Unfortunately, seniors don’t always realize there’s a problem, or they may not say anything because they don’t want you to worry. This is why it’s so important to keep an eye out for signs that they’re struggling.
 
If you feel like your loved ones need some extra help, the easiest way to start exploring some options is to search online for assisted living centers nearby. Websites that specialize in helping you find assisted living are easy to use, and they’ll give you a feel for what options are out there and which facilities have the amenities and services you’re looking for. Some of these websites also suggest choosing an assisted living facility next to one of the area’s top hospitals—which, in Atlanta, include Northside Hospital and Emory University Hospital—so that your loved one receives quality care.
 
Helping Your Loved One Stay Active
 
Regardless of where your loved one lives, there’s a chance that they need a little extra encouragement to stay active. Physical activity is essential for older adults, but many seniors fear getting hurt or they simply lack the motivation. As a caregiver, one of the best things you can do is help them find opportunities for activity. Consider looking into senior fitness classes in your area and volunteer to drive them. Or you may even want to suggest an activity you can do together, such as walking a few days a week.
 
Providing Emotional Support
 
Along with staying physically active, another essential health need for seniors is to stay engaged in life. Because they no longer have roles like working or parenting, USA Today explains how many seniors suffer emotionally because they feel like they’ve become irrelevant. This is likely one reason why it’s common for seniors to have symptoms of depression, yet this is often overlooked and many don’t get the mental health care they need.
 
You can help by encouraging your loved one to get active in their community, whether that means volunteering or joining activities at their senior living center. Getting involved in something that gives them a sense of purpose is a great way to improve mental well-being. You can help even more by doing small things whenever you’re together, like asking for help with household chores they can manage or asking for advice.
 
As a wife, mother, employee or business owner…mamas have a lot of people counting on us. All of these roles are rewarding, but aren't always easy. Caring for senior loved ones is definitely a mixed bag, full of both joy and worry. These tips may not wipe away your worry, but hopefully they will help you give your loved ones what they need for a happy, healthy life.
 
Photo credit: Pixabay
​

Original Article HERE. Re-posted with permission by the author. 

Instead of soiling her struggle with shame, I’m honest in the hopes of breaking the cycle of mental illness in my family. BY MARY PEMBLETON | JAN 8, 2020

​“How’d your mom die?”
Time stilled a little. This question from my precocious five-year-old, a child already versed in the inner workings of procreation, who’d interrogated me relentlessly about God and evolution and sewage processing at the tender age of three, would, I knew, blossom into an onslaught of queries until the truth slipped out if I didn’t answer him directly right now.
I glanced at his green eyes in the rearview and they stared back, intent. This moment: I hadn’t expected it so early in his life.
“Well,” I began. “My mother had a disease, just like Dad’s father had cancer. But this disease was in her brain and it made her very sad. And she didn’t get the help she needed in time to feel better. She was so sad for so long that she chose to die.”
Since the very beginning of motherhood, I’ve vowed to answer my children honestly, because I remember what it felt like as a child to have serious questions skirted. It sent a clear message: We do not talk about this because it’s shameful. And the shame soiling my mother’s struggle with mental health, and ultimately her suicide, contributed to it.
Tissues damp with salinity lay in piles next to her bed in the mornings, but in the house where I grew up, we all suffered from our respective problems quietly, shame-fueled, behind closed doors. I knew the meaning of the word depression from an early age because my mother whispered it into my ear in explanation of the apathy that accompanied my father’s chronic pain, along with a request that I do not talk about it.


 Depression is on the rise in kids—but the signs are hard to recognizeI didn’t want my mother’s suicide to be stigmatized with shame in the minds of my children, who I’m confident will experience their own mental health struggles if biology and genetics and family legacy is any indication, and the science supporting my assertion is well-established.
“So, she killed herself?” my son asked.
“Yes.”
He stared out the window at the passing trees. “What is it called?”
“What?” I asked.
“The disease.”
“Depression,” I told him, “It’s called depression.”
Depression and anxiety and suicidality, I would’ve told him if he were older. Three words I’ve felt the impact of from a young age, not only by witnessing my parents’ but by experiencing them in my own body. But I didn’t tell my mother or father what I was feeling when at the age of 12 I plummeted into a hopeless and inexplicable desire to die: I’d learned from their example. This was not something we talk about.
The additional trauma of my mother’s suicide when I was 17 meant that by the time I made it to adulthood without proper treatment or therapy, I was limping.
“You know how I always think you’re going to die when you’re sick?” I asked my son several years after our initial conversation in the same Prius. His brain was a bit more developed then, his legs stretching nearly all the way to the messy floorboard. “That’s anxiety. Unreasonable worry that’s hard to control. And I inherited it from my parents, and they from theirs.”
“Like when I had strep and you took me to the hospital and told me you’d buy me a dirt bike because you thought I was dying,” he said.
“Just like that. I’m trying really hard in therapy to learn how to challenge myself when I feel really scared and start thinking that way. I’m trying a new medicine that I hope will help, too,” I told him.
I offer this transparency so he can see that though I do struggle, I seek help for my struggle, so that he may one day do the same. Because early in motherhood, I didn’t know how to get help, and my children were collateral.
When our sons were toddlers, I remember lying in bed next to my husband, shivering with anxiety under the comforter and staring up at the whorls of paint on our ceiling. “There’s another measles outbreak,” I told him. Cold sweat pooled in my armpits.
“So, get them vaccinated.”
I wanted to, but I was so scared I was going to hurt them. I couldn’t live with myself. But I also couldn’t live with myself if they got measles either, or spread it to someone vulnerable.
“I need help,” I said, hot tears rolling over my temples into unkempt hair strewn across the pillow.
The more my children grew, the more the anxiety grew to match it, and the clearer it became that I did need help, and a lot of it. So many of my initial parenting decisions were based on a belief that I would inevitably do something to cause their deaths, a belief established in the wake of a death I felt was my fault.
Self-blame is all-too-common in suicide survivors. It may be a cliché, but for good reason. The resounding question being, “What could I have done to save them?”
What motivated me to seek treatment: I wanted to do better for my children. To break the cycle. I loved them more than anything and wanted to give them only the best. To give them a chance at a different outcome than my mother. To give me a chance at a different outcome.
I started seeing a therapist who specializes in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, which allows trauma victims to resolve trauma’s negative effects through bilateral stimulation of the brain. It is helping me dismantle the stunning numbness that set in when my mother died, as well as a young adulthood of missteps and guilt and paralytic anxiety.
In our traumas so often lie gifts and pearls of wisdom and takeaways. The traumas themselves barbed and twisted and ugly, but given the proper resources to navigate them, to grow the healing parts of ourselves bigger and stronger than what’s hurt and battered us, we can learn so much about ways we don’t want to live, and how to live from a place of clarity of goals and awareness of my biases. My own traumas taught me to mother intentionally and decisively rather than from a place of fear. To get the damn shots. To take a breath and challenge my thought patterns instead of taking my kids to the emergency room for a fever.
The gift of my mother’s suicide is this: While I cannot control genetics or biology, I can, have, and will work hard to accrue the proper tools to contend with our family legacy of mental illness. And my hope is that I can pass these tools down to my children, to add to our wrought family legacy of suffering the very resilience to fight it with.

​It took the 5th kid before I really, truly, always embraced a baby in the moonlight with love. My 1st and 5th are 23 years apart so it's not like the radical growth that sometimes occurs when babies are back to back to back...yet the breaking happens and our Source (Father God, Jesus, Spirit, Mother Nature - whatever you name the Source that you have relationship with) shows up to offer us sustainable wisdom that equips for days ahead. Sometimes it takes a long while and repetition for us to recognize the Voice, the still small whisper that encourages us and feeds us when we're empty.

We must embrace them early...because when they are teenagers, we can't...they rarely let us. 

...and certainly not when they are 35 ... yet I see that child's pain still and desperately want to "make it better" ... and can't. It is so much harder than when he was little... and I scoop him up to rock, sooth, sing to, etc.

Please hold them, the babies...please when you wake and find yourself at the brink, seek your God... see Goodness ...with you at this moment...be blessed in KNOWING that you are NOT alone...your Source is near, with you...that the veil is thin and that your work, as a mother, is as true and as holy as the angels. Our children MUST see us seek ...they MUST see us be renewed in our lack...see our God within shine when we can't. For me, the "flesh died" most often in the nights. 

The work you are depositing yourself into is Holy work...you are moving on Holy ground...especially in the night when it's dark...you are Light. 

You are (partly) writing the programming of the brains for your babies...write their safety, write their connection, write their KNOWING a safe and stable presence.

My prayer is that YOUR safety, connection, and experience is able to shine through because of a KNOWING deep in you that you have come to experienced the presence of your God...and so have your children.

My God is my sustenance... my Source, leading when I can't...and when I am humble, surrendered enough to get out my own way, my leader when I "can"...

When I woke one morning with a 2 and 18 -year old, both telling me they were capable of independent life.  Appropriate to their ages - "I'll do it" ...and me knowing neither were quite able, yet needed to try. In actuality, it sounded more like "I'm a grown-ass man" and "Me DO it".  I knew they'd fall before they flew...they would have to. Like we all do.

I fell. Again. Knees...face plant...for me, it was at the cross..."help" ... "how do I do this protection and equipping??" Knees...on my face...still...still...again, again, again, repeat, repeat, repeat.

May we all "program them" well...at least as well as we can. 

May we HONOR the Innate wisdom within (us and them) that is wired to survive, thrive, and let be a model of the Highest Expression of our Life. I believe our God (whatever name you want to fill in) fills in the gaps where we fall short...and I promise you, we (I) fall short...they don't get all they need from me. They can't. I'm not God. They each have a God, it's not me. 

We, like the babies, are changed by the experience. Yes, sleep deprivation costs...NO DOUBT...yet so does dis-connect to our mothers...

Watching the percentage of our population suffering with anxiety and depression increase only heightens my commitment to restoring the connection to Love and safety. Returning "home" to the love that, above all love, holds us...and holds our babies.

For me, I prayed a double portion of repair and renewal with every moment of sleep I was gifted and my decade-plus of interrupted sleep was a significant challenge that turned blissful. My God showed up in the night...He still does. I trust Him more confidently than ever partly because of all those nights I tended to children. I trust Him with my daughter and her babies...and I still pray for supernatural renewal...for them, for you. 

Thank you for tending to your babies, your BLESSINGS, new Life allowed to your care.

Please be well,
Lisa


PS - As I write, my 12 YO (baby) is watching silly shows with a friend...at 1: AM...and I'm up nearby to "see them"...not overwhelmed by it but better equipped to see bc I embraced the nights before. .... Lord, come near.