Well, I got lost in time and so dinner's going to be late. I forgot
to make the new luscious rice. It is cooking now. (I knew Gem would
prefer rice to the quinoa pasta).
This has given me
time to delve into Ane Axford's world some more. I received a link to
this video for signing up for her e-mail newsletters. I am sharing it
here assuming it is something one could find for themselves elsewhere on
the Web.
There are some things she mentions that
resonate with me...painfully deeply. Things I don't often share with
others, even close friends. It's buried stuff. I don't mean to gloss
over, to mask myself, but I do. And I have been doing this for a very
long time.
Unpackaging my own issues in the realm of
high sensitivity (and I do think there is something here for
me...perhaps the next missing puzzle piece) will have a positive impact
for the rest of our family, as well. Although Gem is the child with the
obvious autoimmune issues, I think Sag is highly sensitive himself. He
is the one who suffers misunderstanding and the frequent labeling of
"too __________" (emotional/loud/aggressive/sensitive/physical/etc.)
When
I turned forty, six years ago, I woke up and my perspective had
shifted. I was determined to make something of the first day of the
second half of my life. That year, we moved to the Garden State.
Though it was a tumultuous experience and time, I can see now that it
also marked the start of a time of greater stability for us as a family.
That
year, I sought out a guide for myself with the intention of meeting my
potential for happiness. I knew, absolutely, that I could be happier
than I was. This is how I met Vinny.
Six years later, I
have been feeling the chaos, the roughness, of pushing up against
something and not getting past it. I am definitely happier now than I
was. But, the truth was, there was something still missing. This has
been scary and I have not really acknowledged it with anyone.
What more was there? How much harder was I going to have to work? What was wrong with me?
As
I watched Ane's video (it was kind of slow going for me at first...I
considered stopping and maybe watching it "later", not necessarily with
any specific intention of actually doing so), things began to tap and
tug. But towards the end, something she said shoved me hard.
She
talked about thriving. And I knew, in an instant, that that was what
has been missing in my life. It is so ironic. Thriving is something I
place tremendous importance on when thinking about children. Thinking
about children is something I have been doing since I was a child
myself.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a teacher,
housewife and whale conservationist. Two of those occupations were
centered on caring for children. All three of them were concerned with
making sure that others thrived.
As a teenager,
babysitting was my paid occupation of choice and I spent many hours
watching kids thrive and participating in the small ways that I could.
As
an adult, I became a teacher and quickly dove into special education. I
have not explored this idea yet so may not be eloquent about it, but
there is something more direct in the impact you make to help a kid who
has special needs thrive that goes way beyond what the experience tends
to be when working with a general education population.
After
a dozen professional years, I became a parent and within two years of
that I was the mom of two and left full-time teaching. I waited a long
time to have children of my own, mostly out of choice, but then those
last few years very much not of my choice.
And
something happened then. It happened before I had my kids (though that
time right after having them was very challenging in many ways). I
think it happened during the time we couldn't get pregnant.
Maybe
it was that crushing blow of infertility. It sucked the "thrive" right
out of me. Maybe the post-childbirth rush and drive of being
responsible for the thriving of new offspring knocked my own thriving
issues right off the stove (no back burner big enough for the force of
that push).
I think, for me, there was a complication
in distinguishing my own thriving from that of my children. Kind of a
guilt. After all the waiting for them and wanting them, how could I say
they weren't enough to make me happy? I can see now that it would have
been valuable for me to make the distinction between happiness and
thriving.
I don't know, maybe not. Maybe that's over focusing on semantics.
I
could go on. But, like Ane says in the video, and this is a very
helpful tip for me, thinking about something that isn't really a
problem, makes whatever it is a problem. The brain sees the information
as a problem needing to be solved if we (highly sensitive people) start
analyzing it, whatever "it" is.
And this isn't really a
problem. That the rice cooker beeped about ten minutes ago and yet I
continue typing...if anything is a problem
right now, that is. :-)
