Month: May 2014

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about this concept lately. It seems to come up a lot with people I know who are on a similar path as myself and I have heard it come up in yoga class as well. Being Authentic. What does that mean exactly and how authentic should one really be.

One day about 3 years ago my yoga  teacher brought up the subject of  someone asking you how you are doing. How is it that you respond? Do you give a knee jerk response and smile and say “great! and you?” when that may not be the case or do you check into yourself and respond honestly and be authentic.  Maybe you really just aren’t having the best day, do you say that? It is something that I have been thinking about since then and I work on this on a regular basis. This same teacher walked into class a couple of months ago and said to me “Hey Bonnie! How’s it going?” and I was having a great day and I said “Great!” and he stopped and said “Really?” and I smiled and checked into myself and said “Yeah, I really am great today, why?” and he just said “just making sure”. A couple of weeks ago I was getting ready for class and one of the other students asked me the same question and I was having a really rough week and it had taken everything I had to get myself to class that day, so  I said “I’m OK” with very little enthusiasm and she responded “Well! that wasn’t very convincing!”. I was a bit taken aback and since I wasn’t doing too well ,I responded somewhat sarcastically “Well, sorry!” I just didn’t think I should have to pretend to be good when I clearly wasn’t good.

I haven’t had to work on it from the angle of asking the question and really wanting to know. I really want to know when I ask “how are you doing”. It is one of my pet peeves when someone clearly gives the knee jerk response. Equally annoying are the people who ask and never wait for your reply, simply moving on. Why ask if you don’t really want to know? I have actually sat and paused and had people not even notice that I didn’t answer their question.

When it comes to being authentically who I am though, that is something that has come with time and as much as I do feel I am “what you see is what you get” I am finding lately that this may not be the case. It is interesting how I feel like I can write so openly about what is going on with me inside on this blog and I can talk to people  pretty openly about things that have happened in my life, but there have been times that I haven’t been able to say what I really need to say to someone.

Recently my son went though some things that brought this up right into my face. Here is someone that I love more than life itself. My kids are my whole world and without them I really don’t know where I would be today. However I do find that at times it is hard to just be real with them. And who deserves that more? Who else is looking to me for so much. Why can I  be open and honest with everyone but them?  I think I need to hold it all together and be strong for them. It’s like I don’t really have the luxury of falling apart. Well, the situation forced me to get real. It forced me to talk to them about things that I had no idea how to approach and things that were pretty uncomfortable. There was a lot of fear of how many directions things could go wrong. In the end it worked out well that I had handled things the way I did and the situation actually brought us all closer together. It was through allowing myself to be real and reach out to friends and neighbors and admitting that I was in over my head with the situation that I was able to get through it the way that I did.

But how Authentic should we be? I mean, does the person who asks you how you are deserve to drown in your problems? Do your kids really benefit from every story of your childhood? Does everyone on Facebook really want to hear about your healing, your running, how much you like pesto and what exactly your garden is doing today? How much of all that is really who you are? Is it being unauthentic when you choose to hold back because you are scared to death of rejection even when the reality is that you don’t want to hold back at all.  Would pushing past that fear actually be authentic or is it authentic to live in fear? Maybe you are just a fearful person and that is just as valid. Or is the authenticity in being open about that fear, about being transparent? Reaching out and talking to someone about how terrified you are.  Allowing someone to witness you just as you are. How you really are.

One thing that I do know is that the more I make the choice to just be real I am always amazed at how many times people will comment that it helped them in some way. Being authentic and expressing your fear, allowing yourself to be fearful and to feel vulnerable can be very helpful. Not only for yourself in that expressing this might get you the perspective or help that you need to move through a situation, but also  to the person who is able to witness and help. It can show each other that we are all struggling with things and maybe it is ok to be real and maybe not try to be perfect, but just be. Just be human. And for once just be ok with who you are in that moment.

Thanks for everyone who reads this, those who follow and those who don’t. Thanks for witnessing my reality and taking a peak inside. I know how much it helps me to reach out in this way and my hope is that in doing so it might reach someone and help them too. With much love ❤ thanks for reading.

A week ago I signed off of Facebook, deactivated my account and logged off. I wasn’t really sure why except I felt that I needed to take a break and have more face to face interactions. Less scrolling and more doing. On Saturday (day 5 of the journey) I was sitting out back drinking my coffee (I recently started drinking coffee again too) when I realized I was just staring into my yard contemplating. It was such a strange feeling when I realized that it has been a long time since I had done that, but that I used to do that all the time. I would sit and look around trimming hedges in my head, pulling a weed or two , visualizing a new thing here or there. Then I would get up and starting doing those things. I would work for a while aimlessly going from thing to thing and then stop, get more coffee and sit again and start all over again.  I used to be comfortable being with myself, content to just be. Comfortable in my time alone, mostly because those moments were rare, a novelty.

On top of giving up Facebook, my boys were gone with their uncle for the weekend and I had no plans.  I haven’t been seeing anyone and all my friends were busy doing other things. The universe had plans for me to be on my own and I was terrified, but up for the challenge. It was during this time that I caught myself contemplating. That is when I realized that I was actually doing ok. Perhaps the most Ok that I have been in a very long time. I realized that I have been spending a lot of time running in circles and reaching outside of myself trying to avoid being quiet. I didn’t want to see that I was alone, without a partner for the first time in my adult life.

It’s been two years since Scott passed away.  I spent most of the first year being relieved that he wasn’t suffering anymore, that none of us were. That the work of the whole situation was done.  I was exhausted and so I rested, a lot. I had accepted what had happened and saw as much of the blessing in all of it as I could.  When I wasn’t resting I was hiking or the boys and I were traveling. Anything as long as I didn’t stop for too long.

When I did stop and think I had a hard time remembering the good times. It was easier to remember how hard things were at times.  I accepted the fact that Scott and I had not always had the best marriage and maybe this was a chance to find someone who might be a more compatible match. I reached out and I dated  men with qualities I felt like Scott didn’t have and I thought that I needed. Those things were nice to find and perhaps maybe they are important qualities to have. The only problem was that there was one really big thing missing… Love.  Scott really loved me. He often loved me when I couldn’t love myself. He was the most patient man I have ever met.  He really understood me and knew me and I while he didn’t always want to talk as much as me and didn’t get my humor and would scold me for my bad language,  he loved me anyways.  It was never an issue and he always had my back. There was never a question from the first day we met wether we would still be together, not to him. He would say “we love each other, don’t worry, we will be fine”. That used to bug me, I had felt like he took me for granted, and maybe he did,  but now I realize that I had something rare. I never really appreciated a lot of things about him, about us. When things were tough in our lives that is when we were the best together and I think that is really what love is. When things get hard, you dig in and be there for each other and you don’t  give up. We really did love each other, the real kind of love the kind that most people never experience. I experienced it and never really saw it till now…

We would sit out back drinking coffee in the morning and contemplate. We would just sit in our own thoughts for a while and then we would take turns sharing our thoughts and we would dream and scheme and plan all kinds of things that we never did and a lot of things that we did do. He would usually feed the birds, (something that I just can’t seem to do) the humming birds were always his favorite…  I would putter around in the garden and then we’d  get more  coffee and sit some more and more thoughts would come and more ideas… Maybe that is why it has been so hard to just sit.  I sit and I think and then there is nobody there to listen to my crazy idea, just me, maybe the cat. The kids are almost always still in bed…So instead I would scroll and stare at the computer screen. I would see everyone else’s crazy ideas, dreams and schemes and I would  take my phone with me outside and take pictures and post them and scroll and share my thoughts here and there trying to feel a connection, but mostly avoid  feeling alone…

So I stopped, I finally just stopped. Now I am beginning the journey of diving into me and being with me. I am getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. So far I think it is actually going very well. I am starting to feel creative again and have gotten all kinds of things done and I am sleeping really well for the first time in a long while and it is getting more and more consistent.

Lately  I’ve noticed the humming birds keep coming up to me when I am out there . I have noticed the finches and the titmouse too,  I haven’t seen them all in a long while.   It makes me remember when we lived in the house before this one that we had this little family of three tufted titmouse (those are my favorite), a family of humming birds and two blue jays that were really annoying.  One morning I was at my kitchen window and this humming bird flew right up to the widow and hovered and looked right at me and I remember telling Scott that I thought it was our humming bird from the old house (we had only moved a few blocks away). He put some food out for it right away and food out back in hopes that the other birds might show up. About a week went by and these three little titmouse showed up out back. A couple weeks later there were these two blue jays causing a ruckus and the humming birds were coming around front to the feeder. We were certain it was “our birds” from the other house. So seeing the humming birds the past week or two I feel like it’s  Scott trying to send me a message. I can see him sitting and drinking his coffee with a grin on his face nodding, letting me know that it is going to be ok. Maybe it’s time to feed them and invite them back into my yard. So maybe as I contemplate I can have some company again. ❤