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Posts Tagged ‘awareness’

Re-Entry Can Be Bumpy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 31, 2013| 3 Comments »

Photo of lion sleeping on top of a 4x4

The Symbol of My Vacation (Photo from the San Diego Safari Park, March 2013)

The days after a great vacation can be pretty confusing for me. There’s the jet lag and the changes in temperature and terrain. Most of all, though, I find it difficult to prioritize and to get up to speed. For an entire week, I totally embraced LAZY, coming and going as I pleased, doing whatever interested me in the moment. Laid back. Relaxed. Non-productive. Ahhhhh … California!

I’ve been kicking up my heels in a sunny pasture for several days, and now there’s talk of a harness and plow. Really? Uh, I don’t think so! And so my rebellious nature begins to plot and plan for full RETIREMENT! Endless green pastures! No more plow! Oh, it would be heavenly!

Wouldn’t it?

I’m glad I know the answer. For me, there is no such thing as endless play. In order to really enjoy my time off, it needs to be exactly that: “time off.” It is actually the intensity of my life, of my work, that makes my play so very sweet!

So, today, as I stare down the mountains of mail, methodically work my way through pages of to-do’s, and once again juggle a demanding schedule, I do so with a smile on my face.

Why?

  1. Because I love my life and the work I do (after all, I have followed my soul’s passion for nearly three decades!)
  2. Because I have loads of great memories from this past week (more on that in my next blog), and
  3. Because I have another trip planned for July!

Life is oh, so good and FULL . . . pasture, harness, and all!

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When Life Gets Stormy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 7, 2013| 9 Comments »

Acrylic painting

I painted this picture to remind myself of the beauty that lies just beyond the darkness

Lately I’ve been feeling off, down, exhausted, sad. Usually, I’m not much of a crier, but this morning at the cottage, I wept. It’s a safe, nurturing place. No one asks me what’s wrong. No one tells me how to feel better. It’s quiet. It’s warm. There’s coffee. And sometimes I cry.

If a coaching client came to me feeling like this, what would I say? I would say, “Tell me about the sadness, tell me about the tears.”

There’s so much going on right now! Dannie’s cancer, Debbie’s death, Britain’s escalating interviews with the Army recruiters (for Special Forces, no less!) My sister-cousin is struggling with SAD. My close friends are talking about moving to Florida. My laptop won’t connect to the network, and my car is leaking antifreeze.

But the work of life goes on. Payrolls need to be processed, bills must to be paid, groceries bought, food prepared, dishes washed, rugs vacuumed. I have a full life that right now feels full of “have-to’s” instead of “want-to’s.” I paste a lame smile on my face, and when people say, “How are you doing?” I say, “Okay,” which is a bit of a stretch, but accurate enough not to be a lie. “Fine” would be a lie. “Okay” makes the cut.

The exhaustion comes from holding back the tears, I think. And from holding back the scary thoughts, from keeping my mouth shut when I want to scream, from summoning that damn smile.

At the cottage, I stop holding things back, and the tears erupt in a cloudburst, accompanied by thunder and lightning. It feels like it will rain forever. Buckets of rain. Waterfalls off the hillsides. Puddles in the streets.

But then it lets up and it feels good. It feels “sleep-after-insomnia” good … “shower-after-grubby” good … “spring-after-long-winter” good.

Gradually my ordinary life, challenges and all, feels satisfying once again, and the warming rays of gratitude begin to brighten the corners of my life.

Sometimes it just takes a good downpour to lighten the weight of the clouds, clear the air, and prepare the ground for new growth.

Oh, and that smile on my face … it’s the real thing now.

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Saying Goodbye to My Teacher

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 24, 2013| 8 Comments »

Painting

One of my paintings that was inspired by a guided meditation. It’s entitled, “Source.”

One week ago today, an important person in my life died. I met Debbie Ford in January of 2006 at the Shadow Process Workshop in San Diego. It was the first step of an incredible, transformational journey that proved the saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” I was ready, and Debbie taught. She taught me so much and so well, it’s hard to remember how resistant I was at first, how terrified, how uncertain. Debbie taught me to trust my heart, to believe in my own inner wisdom, and to trust the process. After a lifetime of holding myself to impossibly high standards (i.e., perfection), it was Debbie who taught me how to accept and love every part of my humanly flawed self. The last seven years have evolved my soul and transformed my spirit.

This past week has been a roller coaster of emotion for me. I will openly admit I’m no good at dealing with death–with anyone’s death. My parents modeled nothing but avoidance for me. Death has claimed my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, cousins, and both of my parents. I have not attended one funeral of a family member. We don’t “do funerals.” I guess in my family, it is expected that people have the consideration to die with as little disruption to the world around them as possible. We are to disappear quietly, leaving behind as many good memories as possible along with adequate instructions for the distribution of our belongings. Death in our family is treated sort of like the person moved to another country. We talk about them, remember the good times, but they’re so far away that we never quite get around to visiting or calling.

So, this week I’ve been bouncing off the stages of grief like a pinball being flipped around inside a supercharged arcade game. On a daily basis I may decide that Debbie’s death doesn’t affect me (denial), followed by the urge to go back to bed (depression). Then I find myself raging in an email about something she said four months ago (anger). Soon I am painting in the cottage and feeling as though I am one with the universe (acceptance). Before you know it I’m telling God that it was her time, but it’s not my time; her work was complete, mine is just beginning (bargaining), only to be interrupted by more tears and an angry declaration that she just wasn’t that big a deal to me in the scheme of things.

See, I told you I was no good at this! And that’s okay. I love that I’m no good at this! Because I’m not a bit worried that I’m not “doing it right,” that I am somehow “less than” because I don’t grieve like everyone else, or that I won’t find a way out of my sorrow. I learned from Debbie Ford that whatever I choose as a way to process my grief is perfect for me, and if I just allow my heart to guide the way, the process will lead to the evolution of my soul.

Goodbye, Debbie. I love you, and I will miss you.

Debbie Ford and Barbie Dallmann

Debbie Ford and me in San Diego, 2009

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A Dozen Random Notes on a Long Marriage

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 14, 2013| 10 Comments »

B&D Photo

Barbie & Dannie – Taken at Shell-Fish’s Wedding in 2012

Today is our 32nd wedding anniversary. Very romantic, getting married on Valentine’s Day, right? Would you like to hear the proposal?

Barbie: “If we really want to buy this house, we’ll have a lot better chance of getting a mortgage approved if we’re married.”

Dannie: “You’re right. So, do you want to get married next Saturday? We could just run down to Virginia and do it all in the same day.”

Barbie: “Okay. That works. Then we can apply for the loan on Monday.”

It wasn’t until a day later that we realized “next Saturday” was Valentine’s Day.

Here are some other things you may not know about us:

1. When we met in February of 1977, we didn’t like each other at all. He was one of my bosses at the Nebraska Public Service Commission. Behind each others backs, I called him “Mr. Military” and he tried to get me fired.

2. By August that same year, everything had changed. We embarked on our first road trip, from Nebraska to the East Coast. Even after 60+ hours of driving, we never ran out of things to talk about. And we still haven’t.

Dannie 1977

From our 1977 Road Trip. This is Dannie at the Air and Space Museum standing beside an original Norman Rockwell painting.

3. We make up jokes about everything. Maybe it’s shared punch lines that keep us together. (“You never count your checkers while you’re sittin’ on the litter … there’ll be time enough for countin’ when the poopin’s done.” Five points if you can name that song!) We have thousands of insider jokes. I just love that about us.

4. When we lived together in Lincoln, we walked to work (just over a mile), and we still regularly love taking long walks together year round.

5. We’ve always had clearly defined chores. Currently he makes the bed, does the laundry, and takes out the garbage. I cook, manage the finances, and clean (with the twice-a-month assistance of Connie).

6. When Britain was young, we took turns every other day in the primary care giver/helper roles. We called it “Being on the Hook.” As a toddler, when Britain needed something, his first question was always, “You on hook, Ma?”

7. Behind the wheel, he is the one who drives too slowly. I have a lead foot.

8. He snores (sometimes), and so do I (sometimes).

9. When I worked for Columbia Gas, Dannie packed my lunch every day for four years and always included a love note.

10. We do our grocery shopping together, and he always complains about how long it takes me to read the labels.

11. Most TV watching we do together. Over the years our favorite shows have included MASH, 30 Something, LA Law, Friends, Mad About You, Desperate Housewives, Modern Family, and Parenthood.

12. He took all the fun out of Nebraska Football by insisting that it was NOT “just a game.” This is one of two topics we have agreed to NEVER discuss again.

Happy Anniversary, Dannie! Way back when, everyone said it wouldn’t work … hasn’t it been fun proving them wrong?!?

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