Freedom From Fear

Published on: December 7, 2018December 7, 2018 by catballou24 3 Comments

There are things we tell ourselves. That we are not good enough. That we are not strong enough. We are not pretty enough. We just don’t have what it takes. We all know those voices. They creep in at some point in our lives and change who we are depending on how long they stick around. Sometimes right down to our very DNA until those thoughts and voices are just part of us, like a limb.

For some of us, those can be a lifetime of inner doubts and ridicule. They lead us down dark alleys, both figuratively and literally at times. We make choices based on fear or apathy for our own selves. And that fear can sometimes tell us it’s someone else’s fault, so we start developing resentments and sometimes fall into victim thinking. It is too much for us to be responsible for, too overwhelming. Some of us are silent in this and some of us will tell anyone who will listen. It becomes a security blanket or shield. It’s something we know and so to just push it away can be even scarier than staying in the muck and dis-ease of our thoughts.

“What if we let it go and try to heal and things just get worse? How much more can I take? I think I will just stay here and guard my sadness. I will just pretend to smile and people will like me. I will say yes, all the time so no one gets mad at me. I can keep all these balls in the air. Until one drops. Then look at me, I knew I would fail. How can I hide my shame and guilt and fear? I will retreat. Lick my wounds and pretend it didn’t happen. I will clutch my blanket tighter. Smile, they won’t notice if you keep smiling.” It’s exhausting.

Sometimes, especially for a lot of women, our weaknesses are taken advantage of. These awful moments can plunge us further into the darkness. The voices tell us we deserved it. We just are not good enough. And we learn to cope, sometimes with unhealthy lifestyle choices whether it be alcohol, food, drugs, shopping, etc. Sometimes we just cling onto other wounded souls and try to glean some comfort. Unfortunately, their own dis-ease prohibits them from comforting us for too long. And the cycle continues. Resentment, fear, self doubt. You get the picture. It gets ugly.

This is reality for so many in this world. This was my reality for years and years, most of my life really. My fear was my security and I clung to it like a drowning person clutching a rock. Facing all of it has been incredibly scary. There have been times I was sure I wasn’t able to breath. But breath I did, and the most wonderful things started happening. It’s been incredibly freeing. I don’t have to be that victim. I don’t have to make choices based on my own fear anymore. I can actually be happy and mean it! What?!

A little over 4 years ago I wasn’t sure this was possible for me. I didn’t know that I could step into the light. But then I found my community. Like a scared animal, I slowly crept out of my cave and into the arms of these souls who did not coddle me, but who instead have guided me to seeing a brighter day.

They answer the phone when I call and they listen, and then they help me take action. They don’t tease me or make me feel small. Their love and experience lifts me up when I am feeling weak and make my own light shine even brighter when I am feeling strong. They know who they are. They are men and women who have made different choices. Healthier choices. They guide me and help me guide others. They help me find my faith, find my trust and find God. And they allow me to fall down sometimes, without judgement, hands outstretched to help me back up again. They teach me to be of service. And we laugh, great joyful belly laughs. Have you ever done that?? Just laughed until you cried and then just kept laughing some more?? It is so wonderful!

And I found these friends both in my daily life and in my business life. The two have melted into one and it’s truly a gift. All these souls filling my heart with love and light and the beauty of God. I never knew. ❤️

So now, I can fall down. And yes it sometimes hurts. And yes, there are moments I don’t feel like standing back up. And every so often those voices try to whisper. But I have a better security blanket now. Something much stronger and more real than I could imagine. And I have a community to help me when I struggle. And most importantly, I have God so am never truly alone.

“Fear is only an illusion. It is the illusion that creates the feeling of separateness – the false sense of isolation that exists only in our imagination.” Jeraldine Saunders

Waking Up In Winter

Published on: October 14, 2018 by catballou24 Comment

So tomorrow we have a cold front moving in. Here in Austin, we are just finishing with our real feel 100+ degree weather and most everyone is excited about the front. Everyone will break out their flannels and jeans and boots, and I will be one of them. The cold front will last 3 or 4 days before the temperature hikes back up to high 70’s/mid 80’s.

We laugh about “sweater weather” here. Our Arctic blast. Most love the colder temps until they drop too far. Too far for here is around 55 degrees. After a few weeks of this, most seem to begin longing for the warmer days. Many winters, we only get a handful of these colder temps. It’s rare to have full on freezes and when it snows everyone loses their shit. It’s exciting and frightening all at once. Mind you, it rarely sticks and is usually only a few flakes mixed with rain and sleet. But still, it is such a break in our common weather cycle that everyone decides they must shut down the city. You East coasters must roll your eyes at us southerners. By mid January, most here are ready for Spring.

I have a confession to make. I hate warm weather. I cringe when I see even mid 70’s in the forecast. I secretly pray every year that the 4 day cold front will miraculously turn into a full on blizzard. I scout the internet for pictures like the one below and daydream about that being my space. I long to sit at a coffee shop with a hot drink watching the cold through the window. And there must be a fireplace somewhere in that scenario.

Dark, cloudy, days make me happy — especially if it happens to be raining or snowing. On a cloudy day there is beauty in the various colours and shapes of the clouds: white, light grey, dark grey, black. The clouds may be moving fast or slow, forever changing. There is a cool, refreshing breeze or a chilling bite in the air. And who doesn’t enjoy the beauty of falling snow or the fresh scent of the cool rain coming down. There is a sense of excitement when watching the weather forecast. Something exciting is happening or about to happen. Especially here in Central Texas. Will an Arctic blast actually create a winter wonderland for us this year? I have only seen it once in the 12 years I have lived here, and it only lasted a couple days. Not long enough in my book!

Before anyone starts jumping to any conclusions, let me clarify. I am not sad or depressed in warm weather. At least not excessively so. I just withdraw more. I am less excited about leaving the air conditioned space within my home, and I keep the window unit next to my bed at the lowest possible temperature. Poor husband bravely freezes every night so I don’t overheat. So am I weird? Possibly, but I don’t think so.

Even though the numbers are low, I am not alone in liking grey skies, cold weather and thunderstorms. Most people believe that seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is only triggered by winters or sunless, rainy days due to the lack of sunlight, but in some rare cases, people feel depressed on sunny days and cloudy, dull skies make them happy. The condition is known as reverse SAD. About 10% of all SAD sufferers experience it in reverse. I think I have a mild case to be honest.

For me, when the cold temperatures hit I actually start feeling more alive. My brain seems to wake up and ideas begin to flow again. New York University’s professor Adam Alter said, “Sunshine dulls the mind to risk and thoughtfulness.” A research study conducted by social psychologists in Australia concluded that good weather could hinder our cognitive functions. On cold cloudy days, our minds are less distracted and drawn inward to think more deeply, hence increasing our focus on the task at hand or the idea in our head.

Spiritually I grow the most in the winter season. My husband, who is the opposite of me in all this I will add, just spent some time in Aspen with some good friends. One of them explained how she NEEDS the harsh winter weather to grow spiritually. It isn’t a choice for her. I completely understand, hence my fantasies of living in Sweden, bundled up by the fire. I honestly pray that one year I will get to live out a winter season in a part of the world that actually has winter. There is always the possibility of me hating it once I am in the thick of it. But something inside me doesn’t believe that. This is probably the number one reason why my husband isn’t likely to agree to it, I imagine he is afraid I will never want to leave.

My season is coming, tomorrow will be just a tease but I will take it. My brain is stretching awake and my soul is opening up to all the possibilities of growth. Will I get my blizzard this year? I suppose anything is possible. What season wakes you up to all your potential?

Getting A Good Night’s Sleep

Published on: August 8, 2017August 22, 2018 by catballou24 Comment

Every living creature needs to sleep. It is the primary activity of the brain during early development. By the age of two, most children have spent more time asleep than awake and overall, a child will spend 40 percent of his or her childhood asleep. Sleep is especially important for children as it directly impacts mental and physical development. It keeps them healthy in both mind, spirit and body.

Sleep is just as important as nutrition and exercise. It’s when the body repackages neurotransmitters, chemicals that enable brain cells to communicate. And experts have recently been able to demonstrate that sleep allows brain cells to “take out the trash” each night, flushing out disease-causing toxins. How cool is that?!

In our home to help promote a good night’s sleep, we diffuse these 4 oils together regularly. My kids call it the “sleeping gas” and are not always happy when they see me filling the diffusers because they know they won’t be able to fight it for very long. LOL!

The 4 EO’s we use are: 4 drops each of Valor, Peace and Calming, Lavender and Cedarwood.

Valor’s smell is very soothing and calming and may be especially calming and comforting to young children after an overactive and stressful day.

Peace & Calming® is a gentle, fragrant blend. When diffused, it helps calm and uplift the spirit, promoting relaxation and a deep sense of peace. You will find that children are also very drawn to this oil. I believe it’s the orange and tangerine oils combined. Do you remember as a child loving anything with orange in it? I do – orange juice, soda, candy, sherbet!

The benefits of Lavender oil include relaxation, easing stress and more. It is a gentle oil so can be used on children and even animals (our dogs and cats sleep well when the sleeping gas comes on I might add).

Cedarwood Essential Oil has an earthy aroma that is soothing and grounding. It is a well documented oil, used by the Sumerians, Egyptians and Tibetans. And is mentioned over 40 times in the Bible. Cedarwood oil contains the highest amount of sesquiterpenes which are a hydrocarbon group that is found in essential oils. They stimulate the limbic system of the brain which helps to elevate our mood and helps us relax (overcome stress). This explains why Cedarwood is relaxing and may help with focus.

This is the sleeping gas mixture we discovered when our journey started with Young Living. It has continued to work so we continue to use it. We can tell a difference now when we forget to fill the diffusers at night or are out of one of the oils…yikes! Using this blend the kids sleep better and so do us grown ups!

Tree Mamas

Published on: February 6, 2016February 13, 2016 by catballou24 Comment

A Tribe is defined as:

“A group of persons having a common character, occupation, or interest”

“A large family”

These are definitions found on the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.

Seth Godin in his book “Tribes” says,

“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea….A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.”

We all have several tribes we belong to; family, work, social. For this post, I am going to focus on a specific tribe of mine. The Mothering Tree Mamas.

We all found ourselves in the same position 11 years ago; we were all pregnant and due in the same month. None of us knew each other prior to when we all joined a due date group on the MotheringDotCommunity forums. I cannot remember the exact number of people in that group at the time, there were quite a few from all over the world, but we all had a common interest in natural parenting.

Within the forum, we all discussed the normal growths and fears that pregnancy brought to us. For some this was their first. For some of us this was our last. We spanned 20 year age gaps (yes, I was close to 40 at this point) and had different plans on where and how we were giving birth. Out of all these women, a few of us began banding together more and more. Our discussions started growing from the obvious pregnancy commiserating to more personal topics. One of these beautiful women, my dear friend Amanda emerged as our leader and started a website forum just for us, a way to communicate. We became known collectively at that point as The Mothering Tree….we were the Tree Mamas!

Our group spoke almost everyday at some point or another. We all exchanged gifts to each other (we had a monthly exchange for awhile recycling items we no longer used but wanted to gift to the next mama), listened to our problems together, we fought, we cried and we cheered each other on. We had become a family…a sisterhood. We had never met each other in person at this point, but we knew we could rely on each other. When one member was sick or in a dire situation, we all banded together sending care packages, financial help when we could, even phone calls of support. We had a bead exchange and all made nursing necklaces for our babies, knowing we were all using the same beads. We all knew each others secrets and fears, and still do. We had a commonality of all wanting the most natural births and lives possible. We never judged each other on our decisions. I remember a particular phone call the day my dear friend Michelle gave birth to her super huge baby boy by c-section. I cried with happiness that he was healthy and she was fine! We cried together about miscarriages, last babies, fertility problems and relationship issues. We laughed about our own short comings, our children’s antics, our own private jokes. And in all those 11 years, not a day has gone by that one or more of us hasn’t checked in with someone in the group.

Over the years we have had the privilege to meet several of each other in person. And many of us speak on the phone regularly. The beautiful thing about meeting is it’s like this enormous gift because we finally get to hug each other in real life. I nearly broke down the hotel room door when Jill showed up to the convention we were both attending for our oils business. Our other team mates just laughed and laughed at our sheer joy of finally getting that hug! And spending several days at a knitting retreat with Michelle will still be one of my most favorite journeys. I can’t imagine my life without these strong, beautiful mamas walking beside me.

Mothering magazine started back in 1976. Peggy O’Mara became editor in 1980. The magazine’s web forum, MotheringDotCommunity or “MDC” began in the 90’s and has 160,000 registered members as of February 2011. Peggy’s goal was to bring a natural, alternative and beautiful rhythm of ideas and support to mothers and fathers within the pages of the magazine. The forums provided a place where people could discuss these ideas, for many it was the only place to do this. The magazine’s last print issue was the November-December 2010 edition. The magazine announced it would end online publication with it’s March-April 2011 edition and become solely the Mothering website. By this time Peggy had moved on but her legacy remains within the tone and strings of lives brought together during her years with the magazine. The forums are still the meeting place for women looking for their tribe and support. I don’t know if Peggy realized she was creating amazing, life long sisterhoods when she first sanctioned having an online presence, but this is the most beautiful part to come out of Mothering, in my opinion anyway. I gained a whole new group of sisters.

All of us Tree Mamas are getting older, and I am so looking forward to one day all of us getting together and dancing in unison that we have each other. We may be super old ladies by then, but it won’t matter. We are strong! We are loved! We are a tribe! We are the Tree Mamas! And I love them all!

The mamas, well a few of them anyway:

Just Breath

Published on: February 4, 2010December 30, 2015 by catballou24 1 Comment

Heather over at Shivaya Naturals had a great post today that included this picture:

(Photo courtesy of Sarah of Bella Luna Toys)

We have been doing alot of mixing things up around here. Our natural rhythms were being pushed aside to make room for the business of life. We were not forgetting what is important, but just going too fast to really stop and breath in the moments with our kids. So we are taking some steps backwards and starting anew.

We have very basic needs for our life as a family, and to be happy is at the top of the list. Just like most families these days, we feel the crunch of the economy. We spent last year with J out of a job and literally making just enough to keep the house and lights on (most of the time it was literally down to the last day and last penny). It was extremely hard, extremely scary, and extremely humbling. During these darker days, some light did creep in though. We found out just what we are all made of and we found we are strong. We became more creative in our endeavors to bring joy into our home. I found my green thumb in the garden and my knitting hands became calloused with the hours spent learning new techniques. The girls found that more didn’t necessarily make them happy and that the things they received made from mama and daddy’s hands were better than any store bought gift. We learned to simplify and to really be happy with what we have. This isn’t to say we were hoping J stayed out of work forever, not at all…but rather these were lessons we learned inside each of us, even when we didn’t realize we were learning them. There were many dark days…depressing days to be honest…but now that J is working again we are realizing how easy it is to get away from the good parts of our time in the dark. We are by no means sleeping on 100 dollar bills, but at least we know we can pay our bills on time, and treat ourselves to dinner out once in awhile. Still, having been so poor that we honestly didn’t know where the extra money we’d need was coming from each month (thank the gods for my childcare work here at home though….that job kept our lights on), it was easy to start feeling “rich” once a steady paycheck was flowing in. We got cable again, splurged a little more on things and just got busier for some reason…

Well, we are taking a few steps back now and just breathing. We are happy…I am so incredibly grateful to have the man I do and to have found a way to contribute to our income and still be home with our girls. He has never pressured me to do anything other than be happy. We support each other emotionally and completely. We need to just slow down a little and start just being again. Our children are really our world. They are amazing kids, all of them. They have taught us so much about what is truly important in life. When we stop and just let them be, our world is so much richer.

So with all that hot air now blown, this post is really boiling down to a very simple conclusion. It’s time to just stop and breath, laugh, hug, play and love. Thank you Heather for reminding us that we really are happier when we make that time to truly be with our children. To listen to their cues and to admire their tenacity. Heather has asked for other ideas on how to create a joyful existence with our kids, so I encourage you all to go read her post and comment. I challenge you all to let go of the stresses of everyday life, the to do lists, schedules, worries and take a moment to breath deep and just smile. Enjoy every moment that you can because life flies by and pretty soon, those babes are grown up and on their own. You don’t get this time back…enjoy it while you have it.

Thanks for listening to this long winded post. Hope you all find your zen space, I’m rediscovering mine for sure! Peace!