Sitting with anger and compassion

Meltdowns are inevitable. My two older daughters still get them from time to time. More recently, my eight-year-old had one. It was over a petty issue and not pretty.

Nevertheless, she was angry. What didn't help was having a slew of people around her that only made her embarrassment and frustration grow bigger. Outside comments from others rarely help. Even I, as her mother, can only offer some solace, if any.

So what does one do? As a parent? As someone witnessing their child in an uncontrollable state of sometimes 'whacky' outrage?

I started by talking to her. I failed.

I tried again. I failed again.

Finally, I had to remove her from the entire situation. She was not happy. It made her angrier!

What does a parent do, again?

Words fail us in moments like these. Words are irrelevant during these highly emotional bouts of anger, frustration and emotional exhaustion. Words do not suffice. Words are merely that, words. The feeling is what is important.

I took her to the car and we left. My husband and I let her grunt and sob her way through her anger. We asked her to breathe and try to 'collect' herself. I'm sure in her young mind she thought, "Collect myself? Clearly, you have no clue mom and dad!" 


Before going home, DH dropped me off at a frozen yogurt cafe with the younger two. He stayed in the car with Sabrina.

He's really good at talking her down from her anger most of the time. My role is more disciplinarian/authoritative since I'm the one that spends most of the time with them while DH works. This is just how the dynamics work in our home. We try to gauge our strengths with respect to balancing parenting issues. There is never an ideal situation but we do our best.

In the 10 minutes we were gone, DH did an interesting exercise with Sabrina. He guided her through sitting with her anger and owning it and deeply feeling every ounce of it. He shared this with me later.

He said to her, "Sabrina, you've very angry so I want you to say the first thing about me that comes to your mind. Anything."

Sabrina: "You are the worst daddy in the entire world! I hate you!" she yelled as she cried more.

DH: "Okay. That was good!" he responded to her.

Sabrina: "Daddy, I really didn't mean that but I do feel better." She said through teary eyes.

DH: "This is good, Sabrina. This is what you're supposed to feel. Being angry is not a bad thing. It is an emotion that you have to allow yourself to feel."

Then he proceeded with her to channel her anger with how she felt about me.

Sabrina: "But I don't want to hurt mommy's feelings. I love her but I am angry!"

DH: "This is okay. This is not bad. You're allowed to be angry at mommy. Being angry doesn't make you a bad person."

She ended up saying the same thing she had said when she used my husband as the focus, that I was the 'worst mom in the world.' Then her heart became compassionate because she became aware of herself and how she felt when she was angry.

So what was the purpose of all this?
He was teaching her the beauty of anger. Anger is not bad, it is an opportunity for compassion. Compassion is inevitably born. Compassion for herself. Compassion for others. Knowing the difference between anger and compassion was what he wanted her to feel.

Maybe you think that all this sounds lovely and easy? It is not. We all know that parenting is a challenge (if you are a parent, that is.) Melding personalities and emotions and situations are never-ending. There is always work to be done, but you knew that already.

I struggle everyday with trying to live in awareness. Trying to parent in awareness. It is a work in progress. I don't have the answers to most things. Who does?

What we all have is the way we 'feel' things. This is a moment to moment experience and we are trying to build this awareness within our children. It is very easy to get caught up in the minutiae of life, I do it all the time.

I've noticed that when I allow myself to sit with my anger, no matter how big or small it may be, I release something new about myself. I find a different perspective, meaning, experience that I can glean from. I want my children to have this experience as well. No thing is absolute or guaranteed to give you a certain outcome but in order to see the lesson in things, we must become aware and sit with whatever it is that we're experiencing.

Just as my daughter will continue to experience many meltdown moments, I will be learning something new each time she faces a challenge because this is what parenting and life is all about. Learning and becoming aware of our 'selves' because there is beauty in this.

Pain and suffering certainly sucks but somewhere between the ugliness and pain of it all, there is something to glean from it... something raw, something beautiful, something healing...

Why gun violence is a touchy topic for me

Once again I'm shocked at the news today. The shooting in Aurora, CO has siphoned another spine chilling memory for me. Gun violence is a touchy subject in my world.

No child should ever have to endure the paralyzing fear of their life being threatened with a firearm. Still, it happens too often. No child should ever have to question such horrid stories like the Columbine shooting or the Virginia Tech Massacre. I don't agree that these are topics are ones that children need to be privy to.

But what about those of us that have endured gun violence first-hand? At the age of five my life was threatened by a very sick and broken person who pointed a gun to my left temple. This memory was seared in my psyche for life. The fear is still palpable to me today.

On days like today I'm faced with the choice of whether I should share these horrific stories with my children ages 8, 6 and 4.  Am I wrong for sharing the facts with them if I feel I need to?

I want my children to live a happy and almost carefree life. I don't want them burdened with the violence in today's world. I want them to understand that not every situation is perfect but that there are also so many things to be grateful for and to feel fulfilled about. I want them to be well-rounded people.

I'm trying to raise my three daughters to be aware of the world at large by cultivating compassion within them. I'm far from exceptional but am doing my best. So when I read today's headline, I had to choose how to go about sharing it with them because well, this is the world we live in.

I decided to share it with my eldest in private. She's almost 9. I've been incredibly candid with her about most things so I felt in my gut that she'd be okay with learning about the Aurora Theater shooting. Her empathy swelled in a matter of seconds for the people that were hurt and killed in the shooting. I decided to keep it from my 6 and 4 year old because my gut told me so.

I went on to explain to her that people that do these things are broken themselves. She understood perfectly. I also expressed to her to never forget that all beings, good and bad deserve compassion. I often tell her that people are born innocent and pure but that the world and other humans are what make them broken. We all have something good inside of us.

I respect all parents who choose not to share these awful stories with their children. Perhaps if my situation and experience were different, I'd choose the same thing. It's a heavy subject for me, still.

I find these moments in parenting challenging because the decisions we make on behalf of our children ultimately stay with them for the remainder of their lives. I've had to live with the traumatic memory of the day my life was 'almost taken' (all melodrama aside) and have had to dance around subjects such as the one like today's with respect to how I share them with my daughter(s) with the utmost care and sensitivity.

This is why gun violence is a touchy topic for me. No, it is not easy. No, it is not pleasant. No, I don't know if I'm choosing the correct answer but I'm doing my best and listening to my gut most of the time. Life is precious and so are our children.

The magical things that happen in ONE year

One year ago today I published my sexual abuse story right here on this blog. It was a great big leap in the direction of allowing myself to be vulnerable, open and candid about a dark piece of my past.

I was relieved and proud of my choice because I had held my truth in for too long.

Because of that post, I swung a pendulum into motion with my writing. Little did I know that the posts that would follow, would inevitably start to shape a bigger story. My story. The stories that shaped me. The stories that ultimately do not define me but that have allowed me to peel my layers down and own my own truth.

This blog has served as a much bigger purpose for me. Forget that I started this blog back in 2007. It was 2011 when this blog started to shine for me. While my readership isn't stellar in comparison with other 'blogs' out there, it doesn't matter because it is not about that. I'm not competing with anyone in the blogosphere. I write for myself and if I get readers out of it or inspire one more person, so be it.

Blogging has given me the permission to freely express myself without restrictions or censoring.

I share my raw self, always.

Among the positive moments, I shared how I was published on Babble and was syndicated on BlogHer, twice.

I've written about my struggles with depression, anxiety, PTSD and my road to becoming a writer. Most importantly, weaved between all these posts and authentic expressions, I've been shaping my memoir.

My epiphany came when I realized the one thing that carried me through my childhood with the hopes of something bigger, books.

I am a memoirist. I write and say this with confidence.  

It has taken me one year to own this truth. One year.

I still struggle with other issues, but that's just part of living. I have no qualms in admitting that most of the time, I'm a mess. If you are too, don't ever feel alone.

Today, the writing of my memoir is flowing and ignited with fervor and heart. It has taken two years of my putting it aside because there were things that I still needed to process. These things cannot be predicted or planned or forced, they simply have to happen when they need to (much like the birth of a baby.) Even when the story belongs to you, you cannot tell it until you fully own it.

Here's to one year of self-discovery, dedication, perseverance, a personal will bigger than my imagination and always believing that you CAN bring the mundane and the magical together.

Thank you, my beloved and loyal readers.

Current chaos

I'm craving a slower simpler life because my current chaos is simply draining. There are always too many fires to put out, never enough of the 'grossly overrated' time people are always talking about (such a cliché) and then there's the never ending droning of what 'didn't' get done.

I find myself feeling in a constant state of longing for something else, new, better, different, bold, away, far far away from all of the chaos that surrounds me. I know that 'normal' really doesn't exist but slower and simpler DOES. I want that-- slower and simpler.

How can I get there?

Oftentimes I feel like I've hit a plateau in terms of accomplishments. I'm not talking about the long-term ones but rather, the ones within reach. The ones that make you feel good at the end of the day or the end of the month. The ones that remind you that so much of what you're doing matters and is taking place for a really good reason.

Is it just me?

{random doodle by me}

My sweet DH is constantly trying to juggle his own chaos, which inevitably spills into one trying to keep their wits about them. There is not one thing that will ever come easy. Not. A. Thing.

Back to the current chaos issue: When does it get better? When does the dust start to settle? When does it all fall into place? When?

Seems like nothing makes sense and perhaps it's due to too much wading through the minutiae of life or better, all the chaos.

New goal: A heaping dose of slower and simpler, please. 

I guess most of us are simply doing our best... whatever that means. 

My writing path: How I came to own it

{Age 7}

Ms. Braynon was an elderly short and ultra skinny black woman. She'd wear her hair thickly braided and wrapped around her head like a regal head piece that was meticulously pinned and placed. Her large square seeing glasses took over most of her bony face.  She always wore her skirts down to her skinny ankles, long sleeve high buttoned blouses and closed chunky square heeled shoes and stockings.  She seemed like the sweetest and cutest grandmother type until she opened her mouth.

She was also my first grade teacher.

Ms. Braynon was not patient and she was not tolerant of disobedience either. She was always stern and rarely gentle. Her voice quivered when she got angry, which was often.

On one particular day, she wrote one long word on the blackboard and asked us to write as many three letter words as we can spell from that one word she wrote. I sat at the very back of the classroom, and I was still having a hard time with spelling. I remember worrying and getting a stomach ache about trying to spell words. I couldn't think of anything but feeling completely and utterly stupid.

I wrote some words down. Well, only the ones I knew how to spell correctly but they did not contain any of the letters that were in that one long word Ms. Braynon had written on her blackboard. When my paper was graded, I got an "F" and with that, I was asked to come to the front of the class while Ms. Braynon belittled and humiliated me in front of my peers that I didn't know how to spell or follow directions.

I cried at my desk. But I never gave up on words.

***************************

{Age 9}

Ms. Lee was a tall and heavy set woman. Her eyes were very round and buggy like and she always stored her blue Paper Mate pen in her hair, it awkwardly poked out from behind her head. She spoke in a low and vehement voice and she rarely cracked a smile. She controlled her students only with her eyes and she always chewed a small piece of gum that made intermittent 'pop' sounds.

She was also my third grade teacher. Actually, her entire name was Sarah Lee- you know, like that delicious buttered pound cake that came in an aluminum loaf pan except that there was nothing sweet about her.

Source

Ms. Lee  had a peculiar way of correcting our writing pieces. Row by row, she'd make us stand in a line that curled around her oval table desk and one by one, she'd review what each of us had written while the others waited. If she approved of the work, she'd hand it back over to the student and ask them to take their seat. Now, when she didn't approve, and this time is was my turn, she'd retrieve her pen from the back of her hair, hold the work up in the air then she'd violently stab holes on every square inch of the college ruled paper. Once satisfied with her 'stabby' correction, she'd return it and say, "fix that mess." I'd retrieve my 'holy' paper back and embarrassingly return to my seat and attempt to start over again.

This happened to me more times than I could ever count but what it did was increase my tenacity to fix it. No matter how violent Ms. Lee's approach was she ignited a fire within me.  I didn't realize it at the time but I know this as fact now.

Sometime during that school year, Ms. Lee picked me and four other students to participate in a school Spelling Bee. I was simply honored.  It was also the first and only time she non-verbally expressed to me that she knew I was capable of more than I ever thought myself. This stuck to me like fly paper.

***************************

{Age 18}

Ms. Feather was a bubbly and robust elderly lady. She was a grandmother and often talked about her grandchildren. Her skin was powdery pail with peachy cheeks and her hair was short and as silver as freshly polished quarter. She smiled often and animated her voice with every opportunity she could simply to get her point across. Her eyes were gentle and full of laughter.

She was also my twelfth grade English teacher.

Ms. Feather abhorred the phrase "a lot" and prohibited her students to use it. She was stern about this and only this. She encouraged each and every one of us to explore new words, use them in the correct context and read as much as possible because the world of literature was rich and fluid and vast.

She was a lover of the amazing African American writer, Zora Neale Hurston.  That year she had our class read, Their Eyes Were Watching God. This was the first real literary piece of fiction I had ever read and it completely fascinated me. Each week we had a different assignment associated with the novel.  One of my favorite assignments was the one where we had to choose one main character and write up a monologue of what he/she would say in the modern day. The proviso was that it had to be written in the exact same dialect Ms. Hurston wrote the novel in, which was the vernacular of Southern African American English in the early 1900's.

I worked diligently on my piece for two-weeks. I remember practicing it in front of the mirror of my boyfriend's room for clarity and correct slang. I typed up drafts of it in the school library on days I didn't have to work at my part-time job after school.

The day we had to turn the assignment in, Ms. Feather had every student read their piece aloud for a final grade. I nervously stood at the classroom podium to read mine.  I remember feeling proud of my work and of my dedicated efforts to bring forth a piece that would remain true to the character I chose. I had chosen the main character, Janie which was the hardest one.

The entire class applauded after I read and Ms. Feather sat behind her desk with a great big smile on her plump peachy cheeked face. Every opportunity Ms. Feather got, she always reminded me that my writing was something I needed to cultivate and hone because she knew that I had a talent for it. I've never forgotten this.

Each one of these women impacted me in a completely different way. No matter what, it was the path that I needed to trek down in order to arrive where I needed to be. Each experience was a gift in some way, be it discouragement or encouragement because in the end I ultimately choose how to handle the experience. The epiphany always comes later.

I didn't believe that I had writing talent until I was about 28 years old. Soon after that I decided on getting a Master's Degree in Creative Writing.  Even then it took me some time while in the writing program to own this truth of mine. My husband was my constant encouragement and reminder to always go for what I was passionate about. I feel lucky and blessed for this.

I'm currently working on my memoir as well as a book proposal.  I will soon be hunting for a literary agent to pitch my non-fiction book proposal to. I know that nothing will come easy but I also know that whatever the path, it will lead me to where I need to get to. I will be published sooner than later, I truly believe this.

I've come a long way and I struggle with many things but one thing I know for sure is that my voice matters, my stories matter and my talent matters.