postcards from nowhere

Greetings!

Fate has selected you to receive the first edition of my e-delivered 
Postcards from NowHere!  If you enjoy it, please join my mailing list 
by emailing me and typing postcard in the subject line.  I'll probably 
send them once or twice each month.  I welcome your comments as well as 
suggestions for future topics. And please forward it into infinity!  

p.s.  I'm a personal coach, and I love working with people who feel 
that they are not who or where they would like to be in their personal 
and/or professional lives.  I work by telephone, offering one-on-one 
sessions as well as leading teleclasses and  wisdom circles on parenting.
I invite you to contact me for a free get-acquainted session!



POSTCARDS FROM NOWHERE


I was driving in the car last week, singing at the top of my lungs as 
usual, when I felt a lump rising in my throat and tears stinging my eyes.
I had been belting out what I'm pretty sure are the right words to the 
song The Only Thing That's Real by Sister Seven: 

Feels just like being alone. 
I wish I was at home with you. 
You're the only thing that's real.

And I cried.  Because despite being almost constantly surrounded by love 
and attention, I still felt incredibly, unreasonably, a longing for the 
feeling of home.  

Further investigation found that there were lonely voices inside of me 
that I had banished; disowned because they did not fit the image of 
myself that I hold to so tightly.  Pieces of me that wanted to come 
home and be included in my self-image.  I certainly had not accounted 
for the parts of me that are cranky, irresponsible or neurotic in my 
self-bestowed positions of (read these in a deep announcer-voice, 
preferably with an echo) Perfect Mother, Nurturer of All and Reliable 
and Trustworthy Friend and Conscientious and Diligent Employee.   
It's like squishing into an tight pair of jeans and sucking in your 
stomach all day, and then hurrying home so you can finally take them 
off and put on sweats.  How can I function as a whole and authentic 
being when I can hardly breathe?!? 

Oops!  I split a seam in front of all of you!  Some of those less-than-
perfect character traits of mine are exposed.   Now that I can no longer
squeeze all of me into the 'jeans' of Perfect Mother, will I become a 
monster mama?  Well, it hasn't happened so far!  I guess what I just 
became is (drum roll, please) . . . REAL!  I wonder when I decided that 
I had to be perfect to be lovable and valuable?   Lately I've looked and
looked, and I've only found 'perfect' people in my imagination.  Never 
in the real world.  Hmmmmm.

I think I'll try on some new job titles.  In a bigger size, with room 
for all of me to breathe. Maybe good enough and authentic and abundantly 
human will fit better. Maybe next week I'll only watch the last 20 
minutes of my son's Little League game, but I will really be there, 
present and attentive. Not resentful and irritated and checking my watch
every 2 minutes, all the while thinking how Good Mothers stay for the 
whole game!

The biggest joke of all is definitely on me.  I am a little embarrassed 
to find out that the parts that I thought were squeezed into my 'jeans' 
were actually bulging out through the seams the whole time, and my 
friends and family knew about them and loved me anyway!  I was the one 
who had been denying love to my own whole Self . . . the quirky, 
authentic sum of all my parts.  

When I make room in my self-image for all of me, even the 'undesirables',
I no longer feel isolated and alone and fragmented.  I feel whole and 
uniquely me.  When I make a mistake I forgive myself, apologize if 
necessary, and get over it.  That's just how it is when you are 
abundantly human!  So, maybe someday soon if you are next to me in 
traffic, you will hear me singing -

Feels just like being home!