The Best Way to Heal is to Help

When I first set out to write this blog it started because of a wound that was very deep, but very few people could see it. No matter how hard I tried to cover it up, the temporary bandages didn’t seem to be working.

There are bruises we can see, and there are bruises we can’t. It’s the latter that are the most common and the least talked about. 

When I set out to get the frump out of my rump, I didn’t realize that it came with the shedding of the source of my “frumpage.” 

The truth of the matter is that I didn’t realize I was being hurt until I wasn’t being hurt anymore.

It’s been a struggle, almost daily, these past several months trying to figure out if there’s a story to tell. If I was alone, and if I wasn’t, could others need to be helped. If they needed to be helped, how can I do that? 

It’s clear, as I write this, that the pain still exists. Some of the wounds have healed, but it’s an ongoing process. 

I heal when I can fit into that little black dress and am confident to wear it.

I heal when I am not afraid, or bothered by the possibility of enjoying tea alone.

There are other moments I heal. 

But, the biggest is finding ways to help. Would you be willing to help me help others? 

Being "Open" Can Change Your Life

Written around 7:00 p.m., January 16, Local time over the Pacific Ocean. Posted upon return.

This is relief.

Clearly stated, it is my opinion that anyone who says you can't "Eat, Pray, Love" the way Elizabeth Gilbert does is wrong. I just did it and didn't have to take six months off or quit my job. I just wanted it to come to me. You know, the grand feelings of nothingness like relief, solitude, and simple quiet celebrations. I experienced it all.

"Annie, you are free," said a former colleague, who now must be a friend, in the hours after my life changed. Her statement almost immediately allowed me to see that I should celebrate it.

Sidebar: Isn't it funny how one person can say something so simple and we just grasp on to it like a commandment? The smallest thing can make all the difference, I mean one word, one person can change your entire perspective. Ultimately, just by being open, it then changes your life.

Freedom followed me to Hawaii where I just came back from vacation.

The first night I was mistakenly recognized by ten members of the Air Force as a celebrity. Ashley Greene from "Twilight" and Jennifer Grey. I'm so glad they didn't ask me to perform any dirty dancing.

To Michael in Miami, thank you for telling me to relax... I certainly did.

The next day, my friend (who met me in Hawaii from Chicago) and I drove to the North Shore and we ate Mexican food. We escaped the rain and found a private beach where we sat and ran and laughed and took pictures. Later, at The Hula Grill, I ordered a Mai Tai (my first one in almost 8 years) and a seafood platter. That is my "Eat."

That night we went back the hotel bar, where I was the celebrity the night before. It was called The Shore Bird. Immediately I spotted a Man in Maroon sitting across from me. The connection was instant. After a drink or two, conversation, and a walk on the beach the following night it was over.

My friend back in California said, "No pressure, just have fun." I did, but the Man in Maroon represents the "love." Maybe I just had to travel that far for a confidence boost.

The morning after meeting the Man in Maroon we went to Pearl Harbor. There isn't a better place to signify "pray." Standing over the Arizona, I saw the "oil tears" rise up immediately after I prayed, and then I nearly cried.

I never once heard the word or uttered the word frump on this vacation. Getting the Frump Out of Your Rump is a process, a journey, and as much as we want to believe it is possible, it does not happen overnight.

I wish it would, but we are all a work in progress. We're all in or have been in situations we know aren't right but deep down hope that they are. We've all been tugged and pulled at every angle and left to figure out how to keep moving.

I'm still Floating on The Wings of Earthly Angels. Yet, I'm sustained by a journey in which I realized it's ok to be perfectly me, and find out that I'm just as attractive as I had hoped to be.

At the end though, this is not just about me. It is about all of you, too, and if I could have packed you all in a suitcase for the opportunity to just feel free, I would have.

In short, here are the lessons of the island:

• Smile. Everyone will smile back to you. 
• Laugh, because it matches the synchronous sounds of the crashing ocean waves.
• Embrace, because someone who just wants a human connection will embrace you back. 
• Be open. You cannot feel the healing until you recognize the freedom. When you do, let freedom ring. Buy a piece of jewelry, fitted with the plumeria, to remember your self-discovery. I did, and it will stay with me until I have a daughter or a granddaughter one day who needs that reminder as much as I do now.
• Be you. Being open and being you work together. You simply can't be open if you're faking any part of you.
• Love, because it offers the most rewards. 
• Forgive, because there is no passage to any of the above without it.

I forgive myself for believing for so long that I wasn't good enough, beautiful enough, or smart enough to have, or be, what I needed.

It may just be wishful thinking, but I never saw my worry wrinkle...

Join the conversation. Feel free to leave comments below, or  send me an email direct. 

Floating On the Wings of Earthly Angels

The healing is just beginning. 

In these final weeks of 2010, the healing is just beginning. It started with writing this blog. Everyone needs an outlet of some kind to identify why they are hurting and need healing in the first place. 

Putting pen to paper, or fingertips to keys on a keyboard, is one way a person can get close with their thoughts. Joan Didion once said, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” 

Perhaps, healing comes in a two step process when one is writing. First, the thoughts enter your mind. Then, there’s an adjustment between resting on a sturdy foundation and falling into a deep pool of uncertainty. At that point, if you’re writing, the words start to flow. Then, you start to make sense of it. l guess it was more than two steps, wasn’t it? 

This process, this blog is a way to heal, for me. It is my sincerest hope that if you’re reading this, and you wonder how to begin the healing process that maybe you find a nugget of hope, or process, or passages to sustain you. After all, the characteristics that make us all human come in the form of faith, hope and love and are sometimes masked as doubt, worry, or regret. 

Floating on the wings of earthly angels. I’ve said this statement a few times this week and at first it sounded quite holy and mighty. Then, I realized it just happened to be the truth. 

Sometimes, things change in our lives in a way that we don’t understand, or we have trouble accepting why things have changed, or just can’t get beyond being stuck in a moment. 

The healing process for me got a kick start because of others in my life. The recognition that people like you for you and for no other reason is one of the most comforting feelings in the world. People just sometimes show up. You have no idea who they will be or why it is them, but when they do, embrace them with open arms. I have to. 

I’m trying to like myself more. It’s really easy to give up on yourself when you’re so busy running errands, going to work, cooking meals, dealing with the kids, the cat, the dog.... You get the idea. You become exhausted. Remember when I talked about napping? We can’t do anything for anyone else if we don’t do something for ourselves. In 2011, I’m going to like myself more. 

You know, giving is not about the anticipation of anything in return, it’s about the genuine human character of the giver. People who give do so because they want to and because they can. 

And that, realizing that in order to really give, one must heal (which may involve forgiving oneself), accept love, and try to like themselves more and allow themselves time to do all those things, is the lesson learned in 2010. 

Oh, and to smile more. Maybe someone will smile back. 

Get Your Own Blog Prompts at www.reverb10.com

"Change, Big Or Small, Is a Real Challenge"

“... I will be in the hospital Easter, but remember I love you. God bless you, dear one.” 

My Grandma, always putting others first, in the Spring of 2006. She wrote the words in a Easter card, the last legible writing I ever received from her.

“I love you more.” 

My Grandma would say that to me each time she ended a phone call with me. I can hear her saying it to me, it’s the whisper of the faintest distance in the dead of night. In my heart I say, “I love you.”

I can feel her say, “I love you more.”

Since my last post about not wanting worry wrinkles, a part of my life changed. A significant part is no longer and now that is part of my journey.

I believe you don’t necessarily have to be a religious person to experience God’s grace. In a year, for me, that’s been full of changes, both good, and bad, and somewhere in between, grace defines me. 

She, my Grandma, taught me to affect my circumstances, and not to be affected by them. 

Tears, they may stream like a slow, but steady drizzle from a faucet, onto my face, down the curve of my lips, and into my mouth, but they are happy tears. The salty sensation, the cool wet kiss of my own emotions on my cheek, remind me again of the resilience, the promise, and gradual, if not certain, passage to happiness. 

My Grandma suffered a stroke in June 2006. I never experienced her the same after that. In my memory, she is this strong-willed person who said, “Don’t give up on me just yet.” 

She died a few months later. It was grief, and to this day, is grief of the deepest magnitude I have experienced.There is a hero for every person and in every family for different reasons and at different times. My hero is, and has been, my Grandma.

In the days, if not minutes, before she passed away, I wrote some words down that resonate quite deeply with me now: 

I’m going through the motions of going to work and doing my job and feeling like I’m a spectator of my own life. Certain things happen in slow motion because my mind is so preoccupied on what’s happening outside of the present moment that I forget to notice it. People talk to me and I miss what they say and sometimes don’t remember hearing them at all.  I’m told this is normal and that it will come and it will go. Then, for an instant, something triggers and I’m fighting tears, but just for a moment, until I return to my vacant mind of going through the motions.

Grandma wouldn’t want me to just go through the motions. 

It does not matter what loss one is experiencing, because loss is the one unifying factor of life. Maybe not loss, but the fear of failure realized, or the fear of loss realized, the fear, the very worry, and the edge of doubt you sat on top of, when it slips out, and it’s realized; we’ve all been there. Also, let me be the umpteenth person to say that sometimes loss is a blessing in disguise, we just don't know it yet.

It is the one thing everyone goes through and yet that does not make it any easier because of the circumstances and the people involved. It is really only being experienced in one unique way for each person grieving.

It hurts, because very few people understand, even though everyone can relate. 

I pray, one day, my children, whenever I do have them, I can share her eternal faith with them, so that they, too, might find a foundation and a hope for a future. 

Resilience, remember, is about accepting our circumstances even if they are different, or disappointing, or not what we thought they would be. We can do nothing, as Elizabeth Edwards said, but scream about what we have lost, or accept it, and try to put together something that’s good. 

Scratch that.

Great. 

Appreciate. Prompts at http://www.reverb10.com/

This year, I appreciate my friends, the many of them who showed up on the doorstep of my heart when I least expected it.

I love you more.

I appreciate the memory of my Grandma, and the lasting wisdom she instilled in me. Certainly, I appreciate the faith, and the gentle tugging of my heart, when she would rub the small of my back when I wasn’t feeling well, and gently squeeze me in a life-affirming embrace.

I Don't Want Worry Wrinkles

I also don't want to be a frump.

I’ve filled my face with worry wrinkles.

That’s what I call them. There’s this crease in the middle of my forehead above my left eyebrow, and I swear it was not as deep and as defined earlier this year as it is now. I can tell you exactly when it developed, and it probably will never go away.

I’d rather be noticed for my smile lines, my bursting red cheeks, and my sometimes apple-colored skin. I say that even though I find it, too, embarrassing sometimes.

The Reverb 10 project put out the word today as “Things.” What 11 things do I not need in my life in 2011? Certainly, I don’t need worry.

Worry never got anyone anywhere and fear and doubt don’t help either.

“Doom!” My boyfriend says to me when anything could potentially go wrong. For example, I have a paper due for a graduate class but I may not have time to finish. I’ll tell him my concerns, and he says the word “doom.” He says it with this deep, long, “ooom” sound that kind of makes me laugh and quiver at the same time. I love that.

I don’t want the doom. Yet, I have to understand that sometimes, I just can’t do anything about it.

Another example is having an unpredictable expense and putting it on a credit card. Instead of whining about it, I have to make the money I do have last longer. Or, I ask him kindly to donate generously to the Get the Frump Out of My Rump fund, and he pitches in, willingly.

What happens to you when you worry? When you are afraid?

I sometimes call it the “haunted house of my head.” It’s where all the negative ideas and thoughts are. There’s a difference between a gut instinct and rattled nerves. I believe that fear and worry manifest with a heart beat, and flushed skin, and sometimes the nibbling of fingernails. It manifests in the same way when I’m watching a movie that I know is not real, which is how I know it’s irrational.

Fear of failure. Fear of losing. It is the disenchanted wonderment that comes in asking, “Why?”

Doubt, fear, worry, they’re ugly. They are unattractive. Yet, the fact that we, as humans, have these feelings is real. Most of us, unless we are serial pessimists, don’t go through life looking for evidence to support our doubts, our fears, and our worries. Instead, if you’re like me, we choose to believe. We choose to trust and open our hearts to the positive parts of life. I recognize that life does not come without some sort of angst every once in a while, I just don’t like it.

A life that is worth living, and a love that’s worth loving, is what these experiences are all about. If we are lucky, we learn something along the way. Every morning that I wake up, I choose life. In that choice, I also choose to love the people I love, and who I know love me: Mom, Dad, Nathan, and so many good friends.

Resilience, I wrote the other day, is about the staying up and not in the falling down.

So, in answer to this challenge, as difficult as it is, I need not worry in 2011. I choose faith. I choose to celebrate in the joy while I am in it, and not wait for it. The minute worry ends, the best of my life can begin.

p.s. The 10 other things I could do without in 2011 are: doubt, fear, anxiety, confusion, debt, loss, weight gain, illness, car problems, and somehow not graduate.
How I'll work to prevent them? Believe, trust, relax, ask questions, save more, love wholeheartedly, eat and work out well, take my vitamins, take my car to the shop, and do the work and graduate.

UPDATED: DECEMBER 20, 2010

A Beautifully Different Community, in One Word

A Beautifully Different Community, in One Word

I stumbled across the Reverb 10 project over the weekend after discovering the wonderfully talented in-pursuit-of-happiness writer Gretchen Rubin was offering at least one of the prompts.

The beautiful part about Reverb 10 is that it allows you to choose when you take part, and how you take part, with just some subtle recommendations. The goal is to remember and reflect on what this year, 2010, has meant for each one of us, and manifest our destiny for the upcoming 2011. It is a fitting project for anyone working to get the frump out of their rump.  

One Word 

My mother came to visit me earlier this year. We watched some sappy movies, like “Marley and Me,” and went out to lunch and talked about family members and wedding ideas, should I get married. We also stayed up late and watched Elizabeth Edwards on “Larry King Live.” 

“She is an amazing woman,” my mother said.

“So inspiring,” I said. “I love that the title of her book is resilience.” 

Resilience for me meant different things at the time. Studying business continuity in graduate school, another name for that was in fact, business resilience. You see, resilience, in the business sense, is about the staying up and not falling down during a crisis. Come to find out, resilience means exactly the same thing when someone is battling internal demons or deep challenges of faith. It’s the getting back up and holding on, praying expectantly. It is hope. 

2010 has been a different kind of year for me, faced with change and challenges, some brought on myself, some divinely presented by choices, and others just dumped on me like a bucket of slippery slime. 

Elizabeth Edwards, a woman I did not know, exemplified some of the character traits I admired in my Grandma. The point is, she certainly allowed herself to feel what she was feeling and was unapologetic about it. Yet, she saw no purpose in staying angry or resentful, and she allowed herself the right to imagine a certain, if gradual, passage to happiness. 

Resilience is the word for 2010, and a year from now, it will hope. If we are resilient, we can hold on and pray expectantly. 

Community

The people who read this blog and who unite under the same goal of getting rid of the seemingly “yucky” part about being uncertain in life are part of my community. Those of us who want to visualize and dream-into-life a better tomorrow are the community members I find myself recently aligned with. Whether you are actively blogging or sharing your story, we are all on some sort of journey to find purpose so that we may live the best of our life. We’re a community of education-seekers, budget-minded shoppers, desire-to-give-back volunteers, and some of us are wine drinkers. 

Sometimes, I like to imagine myself standing in a room full of wine tasters and vintage bottles saying, “I’m a Pinot.”

Then, someone says back to me, “I’m a Zin, but I’m better after aging a few years

There is something perfectly beautiful about being part of a winemaking group, which my boyfriend* and I are. 

We are members of all ages, different walks of life, different hobbies, but we all have a taste for wine. 

Something else that’s funny, is when I think of Chelsea Handler’s book “My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One Night Stands” I actually think of wine bottles, because they’re better stored horizontally. 

Excuse me while I laugh thinking of an alternate book cover. 

Beautifully Different

“You are unique,” my best friend would say to me during high school. “You have your own unique qualities that make you, you.” 

She certainly had a nice way of saying the fact that I was different, odd, or even eccentric. 

“Ughpf,” I’d say back. 

“Yay, Annie noises,” she would say to me. 

The cycle continues, and now almost every time we get together the first few minutes are filled with mutterings and sounds that I seem to always make, and some celebrated joy that I’ve made them. 

As I taper off my writing for this collection of Reverb 10 posts, I think of the things that each one of these topics has in common.

I’m part of a wine making group, which involves patience, and a resilience in case something goes wrong. Each varietal, each bottle, is unique and has its own qualities. Each person who tastes the wine explores it differently, identifying parts that not all of us may experience. And, these experiences we have, whether in tasting a wine, or living our lives, may instill in us the same resilience and hope we admire in people like Elizabeth Edwards.








*UPDATED December 28, 2010: Boyfriend is now an ex-boyfriend.

A Call to Action Requires Rest

A Call to Action

Step 1: Get out of bed.

Step 2: Eat. Breakfast.

Step 3: Do something. 

It’s hard to get motivated when you’re not feeling well, whether it’s because you’re fighting a cold or you’re just feeling down on your luck.

Well, friends, today is proof that the important thing is that you just do something. I’m pretty exhausted, let me tell you. I have one week left of class until winter break and even though I have three papers to write and several documents to read, all I really wanted or felt like doing was nap. 

Did you ever read the book “The Napping House” by Don and Audrey Wood? If you haven’t, you should. It’s the place where “everybody is sleeping.” I delighted in the joy of that book. Naps are something that are genuinely healthy. I always wondered why we started our lives napping and ended our lives napping. I think I figured it out. It’s because we spend so much of the middle parts of our lives running around and doing something that we have to rest prior to that part of our lives and after. 

Despite what you think, this blog is not about taking a nap, although I do believe we should find some time in our lives for a little rest here and there. Why? Because we’re all going to do something. I choose to make rest a part of my life so that I can be active throughout it. 

Today there is a call to action beyond the daily grind of work, dealing with the kids, making dinner, running errands, or paying the bills. The call to action is to do something greater than all that. 

Be. 

Be inspired to do something for someone else just because you can. Be compelled to volunteer or donate your time just because you can. This is part of getting the frump out of your rump. 

The first part of my project is getting involved with Embrace Global. It is a 501c3 organization that provides infant warmers for the developing world. You don’t have to donate money, you can donate your time. When babies face hypothermia and there is no one there to hold them, and there’s no electricity to assist in the process, they can die. 450 babies die each hour. When you hug your baby, think about hugging them too.

What’s your call to action?

I'm Wearing My Astronaut Shoes

“Today, I’m wearing my astronaut shoes.”

When I was entering first grade, my Mom was a teacher at my elementary school. I attended Badger Mountain Elementary School in Richland, Washington. My Dad was a newspaper editor at The Tri-City Herald. 

I took the bus to school. It was Dad’s responsibility to make sure I got my shoes and socks on real tight before walking to the bus stop. 

He would show me how to tie the knot and ask, “What kind of shoes are you wearing today?”

“Daddy, these are princess shoes!”

Or, maybe, “These are my astronaut shoes.” 

My Dad instilled in me at the very beginning of my explorative years that even if something was in my imagination, I could attain it as a goal or as a career or even a hobby. 

Imagination turns into dreams and dreams turned into stories.

Years later, in middle school and high school, while living in Southern California, Dad would drive me to school. I would proceed to tell him my dreams, my literal dreams from the night before, and my interpretations of them. 

“Daddy, I dream in color,” I would say. “There’s a regular cast, you know, like a sitcom, and sometimes there are guest stars.” Sometimes, there would be credits. 

As a 30-something, I still have an imagination, and I still have dreams. At this moment, the dreams I refer to are the ones in which date back to those early imaginative moments of being a princess, a construction worker was one, and an astronaut.

Each one of those childlike dreams involve something that unites all of us, the desire to create, the desire to learn, and the desire to really enjoy everything that we’re doing. 

These days my dreams are more universal and goal-oriented. Whether it is to write a screenplay, produce a documentary, volunteer for a charity, own a winery, or to just raise a wonderful family, they are my dreams. 

Dreams. 

They are about exploring unpaved paths, uneven roads, and in more profound moments, unjustified injustice. 

Today, I am wearing my astronaut shoes. What shoes are you wearing?

Stop Wearing "Cover Clothes"

“I like comfy clothes.”

Ok, so what. I do. 

At 22 I dated a boyfriend who didn’t want me to get into my “comfy clothes.” In fact, he requested that I not be in sweats when he came over at 9:00 p.m. 

Point taken.

Perhaps I can get some sympathy for the fact that I was working an often 3:00 a.m. shift and coming over at 9:00 p.m. was like waking me up. 

When I met my current boyfriend I asked him to never tell me not to wear my comfy clothes. (Maybe that’s why he called me a frump.) It’s about time I give boyfriend a name. His name is Nathan. 

Here’s the thing, being comfortable is not about the design of your clothes. It is not about whether or not they are flannel pajamas (like I happen to be wearing right now) or a work out suit. It’s about whether or not you, and in this case I, feel comfortable with what I’m wearing at all.

“Comfy clothes” as I called them, and still do, and as he (my main man) would sometimes mock me, could in fact be called cover clothes. They cover up everything about yourself that you don’t like, whether it’s the love handles, the pudgy stomach, the skinny legs, the fat ankles, or whatever it is. 

One of the reasons for the frumpy state is that I didn’t like what I felt like and if I didn’t like it, no one else would like it either. That’s even if I knew my boyfriend liked my “sexy legs” as he still calls them. 

Once you realize that the man (or woman, or person) in your life loves you for you and likes things about yourself that you may not like, you get out of your comfy clothes. What do you do?

I have some suggestions, depending on what your frumpiness is:

Go to the gym. 

Eat a well-balanced diet.

Find a friend, and see if you can help each other through your frumpiness. 

Choose health, and choose not to care about the rest. 

So, get out of your cover clothes. Allow yourself to be comfortable. Show some leg. 

Guess what? I like wearing skirts. 

What Does Your Face Look Like?

“It’s the way my face looks.”

My Mom would say that to me while I was growing up whenever she would be ironing, reading, cooking, or doing something other than paying immediate attention to me.

The expression on someone’s face is a great way to learn something about you. When you glance over to someone at work you might see the lines in between their eyebrows pressed up that it looks like toothpicks. Or, if you roll over and see the person you love lying next to you, they might look glazed over, peaceful, with the creased reflection of the pillows or the sheets they’ve been sleeping on.

“It’s the way my face looks.”

Sometimes, the look can appear to be dismissive, puzzled, or concerned.

“What’s wrong,” we ask.

“Nothing,” they say.

Then, sometimes, “It’s the way my face looks.”

I’m not good at this, I’ll admit it, I struggle to smile. Yet, I’ll admit it is also one of the best feelings in the world. It immediately sends blood rushing up to my face, increasing my energy, and my mood. It’s a gift I can give someone else, and give myself. It’s also free.

The lesson is to smile more. Then, maybe the next time you look at someone’s face, they’ll be smiling back at you. 

Are you smiling?

Come on, Get the Frump Out of Your Rump

“Stop being a frump.”

No one who is internally trying to be a better person wants to be called a frump. Especially not by the person they are in love with and imagine building a life with.

“You’re such a frump.”

Ouch. 

Ok, so at first I thought it was a joke. Then, it was said again, and again, and again. 

When I met my boyfriend of five and a half years* I weighed about 114 lbs. By the time he started to call me a frump I was approaching 130. It’s not a significant amount of weight, but with my height just below 5’2”, it was definitely noticeable.

Do you know what happens when you realize you can’t fit into your skinny jeans anymore? Or, you can’t zip up your hot black dress you bought for the “just because” reason. It stinks. It hurts. I mean, it really hurts because the zipper kind of pinches your skin as you try to force the dress to close on your back. 

Gaining weight made me unhappy with myself. I felt unattractive. If I felt unattractive, I became unattractive. Gretchen Rubin teaches us to “Act the Way I Want To Feel.” Inspired partly by her, we can do this together, and eventually feel and be the way we want. My friend and former colleague, Elyse Miller, gave me some of the tools I needed to take back myself. 

Together, this journey that I’m taking you on is about getting rid of the frump, whether it’s extra weight that makes you feel unattractive, weight you need to gain because you feel too skinny, or an attitude within you that you don’t know how to get out of.

Come on, Get the Frump Out of Your Rump. 



UPDATED DECEMBER 23, 2010
*Noted Boyfriend is now ex-boyfriend