Losing and Finding My Inner Child

Two months after my mother's passing, I'm still in heavy processing.  It's really REALLY strange to lose a parent.  The people who moved closer to me during this time have been people who have lost a parent or someone close to them.  I have felt them lean in toward me as I swim in grief.  It feels really good to not feel alone or abandoned and feel like loved ones are carrying me a little.  A man bearing his testimony in church described what we do for each other as drafting like in cycling.  We each have our moments in life where we can step in, take the lead with the headwind and let others just draft behind us.  I like being able to do this for others, but it's just my season to draft.   I am grateful to be pulled along for now and am eager to accept emotional support during my season of resilience-building.

I'm pretty sure I have changed a bit after my mother's passing.  It's like I stepped more fully into adulthood - at age 40.  I've done some remarkable things in my adult life, but there was always a part of my mother who could not see me older than eight years old, I'm fairly certain.  So my eight-year old approval-seeking, whiny self, with little credibility as an adult no longer has a place at the table now that my mother is gone.  It's really interesting, but there is a part of me that left with my mother.  Some of my inner child.

I've evaluated this and panicked a little thinking, Wait...can I still be FUN?!? I've always been a fun girl.  Okay, maybe there were a few years inside my marriage where I wasn't so fun, but darn it, I think most people who have known me throughout my life would describe me as fun in a childish playful way. Where did that girl go?  

A friend came for a visit the other evening and to lighten up a heavy conversation, I dragged him on the trampoline.  We jumped and laughed, jumped and laughed until my face hurt.  I think I found her, sulking on the trampoline wondering if she can come back to the table.

Ciao!

Courage: Showing up in the arena with no guarantees

I've lightly referenced my swimming in the deep waters of Brene Brown this year.  Since January, I've read her two best selling books, Daring Greatly and I thought it was me, but it isn't.  I've also taken a ten week workshop on her work, because apparently, I like to frequently sit in my own shame puddle.

No seriously, it was some degree of agony mixed with catharsis.  The work has changed me.  Made me more creative.  It helped me understand and come to terms with what happened inside my marriage. As we hit midlife, the marriage was no longer a vehicle for meeting our individual needs and most ardently not repairable.  I feel bolder to publish my thoughts.  I'm getting comfortable with that uncomfortable act of embracing my self regardless of who is looking.  So I've gone out and picked up her latest book Rising Strong, because apparently, I have more work to do.  I found an audio interview with Brene Brown that inspired this post.  The link is posted at the end.

I'm better at recognizing my shame triggers. Recognizing them reduces any harmful acting out we all tend to do when those triggers are tripped.  It might take me a few weeks to understand what's happening for me.  I'm aiming for getting to just a few minutes to process.  Still, at least some processing is happening.

To wear courage, one must first be vulnerable.  To be vulnerable, one must first get really intimate with shame.  We all have our own and unique "shame triggers".  Shame is a universal human emotion.  It washes over all of us similarly.   We each have our own ways of responding to and resisting shame which negates vulnerably and by default blocks courage and connection with others.

Brown's social research concluded that shame is not unique to women.  Men feel it too.  Where women's shame has been researched to be rooted in body image and one's degree of grace and accomplishment, men are found to hold shame around "do not be perceived as weak".

According to Brene Brown, a woman who has done her work is one that can just "be" with a man in his shame and vulnerability without rejecting him for it or confusing it as weakness.

In contrast, when a man can hold space for a woman in her shame and suffering...without trying to problem solve or fix... thats a man who has done his work...

Brene reminds us, "One of the deepest paradoxes about vulnerability (is this)...When I meet you, vulnerability is the very first thing I try to find in you.  And it's the very last thing I want to show you in me.  ...because It's the glue that holds connection together.  Its all about our common humanity.  When we own our stories, and  share our stories with one another and we see ourselves reflected back in the people in our lives, we know we are not alone.  It's the heart of wholeheartedness, the center of spirituality.  It's the nature of connection... to be able to see myself, and hear myself and learn more about myself in the stories you tell about your experiences."

I'm paraphrasing Brene here when she says...It is a willingness to show up and be seen in our lives. Courage is born completely in vulnerability.  I would argue, so is love.  If we haven't come to terms with all of our shame triggers, then how can we fully love another?

Common shame triggers are often rooted in getting hurt, feeling rejected, abandonment.  I could write an article about what my particular shame triggers are, but I'd like to leave a shred of mystique.

Working through, in and among shame and vulnerability is the practice of being in the arena and being uncomfortable.... it does not go well all the time for any of us.

Brene extracts the lyric from the popular song Hallelujah. 

"Love is not a victory march.  Its a cold and broken Hallelujah"  - 

Enjoy the my very favorite acoustic version of Hallelujah right here....

Showing up in the arena - with no guarantees - helps people around us get braver... I think that's why Brene Brown is an accidental best selling author and why 20,000 people have accidentally looked at this blog.  We crave authenticity and honesty and vulnerability.

"It's when we lose our capacity to hold space (in these) struggles that we become dangerous.."  When you figure out and master all of the above, the million dollar question becomes, what do YOU do when you are witnessing another in shame?  If you are like much of the general population, you are just glad it's not you.  Maybe you are just a little grateful that it's someone else getting mauled in the arena this time.  When was the last time you set foot in the arena?  Have you ever, really-ventured-in?

When talking about sharing our life struggles Brene's interviewer offers,  "What goes wrong for us is part of our gift to the world.  It's what enables us to connect and be compassionate."

Regarding Midlife crisis or what Brene calls Midlife unraveling..."There is a place and time in our lives where we realize that growing up, when we felt pain, when we felt small, when we felt unseen....We constructed walls and moats and we protected ourselves and we shut down parts of ourselves.  This happens in midlife where we realize - Oh God -  to be the person we want to be, to be the partner, to be the parent; we have to take down everything we put up that was supposed to be keeping us safe and that has not served us."

When we shut down vulnerability - we shut down joy.  Many ask themselves,  "Do I take this all down and be seen?  Or do I keep it all up?  Most keep it all up and it is just so heavy."  She attributes this to those who age poorly or rapidly, when we cannot get on top of and master our shame demons. They are mastered by speaking them.

"If courage is a value that we hold as important then vulnerability is the only way in and through."

Most of us are brave and afraid in the exact same moment all day long."

Here is the hour long audio clip where much of this material was extracted...

https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/brene-brown-the-courage-to-be-vulnerable

Ciao!

Eulogizing Mom

My Mother's memorial service had about 50 people there.  Many neighbors I had grown up with, cousins and extended family, people who worked for my mother, her very first manager when she was a secretary at Eastman Kodak, a high school teacher I was close with and some friends I grew up with came to support me.  I am grateful to the extended family who brought some dishes to pass.  I am incredibly grateful for a former neighbor of mine who I was not very close with, but who totally set up and broke down the food for the memorial service so that I could visit with people.  It turns out, she was a convert to the Mormon church about nine years ago.  Leave it to the Mormons to throw together a party and chip in and just be so helpful....

I was so buried with responsibility the week of her service, that I took about five minutes to write her eulogy.  Thankfully, I had about a month to ponder it, so it came rather quickly.  After delivering it, I recalled about 34 more things that belonged in there, but I think she would have been happy with my words.  

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Thank you everyone for coming to my mother's memorial service tonight.  For those I haven't met yet, I am Heather Whitley – Linda's only child and mother to her five grand children. We live in Utah.

I want to first thank her brother Todd for helping her so much around her house in my absence the past couple of years as her health deteriorated. I also want to thank Sylvia and Gerry Fitz who worked with my mom on everything from getting her bills paid, to helping her manage her email, to purchasing a new computer to running to doctors visits and keeping her day to day life in order – again in my absence. I also want to extend gratitude to her other brother Terry for helping me with the larger decisions over my mother' care in the final weeks of her life. It was wonderful for me to reconnect with him. After her passing, I have been so grateful for the help of my Aunt Beth on my father's side for helping me get mom's things organized and packed up and for my cousin Whitney and uncle Terry for spending a couple hours yesterday working in her home. Terry brought his much needed dry sense of humor that brought some laughter into the kitchen. Thank you for those who flew in from out of town to be a part of this. I am so grateful to reconnect with you as well as meet some of you who knew my mother long ago and learn more about her through you.

I so wish I could have brought my five children, but I had much to accomplish while here and they had not seen their father in a very long time, so we took this time to allow them to reconnect.

Because of the nature of her illness, there has been much focus on the illness itself and what got her there. But what's been nice about having some time since her passing go by before I could get here, I could take the space to reflect on all of her amazing qualities and aspects of her life that touched me and everyone who knew her.

A single mom of five, I haven't had a lot of time to do hard grieving while caregiving for my own children over the past month - it was so interesting that as soon as I boarded the plane and it pulled away from the gate, the tears started streaming down my face as I had just enough alone time and no immediate responsibility that I could actually ponder my mother. In fact, my neck hurt from straining to keep my head turned toward the window so as to not startle the poor man seated next to me... My mother is gone.  It is a difficult reality to get my mind around.

The things I miss most about her – her scent, the sound of her voice, her warmth, are probably the very things that bonded me to her as a newborn.  I was expecting to walk into her home and be among her clothes and be overcome by the scent just as I was every other time I walked in her home...but you know what? It's gone. The unique scent I remember walking into her home every time I visited...gone.  It left with her.

One of my earliest memories is of her holding me facing her, rocking me in a large rocker in my nursery. I think I must have been up with a fever or teething and I have this memory of her holding me and playing with my hair… To this day, if anyone plays with my hair, I'm instantly relaxed and sleepy...a conditioning brought on by my warm mother. It's really a shame that she did not have many more children. I know she would have loved to.

She loved to entertain. I have lots of memories of her cooking and preparing the house for guests. Lots of memories of her loud giggle that filled the house. If I was up in my room getting ready for company, I always knew guests had arrived because my mom would greet them with some cute remark and her giggle would carry up the stairs.

She was legendary among family and friends for her cooking. Various people have cited the following as favorites of hers…. Coconut cream pie, chicken parmesan, stuffed shells, clams casino, thanksgiving dinner worthy of Williams and Sonoma, Breakfast casserole.   I can testify that what made her cooking special was extra sugar and butter and salt…

She always had candles lit for guests and her home decorated for the holidays and cleaned like crazy to show her appreciation for the people she hosted and her gratitude that they were there. She would dress up for having guests for dinner. I was always in awe of her ability to arrange flowers. These are the things that made her unique and special.

She would not always have the patience to teach me how to cook but she'd always make me a tiny pie in a custard cup I could fill with jelly. In fairness, I wasn't that interested in cooking as a little girl. But it was my junior year in college, when I had an apartment of my own, I would frantically call her and ask her how to make something because I was hosting someone for dinner or a small group of friends. So our mother-daughter bonding in the kitchen occurred entirely over the phone and she did a great job.

When I was in high school, my mom worked full time at Eastman Kodak while simultaneously attending Syracuse University. She earned dual finance/accounting degrees which would change her career. Mothering five children, I can say that it's the teen years where our children ironically need us the most. But my memories and experience of her doing that were only positive. I'd often come home in the evenings from school/sports or friends and she'd be buried in her school books. I felt proud of her though. Not abandoned in any way. She lost her mother during this season as well. Her career would end up culminating into Finance Manager for global internal contracts of ITT Space Systems which took her all over the world. I was very proud of her.  She was proud of her "government classified" status on ITT satellite systems.  

I think the culmination of events in her life during this time were more difficult on her than any of us could imagine. I feel like sometimes we women, carry the entire world on our shoulders and try to do it with grace for as long as we can.

After I left home for University as a young adult, we talked almost daily - it seemed as though she was trying to fill the void in her life left by her own mother. After two and then three, four and five of my own children, both our lives evolved in ways that would reduce our contact with each other substantially. But I missed her calls. I missed the closeness that we once had.

It's been cathartic to go through her things and get to know her again, a bit. She always did have great hats. She has about 34 pairs of designer sunglasses, some prescription, some not. She always had good lipstick. I sat by myself this week, packing her up and felt like a little girl trying on her sunglasses, hats and lipsticks – searching for signs of her in all this “stuff”….

I feel my absence and geographical distance during the end of her life may be misunderstood by some… Please understand that I am honoring my mother in the very best way I know how...by raising and mothering her beautiful five grandchildren in ways that would only honor her and make her proud.

Her and I have done some healing this week, as I have been in her space and had the responsibility of being steward over her belongings. We have had many little conversations and I have strongly felt her presence here. Yes, she is still giggling.

I want to invite any one who has even the tiniest of memories of her to please share them with us. It is healing for me and these are things I can share with her grandchildren….

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At this time people came forth with things they loved about her...her cooking, her immaculate yard and flower gardens - thought to be the prettiest in the neighborhood, her leveling the wage playing field for women she supervised at ITT Space Systems and her love of her dogs - Flatboat retrievers - she was a breeder of champion show dogs for many years in her retirement.  Lastly, she was a doting daughter and my grandfather's "go-to" person in every sense. 

Ciao!