Lisa for Real - Page 2 of 5 - exploring & embracing fierce femininity

This Is Not My Story

May 29, 2017 by Lisa 2 Comments

Have you ever had a true eureka moment?

I have had many and one of my biggest was a life realization that I made ten years ago.

I was getting my health coaching certification through the Institute for Integration Nutrition and was practicing my health history intake with a local student. I was the client and she was the coach. Being that this was my sixth practice session as a client, I was trying my best not to just go through the motion of answering the questions but to really imagine I was doing this for the first time so that my partner would get the most out of the practice session. Little did I know that that would serve me more than her.

I remember distinctly, I was sitting on my bed answering the first general questions about my weight, menstrual cycle and digestive system and then we started talking my childhood. She asked me about my father who had passed away three years prior. See, my dad and I never had a “relationship” where we shared stories or he took me fishing or taught me about boys. I honestly can’t even remember a true conversation we had aside from figuring out what was for lunch. His verbal communication was impacted by his epilepsy which he developed as a child, and because he never worked and stayed at home, I never really saw him as an authority figure (Yikes! Just realized I may have some issues about work and authority as I write this. I’ll have to come back to this topic another day). Due to his disability, I ended up having to take care of a lot of things in my household that normal children wouldn’t have to. I have learned since, that as a survival mechanism, I took on a lot of these responsibilities in stride and hadn’t thought much of it.

As I was explaining this to my partner, she said, “Well, it sounds like he’s had a huge impact on your life.” And before I could automatically downplay it and really minimize his role in my life as I always have, I had a huge light bulb moment. I realized that I had been equating the lack of relationship and connection with my father to a lack of influence on my life when in reality, I could attribute almost everything to him.

Imagine you have been telling yourself one thing all of your life, whether consciously or subconsciously, and then you realize in one second that it is completely false.

I felt like my whole world turned upside down in that moment.

My first instinct was denial – I tried my very best to maintain the belief I had held for twenty-plus years. But as every argument against the idea was broken down, I started to incorporate this new truth. And would you believe it that my life made more sense than ever?

We live our day-to-day lives and our interpretations of what happens to us are the stories we tell ourselves. They shape our character and create our “truths.” But our truths are not the ultimate truth. They are the laws and standards we may live our lives but like real life laws, they can be challenged and change if needed.

A couple of weeks after my miscarriage, I was trying to process everything. For whatever reason, I though the worst of my life was behind me, that my challenging childhood had happened and it had shaped me to be an awesome person living an amazing life and that I finally had control over everything. If that isn’t a red flag, I don’t know what is!

My miscarriage was trying to my ego. My life was not following a plan that I had set out for myself. I got pregnant with my daughter right as we started trying and I thought I had this whole baby making thing down pat. But as I lost not one but two pregnancies, I was sent spiraling. I started saying to myself, “this is not my story – this is not what is meant to be happening to me.”

Like a well-written story, everything in our life stories happens for a reason.

Details are not to be overlooked as they can foreshadow something later on in the story or they perpetuate a theme that the author wants to share or they create conflict that the protagonist must overcome. It all serves a purpose. I have believed this ever since my eureka moment during that health coach practice session.

But when life throws us off a path that we are comfortably moseying down, we want to believe it wasn’t meant to be, that is it not a part of our story. As children, we are still forming our truths. We take in our life experiences and those form the foundation for how we interpret our lives and the world. And I have found, as we get older, our truths are challenged. This can either send us into denial or into an evolution where we incorporate new truths into our lives.

With the miscarriage, I was searching and searching for the lesson in why it happened. I kept coming up against a wall, telling myself that this was not meant to be, that “this is not my story.” But I realized as I was processing everything happening – what a damning thing to say! If it’s happening in my life, it IS my story. Whether or not I have control of it, I have to own it. Denying it will not make it any less of my story.

Life is not just about the things you can control.

Life will throw you curve balls, fastballs and change-up’s. You will not always be in able to tell what’s coming. And you do not have full control over it. But never, for a single second, claim you are better than the circumstances. Never disown those moments because they are perhaps the most pivotal in your story.

Growth can certainly happen when we challenge ourselves but how often do we push ourselves so we are teetering on the edge? So that we feel if we breathed the wrong way that we are done?

As much as we’d like to believe we are strong enough to push ourselves to the brink, we are not brave enough to do that to ourselves. Growth and expansion happen in those curve balls and fastballs. You may come out swinging when you are pitched them or hunker down and take the ball. What you do in the moment is important but the lessons are actually in the replay. Incorporating those challenges into our lives enable us to continue to live our story, to continue swinging.

I’m not sure that this was the ultimate lesson of my miscarriages but at the least, it has been a micro-lesson, a reminder that I need to own my story and it is only when I accept my circumstances that I can make the best of them.

Inspiration: I created this image and a short write up for an Instagram/Facebook post as I was starting my healing journey after my miscarriage. I wanted to expand upon it and add it to my blog so I could reference it instead of sifting through my feeds. As I was thinking about how this lesson has appeared during other parts of my life, I pulled in the story about my dad.

The evolution of this post in a few months shows that ideas aren’t something that are formed and then become stagnant, unless you want them to be. They are ever changing, morphing with new experiences and as we make more connections between what is happening and what has happened to us. I very much follow Elizabeth Gilbert’s philosophy in Big Magic that ideas have a life of their own. We have a choice of whether or not we keep them around. Sometimes they will float away or disappear as quickly as they come. I tend to hold onto ideas like my possessions, hoarding them and refusing to let them go even though I know deep down that the idea isn’t right for me. This is something I continue to work on and what I’m finding is that as I let go of more physical things, I can also let go of more mental and emotional things. This will be a lifelong challenge for me (bless my husband who initiates most of our spring cleanings) but as I get older, I’m starting to see the value in having less in my physical space as it allows me to have more freedom in my mental space.

Twilight Morning Thoughts of a Pregnant Mother

May 21, 2017 by Lisa 4 Comments

miscarriage story

As I lay here at the start of another 5:00 day, I can’t help but stare at your face. My first baby. Three years later, I can still see the face I stared down at the hospital during similar hours our first night. Your eyes, your lips and your cheeks are reminiscent of that infant but I cannot ignore how much you have grown since, the length of your body, your gangling toddler body, almost twice as big as you were when you were born.

I can’t fall back asleep because I know these are the last few months I’ll have the uninterrupted peace and quiet to stare at your beautiful face, just you and me, before your little brother comes.

Oh goodness, how I fear the change of a second child. I fear the chaos, the challenges of re-balancing our lives again and the long nights. But mostly, I fear the change for you. You only know of a world where it is just the three of us, you, me, and Daddy. The challenges will be greater for you as your world shifts from undivided attention to one where the baby will demand so much. One where you will have have to wait your turn to tell your story from school, one where you will have to play second string for just a little while, and one where I may not be able to run to you immediately when you need me and yet nor quite understand why so much has changed overnight. This is my fear for you.

But I also know change is a part of life. And you will eventually learn that too; though acceptance may be a bit further down the road. I wonder how much this change will change you. The transformation into older sibling – is it a defining life event that molds the stereotypical first born personality? The one that makes your kind supposedly better leaders and stronger? It must be a change for the better right? You’ll end up stronger and more adaptable, I hope deeply.

But really, there is no turning back. Being a big sister is as much written in your life plan as it is in mine to birth and raise this baby. This fear and guilt is only resistance to what is meant to be, another sign of my humanity and imperfections as a mother.

You will be one hell of a big sister. Your belly kisses and consideration for Baby are already indication of that. I am more confident in your big sister abilities than I am of being a great mother to two.

So as these thoughts run through me this morning, I stare at your sweet, sleeping face feeling guilt, so much guilt and also sadness as this chapter of our lives is rapidly coming to a close. I mourn it already but I also know it was never meant to last. Our family was always going to be greater than the three of us. You have taught me that already.

My guilt extends to the one of this baby. With doubts that I will be able to offer him as much of me as I did to you. Do I have anymore to give? I have heard from other mothers that your heart grows when you have another baby, not divides. That provides me comfort on this twilight morning as I let my deepest of feelings sink in.

My heart trembles still when I think of the day we were discharged from the hospital. As your dad was pulling the car around, I sat in the lobby waiting with you, my precious bundle, in my arms. I held you close to my chest, tears streamed down my face, falling onto your little hat, as I felt the enormity of our next steps. A grand release of the whirlwind trip to the hospital, your birth and our first days together. My heart swelled knowing you were here with us forever, and perhaps I hadn’t even realized it yet, but those tears were also tears of mourning the end of a chapter, one with just me and your dad. Our roles and responsibilities forever changed but we have been stronger and better from it, no questions about that.

My love, you will always be that sweet face in the twilight. I know this next step of our lives will give us more, and as our family grows, we will become even more than we are now. That makes the dawn of the next chapter promising.

Inspiration: As I head into this next chapter of my life, I am bombarded with thoughts and doubts and all sorts of feelings. Compounded with pregnancy hormones and it’s basically a roller coaster ride everyday, one where I’m holding on white-knuckled, expecting to be thrown off course any moment but relieved at the end of the day to have survived. This post is just one example of such feelings, a stream of consciousness I could not ignore as I woke up at 5:00AM for the second time this past week. Feelings are normal, processing is healthy and I choose to do so whenever such thoughts arrive by typing away in my Google documents and sharing with you here.

Echoes of Fallen Trees – My Fourth Mother’s Day

May 14, 2017 by Lisa Leave a Comment

miscarriage story

“If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound?”

If I was asked this last Mother’s Day, I would have said, “Of course, it does.” Though my answer would have had no actual basis or reasoning other than my logical thinking, and I would have likely preceded my response with a slight eye roll coupled with a “No, duh.”

A year later, I celebrate this fourth Mother’s Day with a concrete answer.

That fallen tree damn well would have made a sound.

To question the presence of a sound questions the tree’s presence at all. And while you and I may not have seen that tree fall, or hell, ever seen the tree before at all, it does not make it any less of a tree. And when trees fall, they make a sound (no, duh).

But that sound is not just an echoing boom that lives for a few seconds – it is also the echoes of its death, the domino effect of its absence. The living tree had a presence, an impact on its environment. It supported the earth it was rooted in. It offered a home to animals and shade to plants. It was part of an ecosystem. Its death would have also had a reverberating impact. The fallen body would house different animals. It would fertilize the earth and clear way to create new life. The ecosystem would evolve from its absence, being no better and no worse from it. It would just be.

This Mother’s Day, when looking to break my 5 month blog hiatus and share the reason for my absence, I could only think of this question.

Because the past year has had its own domino effect on me.

This Mother’s Day, I am no better and no worse than last year. I just am. I am beyond happy to be 5 months pregnant. My womb is graced by butterfly kicks and little squirms. And I am still absolutely enamored by my three year old, her antics, beauty and spirit.

But, I can’t help but to think of how this holiday would have been if I did not have trees fall in my forest.

In one scenario, I would have been a mother to a one month old baby, balancing a rambunctious toddler while practicing my fourth trimester.

In another scenario, I would have been 8 months pregnant glowing in anticipation of my upcoming birth.

This Mother’s Day, I know damn well that that fallen tree would have made a sound. Because this Mother’s Day, I carry the vibrations of two miscarriages.

I bounce between joy, grief, anxiety, and hope because those little babies left their marks. Those experiences birthed a new me – a new woman, friend, wife and mother from the pain, loss, and grief. To question the absence of those trees questions the absence of life and I know that while a life may have silently left us as it silently arrived, it does not make it any less material and it does not leave any less of an echo.

Inspiration: I had two miscarriages in 2016, and since, I have been trying to figure out how to share my story. And even before that, I have been trying to figure out why I should share it at all. I created this blog because I feel my experiences are not meant to be lived in a vacuum. While miscarriages aren’t common conversation in our society, there is so much power that comes in sharing our stories.

I have come to realize our strength as women lies so much in our abilities to handle stress, loss, and the heaviness of life. This may not be something that we realize until we experience it ourselves or see someone else go through it. I feel it is especially important for those who have experienced miscarriages to share these stories with women who have not. Those gaps in experience divide us mentally and emotionally but stories bridge those gaps.

My heart breaks for the women who experience their miscarriages silently or do not receive the support they need during that time. It is so important for us to come together and the lack of understanding should not isolate anyone from the support they need.

While no miscarriage is the same (just as no birth or death is the same), I can now say that I did not support my loved ones in a way that they needed after learning of their miscarriages. I feel guilt for that quite often and while I cannot go back in time, I hope sharing my point of view will open the eyes of others who may have friends and family going through a loss. I look to continue sharing more about my miscarriages in the future.

Why resolutions mean squat to me

December 31, 2016 by Lisa Leave a Comment

I’ve never been a new year resolutions enthusiast. Chances are, you probably aren’t too. While I love the fresh energy that a new year brings, I’m not a fan of the constant reminders and pressure of “new year, new you.”

Why? Because resolutions are a waste of time.

According to this fun site, only 8% of people actually achieve what they set out to accomplish in the new year. Yay for those people but yikes for the 92% of others!

Now, I poo-poo resolutions but that doesn’t mean I’m not a goal oriented person. I am always looking to improve myself and my circumstances. The issue I have with start of the year goal setting is that everyone focuses on the same stuff every year and set themselves up for failure.

After all, as Albert Einstein said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results. That is what we are doing year after year. Dragging ourselves into the hamster wheel and starting out sprinting in hope that we will reach our goals and stopping shortly after because we are either burned out or we realize we’re getting nowhere.

The problem is we are goal setting the wrong way.

No, I am not proposing for you to follow the SMART goal setting formula that a lot of people swear by. I’m also not saying you need to find an accountability partner. Or set up a disincentive like donating to least favorite charity if you don’t meet your goals.

Those things are all possibly helpful but traditional goal setting misses the key component to a truly happy new year.

Now you may have found a goal setting strategy that works for you. That’s awesome! That means you can stop reading this. Who I’m talking to are those people who feel a complete resistance to creating resolutions or who have set them with good intentions and “failed.”

Alright, you’re still here! And you’re in good company because that’s me too. Before I get into the one thing that HAS worked for me, I’m going to share the key parts of my personality that make me anti-goal.

I’m not a numbers person.

Numbers on a scale or in my bank account don’t drive me to achieve a goal. And I think a lot more people are like that than not. So that means that SMART measurable goals aren’t effective and with my money blockages, may even drive me away. (My money issues are a work in progress and I’m slowly chipping away at them. Perhaps I will be able to follow SMART methods once I figure them out. This solution works for me while I do so.)

I’m not a material person.

My Christmas list this year included self development books, socks and a replacement top for my favorite Pyrex container. That means goals or rewards of a new wardrobe/car/house/etc. is not going to make me want to achieve my goals any more.

I hate being told what to do.

Goals feel really restrictive, even when I create them myself. I will rationalize and talk myself out of any goal. “Oh, I’ll go to the gym tomorrow.” or “Today’s dessert doesn’t really count.”

I’m not a surface-level person.

Resolutions are so outward facing. So many of our goals are an attempt to manipulate our external circumstances. Lose weight. Buy a new car. Eat better. Get organized. Quit smoking. Find a partner. Now, do not get me wrong – these are all amazing things to strive for, but for me, they are not deep enough. Goals tend to be really superficial and that is just not my jam.

If you’re still reading this, chances are you identify with some of what I just shared.

So what goal setting method works for a non-material, non-numbers person who wants to transform on a deeper level in the new year?

What works amazingly well for me is setting a theme for the year and using that as the foundation for everything I work on for that year. A theme is usually just a few words. It does not involve numbers or any other sort of metric.

All you have to do is fill in the blank – 2017 is the year of _____.

The word(s) you choose are the end result you are striving for. So they are a goal in a sense but not in the traditional way. And there is only ONE, not an overwhelming list of them.

If you are still stuck in the paradigm of traditional goal setting or already created your new year goals, take those goals you have and shift them to a feeling. For instance, if you are looking to lose weight, forget a specific number and figure out how you want to feel. Instead of “lose 30 pounds,” deem 2017, “the year of unlimited energy.” Or if you are really looking to find your soul mate, make 2017, “the year of love.”

If you are a self-development geek like myself, then perhaps a feeling isn’t what you want but it’s uncovering the next layer of yourself. 2015 for me was the “year of self identity,” where I sought to answer the question “Who am I?” 2016 was the “year of release” – creating and releasing what’s inside myself out to the world. That meant continuing to understand who I was in order to release myself but also to find those opportunities to do so. As for 2017, the theme I have been kicking around for the past couple of months is the theme of purpose. To follow my purposes but also to do things with purpose.

As you can see, the theme is deceivingly simple.

The beauty of this is that you could have the same word as your best friend or least favorite person and the interpretation is up to you. Your theme may have a whole paragraph supporting it or your interpretation of it may shift mid-year. That is all a-okay.

Once you figure out your word, you instill it in your mind and body. It’s a bit easier to remember one word than it is a whole list of goals with arbitrary numbers. Then you use your theme to drive what you do day-to-day throughout the weeks, months and ultimately, the entire year. “Unlimited energy” may look like something different each day in terms of food, sleep, or who you choose to interact with. And “love” – the word doesn’t just stand for finding a partner. It can mean self love or love for your friends, family, and neighbors.

What’s most important is that you are intentional towards that theme everyday.

This does not mean you have to do something everyday but when you have that intention you will see that little things you do even contribute towards the theme. Then the decisions you do make will start to build on one another.

If you have read Jeff Olson’s Slight Edge, you may have already started following a similar strategy where you take slight action in every day choices towards your goals.

Now, if your Type A, list loving self is experiencing nervous tics because this method is too open to interpretation, feel free to make a list of your goals AFTER you figure out that theme. And then revisit those goals frequently and see what can be adapted.

Goals are super rigid and as someone who lives in the grey and where circumstances change, I find this method works best for me. I have felt much more personal fulfillment in the past couple of years doing this method than I have of anything else.

How has goal setting been for you in the past? Will you be setting a theme for the next year?

Where is the Love?

September 2, 2016 by Lisa 2 Comments

Since becoming a mom, I have shed more tears over the collective hurt that our world is feeling than I can recall.

I have felt deeply for those who have been misunderstood, raped, killed, maimed, uprooted, and hated on. We can’t keep heading this way. The world is not meant to sustain on so much negativity. We can’t sustain on so much negativity.

After watching this video, I couldn’t stop the onslaught of tears. As they slowed down, the first two lines of the song hit me.

“What’s wrong with the world, mama?
People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas.”

These two lines show us both the problem and the solution to all of this hate in our world.

What’s the problem? Lack of humanity. Empathy. Compassion.

After having my daughter, I realized one of the most powerful thoughts of my life – that every single person on the street that I was passing, that was looking down on their phone, hailing a cab, rushing to work, or panhandling – EVERY SINGLE person comes from a mom and were once an innocent little being like my 2 month old daughter I had in my carrier. We do not start off seeing color, sex, or differences as being bad. We see them as part of life and fully accept them. At some point, that point of view is corrupted and perpetuated by a culture that perpetuates, generates and profits off of hate. We need to get back to realizing we are all the same. We all came from a womb, we all have a humanity in us, and we all, if we set aside those differences that make us our selves, are the same.

What’s the solution? The first line says it all. Mamas.

We are the answer. Our children look to us for guidance and how we raise them, how we treat others, and how we go about our lives are what will change this downward spiraling trajectory that we are on. I believe in the deepest parts of my aching heart that things will change because moms will no longer let other moms and children suffer. You may not be a multi-platinum selling artist nor a celebrity with thousands of followers nor a millionaire. Those things don’t matter so much. What matters is intention. The intention to create a world you’d be proud to leave to your children. The intention to live your day as a model for what your children will do to and for this world. The intention to create and contribute in whatever way it may be.

We are the love.

Inspiration: I first saw this video in my Facebook feed. I find many of my prompts and thoughts to derive from what my friends and family share. In this case, this was from my sister-in-law. After watching, I simply had to respond in the only way I know how. Through writing, I was able to stop those helpless tears and feel like I did my part to spread the love today ❤