Woven

Many times I have said you are woven throughout my life. As Mother’s Day approached it occurred to me that memories of you are all around. Perhaps, in ways only I would understand.

As I was standing in my kitchen cooking yesterday, a quiet task that causes my mind to begin reminiscing (similar to washing dishes, cleaning the bathrooms and mowing), I reached for the kitchen scissors and off I went. Kitchen scissors. Who knew there were special scissors to cut food items? Mom did.

Every trip we have taken is represented in my home. And you were with me on my so many of them. I still remember when my son’s father (it is Mother’s Day, I won’t call him “baby daddy” today) asked “Aren’t we supposed to invite your mom on this vacation”? And I knew he fit well in our little family.

Even a walk into my Sonshine's room or around my living room, you are there. My books, my Polish pottery, my German crystal, you are there because you were there. What a lesson that is to me for my life. I can’t create memories I am not present to make. And you are present now because you were then. You are woven into the fabric of me because you were part of the material that made me. You didn’t mail it in or buy it for me. As a mom, you simply were present. And that has made all the difference.

No one else may ever understand why I get a tear in my eye when I smell bleach, chuckle a little when I see turtleneck sweaters, or long for Europe when it snows. But no one has to as long as I do.

I will forever miss you. I have grasped that. Nothing will replace you in my life. But I have memories of a wonderful life with you and a phenomenal relationship with you as an adult that will be part of who I am for the rest of my life.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Everyday Mom Memories....

Knowing we always have to leave bread in the oven about five extra minutes.....

The sled and walking stick from Germany, the rotary phone from Heidenheimer, the plant Joseph sent

Our trek around a bitter cold Europe

Beginning to look like a replica of your Holland fridge?

We went "green" before it was hip!

And the other kind of green bag!

You also gave me my love for reading......

An Email

I know you get as many forwarded email as I. Once in a while I read one that hits me and I think to share it. If you have read long, you know I am a fiend for quotes. This is one of those email I received I felt compelled to share. My apologies that there is no credit given to the originator of each quote.

A birth certificate shows you were born. A death certificate shows you have died. A photo album shows you have lived.

Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

A sharp tongue can cut your own throat.

Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important.

The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.

the heaviest thing you can carry is a grudge..

One thing you can give and still keep...is your word.

You lie the loudest when you lie to yourself.

If you lack the courage to start, you have already finished.

One thing you can't recycle is wasted time.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

Your mind is like a parachute...it functions only when open.

The pursuit of happiness is the chase of a lifetime!

It is never too late to become what you might have been.

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.. So love the people who treat you right.. Forget about the ones who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.

You must....

You must have been the best mother in the world.

Have prayed seventeen times a day...just for me.

Been the strongest woman on earth.

Had a direct connection to God.

Have been hand-picked to parent a daughter like me.

Know how much I miss you everyday.

Not a day goes by that I don't think of you.

You are woven into every thought, dream and ambition I possess......

Happy Mother's Day, mom.

I miss you and love you.....

Affected or Affecting?

I had lunch with a pretty incredible fellow yesterday. I was talking about my view of the world or some such mumbo jumbo. When I talked about how I have a group of peers I can share my woes with that I lovingly call “my people”, I explained that they are the kind of friends I can call at the end of a bad day and tell them I want to poke a persons eyes out and they know I am not going to actually poke a persons eyes out, that I am just expressing sincere exasperation….he provided me with some new feedback.

Okay, gang. This is when Paula must read her own BOP (Book of Paula)! Because there are many pages devoted to receiving feedback in a place of openness, sincerity, and love.

He said (and I shall paraphrase)…..what if you turned that around a little...to a more positive place? Huh? Hippie! What are you talking about? Positive place? I thought it was positive that I had a group of peers who understood me and let me vent. I have always been a little fond of my cutting (and witty) sarcasm. Nevertheless, I admit that I listened long enough to hear a golden piece of information……

He then said:

Are you letting things affect you or are you affecting them? Holy Moses! Now that hit me hard. Not just because it was profound, but because I talk all around that everyday. Isn’t that a great question? How often do I cringe when I hear “victim talk”? How often do I make presentations on change? How often do I speak of people captaining their own ship?

Yeah, that is it, my friends. When faced with a situation, ask that question!

Affected or affecting?

Like Mother like Sonshine?

No doubt my own mother is laughing right now.

As I was looking through some photos we took at our weekly Mother-Sonshine breakfast yesterday I sought with desperation to find one where he wasn't making a face! I laughed out loud remembering how I was my mom's family photo problem! How many photos do I have in a box from my growing up years where I am making a face?

A particular photo that comes to mind was actually taken on Easter. Likely a very important day for my mom. We were all dressed up. I was even wearing a pink dress (which was not a regular occurrence for a Tom boy). Mom had even curled my hair. And I wasn't three. I was probably in the fourth grade. Everyone was standing together smiling in the photo....well, except me and mom. I was making a face and trying to raise my hand to sign something of great importance, I assume. And mom, looking exasperated by this experience (which leads me to believe it wasn't the only photo I added my "character"), was giving me the "mom" look while trying to hold my hand down. I had no idea why she was such a party pooper!

Well, I know now.

Before I get out for the day to get my Easter supplies so I can get things baked and gathered for my trek to Central Texas tomorrow it hit me that this is my first Easter with my family without my mom. I was in Florida speaking at the Air Force conference last year over Easter weekend so I didn't attend the first year after her death. Intentionally? Maybe. Amazingly, though, she weaves herself into my life everyday. I guess she was there on Holy Thursday when my little Sonshine was making picture taking really eventful. She might have even been encouraging him!

But we finally got one!

Thanks, Mom!

N4N

"Not for Nothing" is a phrase I first heard someone in the Northeast use. I've come to understand that phrase, from my own perspective, more intimately, in the last year. Because of a number of losses I've experienced in the last three years I could sum up the autumn of 2010 as a real "fall". As things began piecing back together I began to realize while I was experiencing loss I was vulnerable and felt fear of letting anyone see the real pain.

I went to therapy, sometimes A LOT OF TIMES in a week and talked to a couple of close friends frequently. However, a feeling of anxiety surrounded me. My heart knows vulnerability is not a bad thing; however, my brain was attempting to protect me. I felt safer staying silent.

Fortunately, that is not my truth today. Today I say to myself, and often out loud (yes, even out loud to myself) "Not for Nothing"! Each experience, even those painful in my path are Not for Nothing. As a matter of opinion, these experiences are for a whole heck of a lot.

Loss of marriage, mom's terminal illness, moving to a new city, two career-long goals realized, the shift of a close relationship, sell of my house, my son going to a new school, my mother's death as a result of a car accident, the unexpected loss of my job and first time of being unemployed - all within three years, I add smiling, was Not for Nothing.

Nope. Not for Nothing.

Inexpensive CEU's!

Non-Violent Crisis Intervention

(DSHS Required Facility Training)

April 29, 2011

11:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Lunch Included

Instructor: Paula Heller-Garland, MS, LCDC

Access Counseling

2600 K Ave; Plano, TX 75074

Only $25

Limited Seating, Register Today!

(972) 423-8727

4 Hour CEU Provided for LCDC, In-Service Certificate Provided for Others

Busy

I assume because I have been working on a great new project I have neglected writing as often as usual. Then again, writing ebbs and flows.

I am very excited to be working on the Big Texas Rally for Recovery in Austin to take place on October 1, 2011 (www.texasrecovers.org). At the same time I miss my little Sonshine while I am on the road.

Today while making my usual trek up I-35 I stopped at a roadside park for a few moments. I watched as a woman parked in front of me got out of her car then opened the back door. She helped an older woman out of the car. I assumed it was her mother. She held her hand as she walked up the sidewalk.

It occurred to me how much better I am doing today than I was a year ago. It also struck me things will never be the same. There will be occasions the rest of my life that I see a glimpse of a scene I miss. And memories will flood my heart. Seeing something we once did, flowers that I know she would love or just having an experience I long to tell her. Likely, life will always be that way. My gratitude hangs in having had those times to remember. And I feel so blessed to have had such wonderful and loving parents.

I will write again soon. Once I am quiet and hear that still, small voice that guides me to the place where my creativity lives.

Soak up Spring!

To You

Walt Whitman (1819–1892).

WHOEVER you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands;
Even now, your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true Soul and Body appear before me,
They stand forth out of affairs—out of commerce, shops, law, science, work, forms, clothes, the house, medicine, print, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.	5
Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem;
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.
O I have been dilatory and dumb;
I should have made my way straight to you long ago;	10
I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you.
I will leave all, and come and make the hymns of you;
None have understood you, but I understand you;
None have done justice to you—you have not done justice to yourself;
None but have found you imperfect—I only find no imperfection in you;	15
None but would subordinate you—I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you;
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.
Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the centre figure of all;
From the head of the centre figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color’d light;
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold-color’d light;	20
From my hand, from the brain of every man and woman it streams, effulgently flowing forever.
O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are—you have slumber’d upon yourself all your life;
Your eye-lids have been the same as closed most of the time;
What you have done returns already in mockeries;	25
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return?)
The mockeries are not you;
Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk;
I pursue you where none else has pursued you;
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom’d routine, if these conceal you from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me;	30
The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others, they do not balk me,
The pert apparel, the deform’d attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, all these I part aside.
There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you;
There is no virtue, no beauty, in man or woman, but as good is in you;
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you;	35
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.
As for me, I give nothing to any one, except I give the like carefully to you;
I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing the songs of the glory of you.
Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!
These shows of the east and west are tame, compared to you;	40
These immense meadows—these interminable rivers—you are immense and interminable as they;
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution—you are he or she who is master or mistress over them,
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution.
The hopples fall from your ankles—you find an unfailing sufficiency;
Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges itself;	45
Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted;
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way.

HB 3145

The bill has been assigned a number! HB 3145. Just a reminder of the main points before you call your area representatives:

1. Funding for LCDC Peer assistance program through license fees as was intended in previous legislation.

Chemical dependency counselors want to increase their relicensing fee nominally in order to support impaired peers to receive the same help we offer.

2. Eliminate the requirement that applicants for an LCDC license pass an oral examination to align Texas’ licensure requirements with International Certification & Reciprocity Consortium standards.

Currently LCDC applicants take both a written and an oral test that is cumbersome and costly. In order to keep requirements in Texas on the same page as international testing requirements and decrease logistical and financial hardships for individuals already underpaid.

3. Modify criminal history standards to address unintended consequences stemming from the passage of SB 155 in the 80^th legislature.

Prior to the passage of SB 155, Texas Department of State Health Services allowed applicants to register as a counselor intern when they were within two years of meeting the time restrictions for different categories of crimes. It would be beneficial if DSHS may, but do not require, the waiting period if the applicants are successfully in completion of the peer assistance program.

Trouble Tree

A great story....it isn't mine and unfortunately, have not been able to locate an author.

I hired a plumber to help me restore an old farmhouse, and after he had just finished a rough first day on the job, a flat tire made him lose an hour of work & his electric drill quit, his ancient one-ton truck refused to start. As I drove him home, he sat in stony silence.

On arriving he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching the tips of the branches with both hands. Upon opening the door he had undergone an amazing transformation. His tanned face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss.

Afterward he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do at the little tree.

"Oh, that's my trouble tree," he replied. "I know I can't help having troubles on the job, but one thing's for sure, those troubles don't belong in the house with my wife and the children. So I just hang them up on the tree every night when I come home and ask God to take care of them. Then in the morning I pick them up again." Funny thing is," he smiled", when I come out in the morning to pick them up, there aren't nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before."

Mother Teresa

I found this to be something inspiring and on this seventh day of our Lenten season, I thought it appropriate. I hope you enjoy it, regardless of your spiritual beliefs.

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.

~Mother Teresa

Headed Outdoors....

"It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful

and gives birth to imagination".

~ Henry David Thoreau

The Wait....

A professional opportunity has recently been presented to me that peaked my interest. It is an area I believe I could perform well and learn a great deal at the same time. How often does that come along? I have talked with a number of the people involved. I have confided thoughts and received feedback from several people I trust. I believe this is the direction I want to go. Because I was not looking for the opportunity when it came along it felt even more of a path to investigate.

I have done the work involved to attain the opportunity. I have presented my wants and compromises. Now I shall wait for the answer.

I haven’t always been good at waiting. However, with my career, I am getting better. Perhaps, it is because I have worked nearly twenty years in the same field and I know my value. I know the strengths I can bring to an organization. And I know I won’t fall apart if an opportunity doesn’t work out.

But, more than that, I know things that are meant to be will anyway. And when I get in the way it only adds more worry, more misery and more chaos. Who wants that? Not me. There are many doors in my life today. I will know the one to go through because I am relying on guidance from One far greater than I. Therefore, I need no luck. Only faith.

The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

What are you waiting for?

Mission Impossible?

Not at all!

Recently I have had a number of experiences that culminated in the thoughts I am having this morning. A few years ago I developed a personal and professional mission statement. Over time I streamlined it into three words: Live with authenticity.

During a number of conversations over the past two weeks I have been in discussion with people who use that word. Authenticity.

What does that mean? Perhaps, something different to each person, but for me authenticity means living out loud. It means that people see and get the same person. The best litmus test for knowing if I am living with authenticity would be that everyone I know and who knows me be together in the same room at the same time and I be unafraid.

Unafraid because I am only one person and I am consistently that person. Constantly, in the process of recovering my life and at the same time working in a profession that helps others recover, I have been met different ideas on how a person in this profession expresses their personal ideals, values, issues, and life. For me it has changed a great deal from the beginning until now. Which, feels precisely as it should.

Today I have no shame about the life I lived, the experiences I have had and the distance I have come. I do not regret all decisions and circumstance. I have learned much, especially from the struggles, that I would want it no other way. I have come to embrace my flaws as eagerly as my positive power, on most occasions.

I have taught students becoming counselors, spoken around the world to others in the profession, supervised interns and others. At one time in my life I might have believed that I needed to be a certain kind of person as a result. Possibly, worry about my appearance (and I don’t mean my hair), if you will. Saying the right things, doing the right things and being the right person at all times. I realize that because of these relationships people do look to me for advice and guidance and I greatly appreciate that kind of trust. However, never do I want to present an image of being perfect, having all answers or being anything more than fallible. In order to be the person I am I must live with authenticity in all of my relationships.

After a period of nearly three years of personal strife married to many conversations with other professionals related to our “helping profession” these thoughts came to me…..if the personal strife is exactly what we help others through, why on earth do we hold it against one another when “we” (helping professionals) go through it ourselves? From these thoughts I developed a workshop called The Biased Helper? Moving from Impaired Vision to Insight. While I am still gathering empirical data, most of this workshop is based on the BOP (Book of Paula). For those of you who don’t know….the BOP is what I call data I have gathered through personal experience rather than qualitative or quantitative data.

More to come…..