nannying is really hard. and really complicated. spending that much time with a little one and then having no say on anything and not being able to control what happens when i leave really sucks. i worry about the future too. will i still be in touch with him after i stop working for them someday? will his mom continue to try to fill her needs through him? will she stop trying to check off her fucking to-do list and spend enough time with him? will his parents fight and yell in front of him? I know i'm going to have my own weird issues with my kids, use them to try to fulfill my own needs sometimes, and not always empathize with them. but it's still hard to watch it from the outside. it's hard to see a grown adult whine that her son doesn't say mama, doesn't look at her when she wants him too (he's ten months old!), or doesn't care when she leaves a room. stop whining and put some time in!
she's not the worst mom- i've heard much worse horror stories from fellow nannies. i know she loves him . . .and i know it's a cycle and his mom's own mom didn't empathize with her...blah blah blah. but it's still really hard to watch.
and then there's the cat. she's horrible with her. again does not empathize with her. the poor cat has PTSD, and this woman acts like the cat is out to get her when she "misbehaves." it's a fucking cat. their emotional intelligence is the same as a toddler, so if they're not getting their needs met, they're going to fucking act out.
it's changed since i've been there. it's a little better now. i'm not pretending that i try not influence her. even though that sounds pretentious and judgmental. i don't care. i do try. you know how people pretend to know what a baby or animal is thinking and talk like they are them? and it's really annoying? i do that now. in attempt to get her to walk in their shoes .. . if only just for a minute.
meanwhile, i'll rant when i need to, give the little beings all the love I can when I'm with them, and light a candle when I'm gone, trusting that the same God that created this amazing universe that takes care of me, will also give them what they need moment by moment. this is also my prayer.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Pleiades
I had the most incredible few days last weekend with the most amazing friends. Brenda flew up from LA, and Heidi dug herself out of snowmageddon in Chicago to celebrate my 30th. On Saturday, the three of us, and four of my other close girlfriends, spent the day in Pacifica (one of my very favorite places in the world!). It was a magical day that started out with a photo shoot on the beach (of course!) and then a hike up to the top of the cliff overlooking the ocean. Then Jessica, who was hosting the celebration, lead us in a “letting go” ritual where we wrote down things we no longer wanted in our lives and burned them in a fire pit on the beach. Heidi then lead us in another ritual after reading the following excerpt to us from “The Pine Island Paradox” by Kathleen Dean Moore:
"But in this greening place of ashes and springs, I began to understand that time cannot move in a circle, coming again to where it was before. Time sweeps in spiral, going round and round again—the cycles of the seasons, the flow of the cold springs, the growth of a forest or a child, but never returns to the same place. And we who love this world will tremble with the beauty of the spiral that has brought us here and the mystery of the spiral that will carry us away."
With our feet, we each created a section of a huge spiral in the sand. At the end, the sun was setting and I stood in the center of the spiral looking around at all these amazing women looking back at me. They all have known me throughout so many cycles of my life and watched me change, grow, and then return to a different place, just like Moore describes. And I have seen them do the same.
After the beach rituals, we went to Jessica’s house. Some of us cooked a scrumptious dinner of broccoli and spinach quiche, quinoa, and salad while the rest of us helped by dancing to Prince, Missy Elliott and MIA. While we ate, I talked about what I was grateful for, including why I was thankful for each one of them. Then we participated in one last ritual that Jessica led, planting our intentions for the future.
Finally, it was time for the hot tub! While the seven of us soaked in our birthday suits, I looked up at the starry sky, pointed to the first cluster that I saw, and asked what constellation it was. Tessa exclaimed, "It's Pleiades! Also, known as the Seven Sisters!" I've never had an interest in constellations before. I have no idea what lead me to ask that question. Oh, universe!
I was hoping that the day would not just be about my birthday, but a time where my friends could reflect on their own goals, gratitude, and intentions while also bonding and getting to know each other on a deeper level. Meghan said at one point, "I've experienced more relationship building with you guys in the last seven hours than I have with other friends over several years!"
The day was bigger than me, and I am grateful.
"But in this greening place of ashes and springs, I began to understand that time cannot move in a circle, coming again to where it was before. Time sweeps in spiral, going round and round again—the cycles of the seasons, the flow of the cold springs, the growth of a forest or a child, but never returns to the same place. And we who love this world will tremble with the beauty of the spiral that has brought us here and the mystery of the spiral that will carry us away."
With our feet, we each created a section of a huge spiral in the sand. At the end, the sun was setting and I stood in the center of the spiral looking around at all these amazing women looking back at me. They all have known me throughout so many cycles of my life and watched me change, grow, and then return to a different place, just like Moore describes. And I have seen them do the same.
After the beach rituals, we went to Jessica’s house. Some of us cooked a scrumptious dinner of broccoli and spinach quiche, quinoa, and salad while the rest of us helped by dancing to Prince, Missy Elliott and MIA. While we ate, I talked about what I was grateful for, including why I was thankful for each one of them. Then we participated in one last ritual that Jessica led, planting our intentions for the future.
Finally, it was time for the hot tub! While the seven of us soaked in our birthday suits, I looked up at the starry sky, pointed to the first cluster that I saw, and asked what constellation it was. Tessa exclaimed, "It's Pleiades! Also, known as the Seven Sisters!" I've never had an interest in constellations before. I have no idea what lead me to ask that question. Oh, universe!
I was hoping that the day would not just be about my birthday, but a time where my friends could reflect on their own goals, gratitude, and intentions while also bonding and getting to know each other on a deeper level. Meghan said at one point, "I've experienced more relationship building with you guys in the last seven hours than I have with other friends over several years!"
The day was bigger than me, and I am grateful.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
happy new year!!!
My resolutions:
1- get my massage certificate
2- support my body in its healing process
3- support my spiritual flourishing
Intentions:
My intention is to get my bodywork business going.
My intention is to complete my intestinal healing.
My intention is to easily feel the craniosacral rhythm of myself and others.
1- get my massage certificate
2- support my body in its healing process
3- support my spiritual flourishing
Intentions:
My intention is to get my bodywork business going.
My intention is to complete my intestinal healing.
My intention is to easily feel the craniosacral rhythm of myself and others.
gratitude
2010 was filled with. . .
-cranial sacral therapy class and study groups
-massage school
-a raucous 29th birthday party
--playing with visiting friends and family
dinner-shares with neighbors
-cleaning houses and hanging out with random kids until I got the nanny job with my nanner Evan,
-watching Evan grow (3 months to 9 months so far!)
-continuing to lead prayer meetings at First Congo
-exploring our neighborhood and the rest of San Francisco
-exploring northern California
-Kool Cat passing
-hanging with friends
-dates with Dan
-going on my first retreat
-progressing farther than I ever have with network spinal analysis (light touch chiropractic) and watching my body reorganize and heal
-becoming an official member of FDB
-our CD release show in September
-practicing the newly-learned body work on friends and acquaintances
-homemaking!
Gratitude. For a peaceful year, settling into San Francisco and beginning the transition to my new career!
-cranial sacral therapy class and study groups
-massage school
-a raucous 29th birthday party
--playing with visiting friends and family
dinner-shares with neighbors
-cleaning houses and hanging out with random kids until I got the nanny job with my nanner Evan,
-watching Evan grow (3 months to 9 months so far!)
-continuing to lead prayer meetings at First Congo
-exploring our neighborhood and the rest of San Francisco
-exploring northern California
-Kool Cat passing
-hanging with friends
-dates with Dan
-going on my first retreat
-progressing farther than I ever have with network spinal analysis (light touch chiropractic) and watching my body reorganize and heal
-becoming an official member of FDB
-our CD release show in September
-practicing the newly-learned body work on friends and acquaintances
-homemaking!
Gratitude. For a peaceful year, settling into San Francisco and beginning the transition to my new career!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
the healing dance
I just can't tell you how excited and privileged I feel to be lead into this crazy world of body work!!! Every time I take the time to ground, center and let the Holy Spirit in before a session, amazing things happen. Every time!
I'm getting my hands on people a lot more which is obviously helping me to learn and grow faster than when I am just taking the classes. Most of the people I've been working on lately, have experienced no or very little body/energy work, and show some sort of skepticism in the beginning even if they don't admit that to me until later. Before each session, I'm always afraid that these people won't feel anything since their bodies aren't used to responding to light touch body work (craniosacral, not massage), but they do!
Last night, I did some work on Dan because he's been having a minor health issue. It was a beautiful dance of reiki, craniosacral, visceral manipulation, prayers, God, and meditation. After the session, we processed what had happened, and discovered that my prayers were corresponding perfectly with the images he was getting, and at one point, we were given the exact same image simultaneously.
This is fun!!!
I'm getting my hands on people a lot more which is obviously helping me to learn and grow faster than when I am just taking the classes. Most of the people I've been working on lately, have experienced no or very little body/energy work, and show some sort of skepticism in the beginning even if they don't admit that to me until later. Before each session, I'm always afraid that these people won't feel anything since their bodies aren't used to responding to light touch body work (craniosacral, not massage), but they do!
Last night, I did some work on Dan because he's been having a minor health issue. It was a beautiful dance of reiki, craniosacral, visceral manipulation, prayers, God, and meditation. After the session, we processed what had happened, and discovered that my prayers were corresponding perfectly with the images he was getting, and at one point, we were given the exact same image simultaneously.
This is fun!!!
Friday, October 8, 2010
the wrench
Last year, my holistic M.D. described what was happening to me physically as a “wrench being thrown into my system,” implying that there might have been one thing (the wrench) that initially started the downward spiral, but from there, everything was disturbed, like a domino affect. It rang true to me when she said it considering my understanding of the interconnectedness of the body. You can’t have something go wrong without it affecting almost every other part of your body in some way. Even though I didn’t know what initiated the downward spiral, I could work toward restoring the system holistically.
I have had theories of what this wrench in the system might have been, but the other day, I discovered what it actually was. One year and 9 months later. I was excited at first, relieved. And then sad. If I just would have avoided this one thing, this all might not have happened.
But very quickly, I knew I did not regret what had happened and the upheaval that it had caused. What else would have lead me to leave social work and do something that I was really meant to do? Nothing short of chaos would have. I had NO idea I wasn’t in the right career. And of course, it was not coincidence that “the wrench” was revealed to me at a time when I am now so sure that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.
And all those things in the previous blog entry about what my body has been telling me? I wouldn’t have learned those things and countless others if I could have just written the chaos off with one reason.
I don’t feel like naming what the wrench was, and I really don’t want to spend too much time thinking or writing about it. I’m moving forward now. I’m excited about the future. And I have no regrets.
I have had theories of what this wrench in the system might have been, but the other day, I discovered what it actually was. One year and 9 months later. I was excited at first, relieved. And then sad. If I just would have avoided this one thing, this all might not have happened.
But very quickly, I knew I did not regret what had happened and the upheaval that it had caused. What else would have lead me to leave social work and do something that I was really meant to do? Nothing short of chaos would have. I had NO idea I wasn’t in the right career. And of course, it was not coincidence that “the wrench” was revealed to me at a time when I am now so sure that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.
And all those things in the previous blog entry about what my body has been telling me? I wouldn’t have learned those things and countless others if I could have just written the chaos off with one reason.
I don’t feel like naming what the wrench was, and I really don’t want to spend too much time thinking or writing about it. I’m moving forward now. I’m excited about the future. And I have no regrets.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Saturn Returned
Last year when I was really going through it, I would explain the chaos that was happening in my life and people would ask, "how old are you?" I'd tell them, and they would nod knowingly, "Oh it's your Saturn Return!" Seriously this happened several different times. (Only in the Bay Area. I know.) I had never heard of the concept, but when I started reading about it, it resonated so deeply, I couldn't believe it.
Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia. I really like how it sums it up:
The Saturn Return is an astrological phenomenon that occurs at the ages of 27-30, 58-60, 86-88, etc., coinciding with the time it takes the planet Saturn to make one orbit around the sun. It is believed by astrologers that as Saturn "returns" to the degree in which it occupied at the time of birth—approximately every 29.5 years—a person crosses over a major threshold and into the next stage of life. With the first Saturn Return, a person leaves youth behind and enters adulthood. With the second Return, maturity. And the third and usually final Return, a person enters wise old age.
The first Saturn Return is famous because it represents the first test of character and the structures a person has built their life upon. According to traditions, should these structures be unsound, or if a person is living out of touch with his or her true values, the Saturn Return will be a time of upheaval and limitations as Saturn forces him or her to jettison old concepts and worn out patterns of living. It is not uncommon for relationships and jobs to end during this time of life restructuring and reevaluation.
But the Saturn Return is not all about painful endings. During this time astrologers note that goals are consolidated and people tend to gain a better vision of where they are going in life. There are added responsibilities and a person may reap the rewards from his or her hard work. Many major life milestones seem to happen around the ages of 29 and 30. This is why astrologers believe that the thirtieth birthday is such a major rite of passage because it marks the true beginning of adulthood, self-evaluation, independence, ambition, and self-actualization.
Like the excerpt says, I believe I was not living out all of my values and that many of the structures I had built my life on, were not making my life or my health sustainable. There are many examples, but one of the main ones involved not living out my values through my career.
At the social work agency where I was working, there was so much injustice, it was overwhelming. The injustices that had been done to my teenage clients by their parents, the systemic injustices of capitalism and racism, etc., and the injustices that we at the agency were carrying out, like repeat abandonment, racism, hypocrisy, and all and all, setting the children up to fail.
I have always been an idealist, and I apparently could not thrive in a system that is THAT inherently flawed. I literally did not have the energy to try and make change even at the agency level. My time was filled up by keeping my clients and myself afloat and the OVERWHELMING amount of paperwork we had to give to the government in order to get money from them. It was suffocating.
I did the best I could, but I had to get out. My mind did not know this. But my body sure as hell did.
Sometimes labels can be very helpful. Knowing about the Saturn Return phenomena made me feel less alone. It assured me that this was just an era and that there would be an ending point.
I would later find out (and am still finding out), that I was made to do something else. Something that is, in fact, in line with my values, something where I could still fight for justice but not in a setting that was so overwhelming, something that supports others while at the same time supports myself, my health, and is in line with who I was made to be.
Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia. I really like how it sums it up:
The Saturn Return is an astrological phenomenon that occurs at the ages of 27-30, 58-60, 86-88, etc., coinciding with the time it takes the planet Saturn to make one orbit around the sun. It is believed by astrologers that as Saturn "returns" to the degree in which it occupied at the time of birth—approximately every 29.5 years—a person crosses over a major threshold and into the next stage of life. With the first Saturn Return, a person leaves youth behind and enters adulthood. With the second Return, maturity. And the third and usually final Return, a person enters wise old age.
The first Saturn Return is famous because it represents the first test of character and the structures a person has built their life upon. According to traditions, should these structures be unsound, or if a person is living out of touch with his or her true values, the Saturn Return will be a time of upheaval and limitations as Saturn forces him or her to jettison old concepts and worn out patterns of living. It is not uncommon for relationships and jobs to end during this time of life restructuring and reevaluation.
But the Saturn Return is not all about painful endings. During this time astrologers note that goals are consolidated and people tend to gain a better vision of where they are going in life. There are added responsibilities and a person may reap the rewards from his or her hard work. Many major life milestones seem to happen around the ages of 29 and 30. This is why astrologers believe that the thirtieth birthday is such a major rite of passage because it marks the true beginning of adulthood, self-evaluation, independence, ambition, and self-actualization.
Like the excerpt says, I believe I was not living out all of my values and that many of the structures I had built my life on, were not making my life or my health sustainable. There are many examples, but one of the main ones involved not living out my values through my career.
At the social work agency where I was working, there was so much injustice, it was overwhelming. The injustices that had been done to my teenage clients by their parents, the systemic injustices of capitalism and racism, etc., and the injustices that we at the agency were carrying out, like repeat abandonment, racism, hypocrisy, and all and all, setting the children up to fail.
I have always been an idealist, and I apparently could not thrive in a system that is THAT inherently flawed. I literally did not have the energy to try and make change even at the agency level. My time was filled up by keeping my clients and myself afloat and the OVERWHELMING amount of paperwork we had to give to the government in order to get money from them. It was suffocating.
I did the best I could, but I had to get out. My mind did not know this. But my body sure as hell did.
Sometimes labels can be very helpful. Knowing about the Saturn Return phenomena made me feel less alone. It assured me that this was just an era and that there would be an ending point.
I would later find out (and am still finding out), that I was made to do something else. Something that is, in fact, in line with my values, something where I could still fight for justice but not in a setting that was so overwhelming, something that supports others while at the same time supports myself, my health, and is in line with who I was made to be.
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