Get out of the Traffic

I’ve got 99 problems, but tasking ain’t one.  I get things done.  I fight hard to make things happen.  I pushed in labor for 4 years.  I am proud of my commitment to accomplish hard things. And I’m also tired.

I am an Achiever (type 3) on the enneagram personality assessment (find your type here by clicking on the FREE RHETI Sampler).  Quiet makes me panic.  My to-do list gets longer and longer.  It's a total high to scratch finished items off.  I strategize daily how I can make more happen. And I often lay my head down on my pillow at night with shame about all the things that aren’t done – there ready for my attack in the morning.  I believe, somehow, that if I can do and be more, I am more valuable, worthy, and lovable.  Doing keeps me seen.  Performing keeps me loved.  Achieving keeps me worthy.  I think.

Here’s what those things also do.  Doing keeps me busy. Performing keeps me disconnected from myself.  Achieving keeps me tired.  Yet it terrifies me to let go of my plan or throw my task lists in the recycling bin (because hey, if I’m going to get rid of them, let’s make good environmental choices, right?).  I just almost shat myself thinking about not having a list.  Without the list, where is the direction? Without the performance will people still love me?  Without the achievement, will anyone even notice me anymore?  My constant question is “If I don’t do it, who will?” So I even keep accepting tasks that aren’t mine to do. And sometimes it flows over into other people’s tasks. I seem to think there are better ways for them to perform too.  My poor children are going to know how to most efficiently load a dishwasher – as if there is a blue ribbon for the most beautifully stacked bottom basket.  Seriously? 

I am not ashamed of who I am. I am coming to accept that my personality naturally tends me toward perpetual motion.  AND I am coming to accept that I don’t have to let it cripple or harm me.  How can I (and you) embrace the way I am beautifully made, yet be mindful of where it may be getting in the way?

The verse “Be still and know I am God” (Psalm 46:10) has always brought me much fear and shame.  “Be still” – ugh, I feel like I’m doomed to fail immediately.  But God, I don’t know how to be still!  When I read on to the “and know” part, there is a slight hint of freedom and a longing to understand more.  In the same way we have to parent our very different children differently, I believe God does the same thing with us.  He knows that if he asked me to just “be still” I might have a full-on temper tantrum.  So in my searching of this verse in other translations, I found in the Message, “Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God…”  YES, that’s it!  That’s what I feel God inviting me to do – get out of the traffic.  Take a new road.   It’s okay to keep moving as long as I’m more aware of the direction I’m heading and the signs I’m following.   I don't have to stay on the same internal busy highway I take every day.   And I don't have to be the one always in the driver's seat. When I can take a long loving look at God, whether I’m doing the dishes, playing a game with my kids, or breaking it down to my favorite hip-hop music, I can stop relying on my own human strength.  I let go.  I release my tasks, actions, and decisions from being obligations.  I can trust that my movement is for restoration, not expectation.  While there are certainly times that literally “being still” has its benefits, I don’t have to expect myself to be able to do that well all the time.  I can let myself be in movement – out of the traffic, toward the place where my soul meets Jesus and lets me be loved.  One of my favorite things to do is walk in my neighborhood down to this little river.  Each time I reach this place, I stop and take a deep breath, stretch my body, and give gratitude.  I’m not physically still, but my mind and heart find a quiet place of trust in that moment. 

~Does your personality welcome or resist physical stillness?  Why?  Try not to shame or judge your answer. Just notice it. 

~What does “be still” mean for YOU?  Is that scary? What could it mean instead?

~How/what do you “know” when you find this “stillness?”

I Voted.

I voted today. This was my first time to vote in many years. During the Presidential election, I was sick to my stomach about going to the poll out of fear I would choose wrong.  What if my vote loses? What if my candidate wins but then does a bad job? What if people knew how I voted? Would they still like me?  Is this my only shot to have a voice? So many questions! So I just didn’t vote. I still regret it.  Fear can be crippling at its surface.  But when I get to the root of my fear, I know it’s really about possibly being rejected for being unworthy, different, wrong, or not good enough.   When I can face that - when any of us can go there - healing begins. 

So today I walked right in – proudly, calmly, confidently – and checked those boxes.  I didn’t ask myself any of those questions or have any of the same fears as before.  I trusted my choice and opinion.  I gathered information beforehand and asked myself what was important to me. I didn’t look at people’s yard signs or poll my friends to make a decision. Although many of the signs in the yards next to me felt like they were screaming, “you’re wrong!” But I didn’t care. It doesn’t phase me like it used to when I notice I might be different.  I embrace the beauty that my neighbor and I both get to have an opinion and vote. 

Here’s my point.  We hear all the time how important it is to speak your own voice. But do you even know what your voice is saying?  Is it overpowered by all the voices around you – and it’s so loud you can’t hear what is really YOU?  Before fighting the fight, know what you are fighting for…and why.  And go into battle confidently knowing you never really lose when you honor yourSELF.  

Black and White

It is often suggested that we not see things so black and white. There is always much gray in the middle. Or there are so many other colors in the spectrum.  Most days I get this idea - even embrace it.  But on this day, I couldn't help but recognize the beauty of the extremes.  

I watched my boys walk with their cousins through a corn maze.  It is rare that I think about the color differences in our family. I just know they are my kids, and it doesn’t cross my mind until we are curiously inspected by others.  Then I remember, oh yeah, we are a different color!  But the day I watched them walk with their cousins I realized how beautiful that difference is - how complimenting our differences can be.  It doesn’t have to be about different being wrong or weird – but different being normal.  I thought about how some children are born into families and how others are placed into families – both offer gifts.   We can celebrate our differences, embrace them, walk together in them, let them glow in the light of each other.

This picture reminds me of more than color and race.  It makes me think of religion, sexuality, politics, choices, opinions, personalities.  It reminds me that black and white are necessary in order to have a colorful world.  We are all beautifully and wonderfully made, and we are all just trying to walk the crazy, twisting, maze of life together.    

Quiet

It’s quiet.  I can hear myself.  Today the quiet doesn’t scare me anymore.  I remember the days it did - the four long years that the quiet was so loud it rattled my insides.  I longed for laughter, music, voices, boy noise to fill my home.  And it is finally here.  But right now my favorite men are at work and school, and it is quiet again – the peaceful reassuring quiet that comes just before the school bus comes around.  This quiet says, “I’m here, but not for long.  How do you want to use this time before it’s not quiet anymore?”

I have whiplash from the complete jolt that happens when you go from no kids to 3 kids.  And not just 3 kids – 3 big kids.  We aren’t changing diapers or rocking them to sleep.  (I grieve we didn’t get to do that with them, though).  We are packing lunches, talking to teachers about classroom struggles, trying out for sports, learning English, explaining that what just happened to them was a “shart,” and other fun boy things.  We went from silence to full-on adolescent boy clamor. And it’s beautifully chaotic.

So in this moment of quiet I asked myself what I needed. What am I not getting to do that I used to do when there was so much quiet?  The answer - write.  I love writing. And before it was about all my sorrows that came with the quiet.  And ironically now it’s more about how to find some solitude – a sense that I haven’t gotten lost in my sons’ laundry baskets.  My intention is never to complain or have a “poor pitiful me” attitude. My intention is always to connect.  Because life just gets hard sometimes, and I believe someone out there feels what I am feeling – or has, or will.   And a big thing I’ve learned for myself is that I just need to know I’m not alone.  When I let even a little vulnerability out, even if it’s Debbie Downer messy, I might want to run straight to my shame shack for letting you see it, but in the end I always feel better being out of hiding.  I connect.  My mess doesn’t feel so consuming when I realize I’m part of a bigger group of souls who have their hands raised waiting on someone to call on them and say, “Yes, you with the quivering tired hand, what do you need?”

So I’m writing again when I can.  I have resigned myself to the fact that it won’t be as much as before, but I can let it be.  And I’m excited that part of the writing will be a book. It may flop.  It may not ever make it on a shelf, but I’m writing it, because the precious few moments of quiet invite me to feed a part of me that is ready to tell a story and come alive.  

Some thoughts for you…

~Maybe you have lots of “quiet” in your life right now?  How do you notice you spend this time?  Is it too quiet?  What is the “noise” you are looking for?  How could you begin to invite or notice it?

~Or maybe it’s really noisy in your life right now.  How can you find some pockets of quiet? And what would you do in those invaluable moments?

~It’s easy to fill up quiet with more noise that isn’t fulfilling.  Or on the flip side, filling up with more quiet can be draining and lonely.  Both quiet and noise have their pros and cons. What are those pros and cons for YOU? They are different for everyone. 

Finding Your Rhythm

I wandered toward the drums like they were the call of the Sirens.  I noticed the great crowd of people who had been drawn in the same way.  As I got closer, I felt my muscles relax, my curiosity peak, and my body begin to dance.  The immediate sight I saw were all those on the “outside” of the circle – the spectators. Some stood still.  Some moved ever so slightly – the “I hope no one sees me” dancers.  As I moved more inside the circle, there it was – the most beautiful vision of all kinds of people joining in rhythm.   I saw all colors and races of people dancing together, laughing, moving. Some had dreadlocks.  Some were smoking.  Some delighted in their children jumping and giggling.  Adults and children with disabilities joyfully clapped and swayed. I felt kin to each person through the music.  We were all invited to play  - by these men and women who simply brought their drum to the circle and started making sound together.  There was no sheet music, no script. Someone started a beat, another joined, until everyone’s individual rhythm blended to make beautiful harmony.  Some even brought their drum to play, but stayed outside the circle until they felt ready to join.

I was moved by the music, but more by this picture of life.  Every different type of person was represented here.  No one was arguing. Everyone was being uniquely himself or herself, and it blended beautifully. No matter who they were or what they were doing, we had all come here to be part of something bigger.  To watch, dance, play, move, or just be still.  Everyone wanted to connect and still be themselves – even if they hadn’t found their rhythm yet.  I asked myself, “What is my part here? How am I moved?  What am I drawn to?”  Then I realized I was smiling, laughing, and dancing with the precious older couple standing next to me. Sometimes the answers don’t have to be so forced – sometimes you just notice the rhythm that is already moving you.

You may not like drums. You may not care about dancing. But you can always be a participant in the circle of players, and your piece matters.  Where are you in the circle?  

 

Mood Management wtih Essential Oils

Did you know that essential oils not only have physical healing properties, but emotional as well? In his book Emotions and Essential Oils, Daniel McDonald notes the five stages of healing with essential oils:

1.     Essential oils assist in healing the physical body

2.     Essential oils assist in healing the heart

3.     Essential oils assist in releasing limiting beliefs

4.     Essential oils increase spiritual awareness and connection

5.     Essential oils inspire the fulfillment of our life’s purpose

      One of my favorite oils is Bergamot, “the oil of self acceptance.”  Daniel McDonald notes, “Bergamot is a wonderful anti-depressant.  It awakens the soul to hope and offers courage to share the inner-self.  Bergamot teaches individuals to let go of self-judgment by learning to love themselves unconditionally.”

To learn more about Bergamot and the many emotional benefits of other essential oils, Dr. Carolyn Maxfield and I welcome you to join us for a class on “Mood Management with Essential Oils.” You will have the opportunity to explore your limiting beliefs about yourself (which can manifest as physical pain in your body!), experience the oils, and learn more about how they may help if you feel emotionally “stuck.”

WHEN:  Thursday, July 10 – 6:30-8:30pm (class will be approximately 1.5 hrs with time at the end for questions. Dr. Maxfield is also willing to muscle test you on the oils as time allows)

WHERE:  MTCAM office - 7123 Crossroads Blvd. Suite A, Brentwood, TN 37027

RSVP:  drcarolymaxfield@gmail.com or 615-656-3558

***If you cannot attend the class but would like more info about essential oils, please email me at laurarameylmft@gmail.com

Awakening

So often I get these questions from my clients - or even from friends, family, and myself...

What is the purpose of pain? 

What is the reason for hardship?  

Why must we struggle sometimes?

I don't know.  I have these on my list of things to ask Jesus when I get to Heaven.  That list is long.

But here's what I do know about those questions.  Pain, hardship, struggle don't have to overcome us. They can be part of a developmental process we must go through in order to be the truest and most beautiful version of ourselves.  If the caterpillar didn't struggle, it wouldn't become a butterfly.

So what would it look like to embrace pain?  To welcome hardship?  To lean into the struggle?  I'm not sure what that looks like for each person reading this.  But what is universal to everyone is that when we go to our deepest feelings - when we are forced to look at the most vulnerable parts of ourselves, we are AWAKENED. We free those painful parts from their bondage. And we become a victor rather than a victim to our circumstances. 

You have all heard me talk so much about our adoption process. I can't help it.  It's the season of my life that has taught me more than I ever wanted to know about pain, fear, disappointment, hardship, and struggle.  And as we near the end of waiting, I can review this journey as a true healing and anointing place in my life.  I am almost a butterfly version of myself.  And I like her so much more. I am awake.  I had to face these struggles to get to my truest SELF - and I still face struggles and still seek myself daily.  That is the promise of living.

So whatever "embracing your struggle" looks like, I want to share a poem I wrote this morning on a stormy day in Nashville:

Awakening
By: Laura Melrose Ramey

Good morning, day! Good morning, rain!
Can you see my sorrow and pain?
Can your dawn make something new?
Can your drops make my drops few?

Can you hear my shame-filled heart
Cry for cleansing and a fresh start?
Does your work carry dark and gloom?
Or can this downpour make beauty bloom?

I hear it play like music outside,
And I won't fear. I won't hide.
I can trust the sun will come again.
This rain, this day - they restore within.

So I listen and welcome you - oh, dark and dreary,
Because I know my soul won't always be weary.
You invite me to stillness while you pour out,
And I let go of fear, worry, and doubt.

I can find peace, although still shaken.
Because your song invites me to awaken.
Thank you, day! Thank you, rain!
For seeing and washing my sorrow and pain.