11.27.2012

lessons in the losses: lay your burdens down & other elliptical epiphanies

lesson #8: laying your burdens down & picking up your choices

i am quite proud of my gym experience. not just the physical progress but more the social progress {relationships}. as any other "shellfish" out there might empathize, making new friends can be hard when you're afraid to talk to new people. and this "shellfish" just happens to be married to the world's greatest extrovert {which means i almost never have to work on my shyness}. but i go to a women's only gym which means no extroverted mediator for me.  and so i was surprised when relationships kinda happened, accidentally. without meaning to, i mean. i think if i have thought about them too hard, they might have never happened.

anyways, the relationship i'm most proud of, isn't the grey haired spandex ladies who love to kiss the babies, or the super friendly trainers alway joking with me about my "mommy curves" but katie.  she's like me.  four kids, having a break at the gym.  she often appears beside me on the elliptical at the exact right time. and we bare our unusual stories together as we unravel "the hard part" of what we are currently facing between cardio pulsing breaths & the latest diaper blowout story.  and as out of breath we both end up being after realizing that we've jogged quite a few miles further than we meant to, i always feel like i have finally caught my breath in real life.

at one such perfect time, she told me about this family therapist she's heard about.  the one who is known as the saviour of parents, strengthening feeble knees. katie says this dr. mammon is wise to the mother's plight.  that she knows how to dismantle their low self-esteem & pick up their shattered dreams & breath life into the woman they want to be. she's not really about parenting methods.  she's more about choices.  the many choices that make up a mother's life. she boils down everything to a choice. dr. mammon says there are very few things in a day that you have to do. you don't have to do the laundry.  you don't have to wipe the counter.  you don't have to sweep the floor.  you don't have to answer that baby's cry in the night. you don't have to go to that mommy & me class. and by being conscious of the choices that we are making & not seeing them as something you have to do, but rather something we choose to do, we are empowered.  she wants us to change our language from i have to, to i'm going to.  i am going to do the grocery shopping. i am going to get dressed today. i am going to have a great day.  it's responsible & decisive instead of burdensome & victim-ish. sometimes all a burden needs is the simple tweak of perspective. and it's being aware of how my own perspective, my own words can burden or liberate me.  it's the power of words. and it is powerful to know that i control what i do, even with a great many little people who occasionally appear like they're in control.  but there is always a choice available.  it's choices that make up any great day and it's choices that make up any great mom.

2 comments:

  1. This is very good, Sarah. And I can definitely relate as an introvert myself with a super extroverted husbands. Love you! Time's flying and I feel like I haven't popped by in forever! See you soon.

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