Mothers Day

My story is your story and your story is my story

We all have stories..

1.the stories we were born into…culture and politics,

family traditions religion

2.the stories we were told by schools, churches, parents,

enemies and friends about our worth our values our

abilities,

3.the stories that happened…we got married, divorced, a

loved one died, we got sick, we survived a disaster

4.the stories we tell ourselves as a result of the above

stories…our self judgements, self blame, our self imposed

imitations

We carry these stories around with us…sometimes visibly

and sometimes invisibly.

And they weigh us down. They impact our bodies, our

minds, our spirits, our families, our communities.

Crown..you know how a simple image sticks with

you…she carried a pocketbook everywhere, even in her

own living room! Every episode has her carrying that

dam pocketbook. The thought of having to carry a

pocketbook with me all the time, everywhere I go, really

irritated me. I couldn’t figure out why, until I started

writing this. I carry around in the pocketbook of my life,

all the stories I have heard or created in 75 years. If those

stories of mine were in a real physical pocketbook, it

would be too large and heavy to carry. But carry them

around, I do…. in my body and my life. I pretend they are

nothing, I deny their impact on my choices, and in that

denial, I allow them to control my very existence. They

are exhausting and imprisoning.

So I’d like to suggest that today, we look at some of our

stories and ask ourselves if we really want to continue

carrying them.

On a day like mother’s day, I think it is especially

significant to do so.

We have layers of stories in our lives, but are all of them

what you want your current story to be?

Could we take those stories, sift through them, throw out

what was harmful…….move beyond ones we have grown

out of……keep the ones that were empowering,……and

use them to write our today story.

What kind of stories am I talking about?

The stories told us by systems that denied us

opportunity, equality,

The people who publicly shamed us, labeled us

The chaos of growing up in dysfunction or abuse.

The pain of being lied to, abandoned, cheated on, fired,

The pain of poverty, racism, bigotry,

The pain of death, disease or divorce

Our lives are a pocketbook of stories of what was. what

could have been, what is and what might be. They

become our identity and the filter for how we see, hear,

feel and act. We unsuspectingly pass these stories onto

our relationships. These stories move around in our lives,

mostly unnoticed. They are like the air we breathe and

some of that air is polluted.

So today, lets put that pocketbook down, and look at

some of the stories in that pocketbook. Are they the

kind of stories you want to continue carrying?

If I don’t identify and own the stories I carry, they will

own me.

1…Own your stories

What does it mean to own my own stories?

Because I have been a codependent people pleaser, a

chameleon for a large part of my life, I have hundreds of

stories. Which ones to pick???? actually …none of

them…. Because they were not MY stories

They were my parents, teachers, employers, friends,

husband, kids, stories.They were the stories of my church

community at the time, my family at the time, my

neighborhood culture at the time.

They were the roles I played to make people happy, be

liked, be accepted, belong.

Growing up in my family, I did not learn the joy and

responsibility of belonging, of connection. It just wasn’t

that kind of house. SO I learned that if I took care of

everybody, and everything, …. they would need me and I

would belong….. But life is unpredictable and as I grew

older, the people I took care of stopped needing me,

job duties grew harder for me to do (technology)

friends moved away,

my church no longer felt like home.

Without anyone to do for, without making their stories

yours, without the roles you think you need to be in,

without the expectations of our culture…….what is the

story you need to own? TODAY

The story of your relationship and connection with

youself?

Is it about your relationship to food or sleep? Is it about

loving your aging body?

Is it about your relationship to money and spending?

Is it about your sobriety or someone else’s sobriety?

Is it about the new role you play in your children’s lives?

Is it about the thing you always knew you could do but

didn’t have time Is it about maintaining your mobility

through exercise?

My true stories were never meant to be about me taking

care of the world

My true stories were meant to be stories of connection

and relationship first with my God, second with myself

and third with others, fourth with the earth.

My true stories need to be based upon shared truths

regardless of how uncomfortable those truths are. Today

my true story allows for taking care of others but only

because I want to, not because I am expected to or

afraid not to.

Are the stories you live and the stories you tell about

yourself based on unconditional love for your

magnificent life?

There are also stories that were told to us but were

never really ours. They were stories that we were told by

others because they believed them and so passed those

stories on to us. Sometimes explicitly in warnings or

lectures and sometimes without actual words but with a

look or an expectation.

But regardless, we believed them because the people

taking care of us believed them.

Today, my heart breaks for my mother who was shamed

for her sexuality, who was told she was not smart

enough to finish school and whose job it was to take care

of everyone in her family

I grew up with that as the story of a woman and for a

long time believed it.

Sadly it was her story, but today I believe she is in

heaven and with her Gods unconditional love

surrounding her, she sees and wishes a different story for

me.

Then there are also the stories we were told by

communities, churches, schools, and most recently by

media. Stories that tell us we need to fear, or we need to

purchase, or we need to fit in. Stories that gave others

invisible power over us to conform to their standards

There are the stories of things we actually did,

Sometimes we embellished certain parts of the story to

make ourselves look better or to protect ourselves.

Sometimes we deleted certain parts of the stories out of

shame and fear. Recovery in step 4 and 5 gave us a way

out of the pain and shame of those things, gave us

accountability, and courage to move forward. And yet

some of us are still telling ourselves limiting stories about

ourselves.

True recovery isn’t complete just because we have

finished the steps. It’s about daily honesty, integrity and

courage and faith.

Today we are invited to face the truth of our past stories.

THEY ARE THE PAST. The stories we were born into, the

stories we were told and the stories of what we did

THEY ARE NOT WHO WE ARE TODAY.

Here’s an example

Mother…Hunter high school…took test…didn’t get in…I

took from that that I am not smart enough. I lived that

belief all through high school. college, and grad school.

never took challenging courses because I wasn’t smart

enough.. Now today, a little part of me still believes that.

I describe myself as creative, intuitive, disciplined and

inquisitive, rather than smart. But who says those things

aren’t smart? Smart is the woman who has two masters

degrees, two state licenses. The woman who was

director of a program. The woman who writes and leads

retreats.

What is the story you are still believing or telling yourself

about yourself?

You’re not healthy, thin, rich, loved, understood, neat,

adventuresome, responsible, young enough?

Stop right now and list 5 limiting stories that you still

believe in some way about yourself.

Choose one of them

Now list five things you are currently doing that prove

that story flawed. or maybe five things that are

perpetuating that story.

Here’s a limiting story of mine…..I’m not athletic, I’m

clumsy, arthritic, afraid of getting hurt, two left feet,

have a spatial vision problem

For 75 years I believed and acted on that story. If we had

a whole day I could name hundreds of reasons and

experiences that I believed supported that belief then.

BUT NO MORE…..NOT TODAY

I’m taking physical training at my gym. Core and abs

classes, aqua classes, yoga classes, dance classes, weight

lifting and strength classes. I’m doing physical therapy,

eating protein to build muscle and being grateful for the

pain that comes with exercising rather than complaining

about it. I am writing my own story about my body and

its athletic abilities. It’s taken me 75 years to let go of

that old story. It’s about time!

Now We all have stories, positive and negative.

When stories are positive they open us up. They inspire

confidence. They strengthen us. They invite others in.

When stories are negative they close us up, make us fear,

weaken us and close us to the support of others.

So if you have owned some of your stories, now is the

time to take them out and share them with someone

who will honor you and your painful stories

We know from addiction, that we cannot do life alone.

1….It is healthy honest relationships that tell us who we

uniquely are, what our purpose might be.

2…It is healthy honest relationships that help us believe

that being vulnerable will not kill us.

3…It is healthy honest relationships that support us when

we think we cannot go on.

4…It is healthy honest relationships that inspire us to let

go of the negative beliefs we have carried all our lives,

and

5…it is honest healthy relationships that hold our hand as

we learn new ways of thinking and believing.

Are you open to connecting with new people or maybe

some trusted old people who have honored your stories

in the past?

Are you open to connecting with and letting the honest

healthy people you already connect with, know your

secrets and fears?

When I was raising kids, when I was working, I had

contact with hundreds of people at any given time.

Contact. not necessarily connection nor real

relationships.

Today as my circle of contacts is getting smaller, it is

incredibly important that my connection with the

remaining people gets deeper.

Who are the people you could have those deeper

connections with but don’t?

What is stopping you from deepening those connections.

As important as it is to choose to build deeper

connections, it also important to choose which stories we

now want to define us.

The Crown. always carried pocketbook even in her living

and bed room

Are you still carrying around limiting, defeating, shaming

diseased stories and thoughts in your emotional

pocketbook. Are you holding on to that pocketbook, like

Queen Elizabeth, because you are expected to, or

because you think it is the right thing to do or because it

will keep you safe and insulated from the pain of the

world? Her pocketbook was her defense, a way to close

herself off

Our stories and our thoughts about those stories,

generate energy, and if the thoughts are negative, so will

the energy be. And negative energy is really heavy to

carry around. That’s why steps 4,5,6.7 are so important

in recovery.

So if we want to write our TODAY story, some of us will

need to also change out vocabulary, our thoughts about

ourselves.

Are there thoughts you need to change or throw out

And when you do are there thoughts you need to create

in their place?

Thoughts that will be the bones of your new story?

So often I have the experience of a thought running

through my mind endlessly, or words to a song that don’t

support me in any way , being played over and over in

the spotify of mind.

I am pretty specific about the songs that go on my spotify

playlists. Now I need to be as specific with the songs that

run on endlessly in my head.

I’m beginning to see that with less time thinking about

others, there is more space in my mind for useless old

stuff that doesn’t help me grow. I need to be more aware

of the stuff that plays through my mind and remove

thoughts that don’t fit me anymore

Two weeks ago, I noticed hostas that were growing

randomly crowded around the mailbox, a place where

they had no future because the old driveway was being

replaced. and they would soon be ripped out by a large

machine.

Though they weren’t useful there anymore, they could

live in a more suitable environment. I loosened the soil

around the plants…..sliced through the middle to create

smaller plants….. loosened the sliced through soil. Then

carefully dug the shovel deep enough under the plant to

prevent the roots from separating from the stems and

leaves. With a lot of work, I was able to separate the

large hostas into smaller plants and after preparing the

new soil, replant them in a place where they can grow. I

lost a few stems but that’s ok, what will grow now will be

fuller and healthier.

That’s Sort of like what I need to do with old thoughts

from the past that are crowding my mind and have no

future there. For me this means:

1 identify where there are overcrowding thoughts and

no room to grow healthy ones

2 loosen up my thinking, not everything needs to be

pulled up at once

3 chose the thoughts that are too big to transplant

and break them apart into manageable parts

4 be ok with getting rid of some damaged parts

5 preparing my mind and daily activities for new

growth.

The original hostas were growing in a 2 foot square space

by the street. The trimmed replanted hostas are growing

along a border 30 feet long, creating beauty for the

future in a place that was just dirt and weeds.

If I can do that with a plant, I can do that with the

overcrowded old thoughts in my mind too.

What is overcrowding your mind and needs to be

cleaned out so todays story can be envisioned and put

into action?

Some of those things will need forgiveness before our

minds will allow room for new stories of peace,

happiness and purpose to grow.

1…Forgiveness is your power to write your new stories

2…Forgiveness is choosing to say I refuse to limit myself

to your hurtful space. I am moving on and growing in a

place of love.

3…Forgiveness is saying I don’t need the pocketbook of

the past or of present expectations to identify or protect

me. I will move unencumbered, carrying the

unconditional love of my HP in my heart.

Has an unwillingness to forgive and let go, kept you from

living your present day story?

Or is it fear of not doing it right that is keeping you from

writing your story today?

I lost some hostas, but I still made a new garden from the

old ones. And some of the transplanted ones do look a

little scraggly, but they will grow.

Sometimes what keeps us from living our present day

story are the excuses we are familiar with that kept us

stuck in the old stories.

My brain has had a lot of practice with excuses it is an

excuse factory. It provides me with an endless line of

reasons (which are just another word for excuses) for not

doing what I know I need and want to do.

I need to close that factory down it is polluting my life

Now shutting the excuse factory down is not going to

make new stories miraculously appear.

I am going to have to do some things I haven’t done

before

I am going to have to stop doing some things I am used

to doing ……Nothing changes if nothing changes…………

What do you want the story of the rest of your life to be.

What are the tools you will need to write that story.

1… want to appreciate my age, and stop complaining

about age related stuff

2…want to use my alone time better, less tv more

walking in nature

3…I want to commit to a minimum one hour a day of

writing

4…I want to stop offering to help others when they don’t

need it

5…I want to ask for things, lunch with roberta

Your old stories are like the paving stones that make up a

road. a road that has brought you to today. They are the

lessons you learned, the chances you took, the mistakes

you made, the successes you achieved, the people you

loved and the people you failed, the people who loved

you and the people who failed you.

Everything that ever happened to you created the you of

today. What are you going to do with that you of today?

Maybe some of your yesterday stories were not happy,

not encouraging.

Maybe you followed the stories and roads someone else

set down for you and now don’t feel like you even know

how to choose a direction.

Regardless, today, we can be thankful for our struggles

because without them we wouldn’t have stumbled

across our strengths.

We are not our maybe’s our pasts or our wishes for the

future. We are divine love and leadership in the form of

a woman.

We have walked through the crippling doorways of our

past stories and in doing so we have opened those

doorways for other women.

We have planted trees under whose shade we may never

sit knowing that we make room for our daughters and

younger women to sit there.

Our program honesty and integrity create a legacy that

will inspire other women to dream bigger, live bigger and

create stories that actually empower women for

generations to come. What is the story waiting to come

from you?

The outside is the way people meet the divine feminine

in us. The things we do are the way GOD works through

us to bring grace to the world. Remember, writing your

story does not always get done with a pen.

Our outer life, whatever that is looks important,

remember the saying You are the only bible some people

will ever read.

But there’s another saying. Don’t judge a book by it

cover. The things we do and say….. the way we care for

ourselves are important. They are like the cover of our

story.

And many women often get stuck here, spending time

doing instead of being. Being meaning our inner work,

our soul work

When we don’t do our own inner work, even though we

might be doing fantastic outer work, we get what is

called soul stuck.

When that happens our reactions emotions and

behaviors related to daily experiences are sometimes

inappropriate to what we and our higher power truly

desire. We’ve experienced that in our disease and

I for one,…….. don’t want to go back there…….. and yet I

am fully aware of how easy it is to slide back there

This moment is an opportunity to spend time with your

story but most importantly with your soul….

It is our soul that make us unique not our kids , our jobs,

our fame. Those are the things our soul wears as we

travel through this life.

Are you caring for your soul as much as, and as well as

you care for those things?

Everything your life needs is known deep within your

soul. If you are not checking in with your soul, you

probably end up with things that don’t satisfy you.

For so many years women have lived with lives that were

not satisfying. Today we have the great gift of changing

that. But to do that we have to return to the divine plan

for the soul of a woman. It is not just about voting, or

owning property or reproductive rights. it is about who

we truly are…the divine presence of God alive on this

earth in the body of a woman.

Each one of us is different. yet we are all the divine

presence of God.

Each one of us is God’s story to the world

Are you out there living your divine story for the world to

see and hear?

Are you here, listening to the divine wisdom your higher

power is giving you?

Today is mothers day, but everyday we need to stand

strong in our divine stories.

Everyday we need to be the voices that remind other

women to celebrate their stories

Women who believe in their divine light

Women who support other women’s divine light

can survive anything

Women who believe in each other create armies of

peace that win hearts, kingdoms and wars that face

down the power of hate with their love and faith

Defined by no one, you are your own story, spreading

through the world and turning history into our story.

When the world tells you all the things you cannot be

you simply smile and say I am a woman of God.

Take a few minutes and write a sentence or two about

the story you want to write

I want to be a woman who overcomes obstacles in faith

rather than tiptoeing around them in fear, who trusts in

god rather than worrying about the what ifs. I want to be

a woman who speaks God’s truth wherever God call me

to.

Today as women of God, we accept our divine nature

with wonder and humility

Today as women of God, we accept our human condition

with reverence and love.

Today as women of God, no matter how old our body,

the divine spirit inside us is ageless.

Today as women of God, no matter how cynical and

beaten, the divine spirit inside us will always believe in

miracles

Today as women of God, we tell the story of love that

has brought us to this day.

Happy Mothers day