pool – Swimming With The Rain

God

God, Balance, and a Heart Chakra

July 14, 2020

One of the things that I exceed at is floating in a pool, and not just on a float (which if you have a graceful way to get on, please share). I’m talking about the kind where you lay flat on your back, arms at your sides, toes in the air… Quietly clearing my mind, focusing on my breathing, buoyancy supporting my body. After a bit, I no longer have to concentrate and I begin to stare up at the sky, letting the conversation around me continue as muffled sounds. As crazy as it sounds, I have a hard time balancing on my two feet but ask me to tread water, I can do that! Until this past summer…

I started to realize that something was off a few weeks ago, when I was unable to stay balanced while floating. My left shoulder kept pulling me down, which is strange because in the normal world, it felt perfectly fine. I tried to concentrate harder, I tried to not concentrate, I tried to pull down with my right side, I tried to pull up with my left. Nothing was working. I knew that I was fighting with some inner emotional turmoil but I did not put two and two together that this could affect me in such a way.

In frustration, I googled… I couldn’t find too much but what I did find led me to something about the Heart Chakra. The what?!? Nope. I am not going to buy in to that whole peace, love, and happiness craze… It’s just not how I was raised, and I think it goes against God. (Stay with me on this, please.) So, I push all of this new age information aside and head up to Indiana to see friends that have known me for over 20 years, because with them, I feel myself.

That first evening, with lightning bugs floating nearby and Jason Aldean coming out of the speakers, we swam around in the pool just laughing and feeling free. Out of habit, I immediately went in to floating position so I could stare up at the summer sky… Left shoulder pulled down. It’s never been A LOT, just enough for me to know that something isn’t right. A couple of hours and Rumplemintz shots later, a song comes on that reminds us of a dear friend that passed away several years back. We toast to him and smile…

But then something happens to me. I start to sob. And I can’t stop! For over 30 minutes, it’s like someone turned a faucet on in my eyes and they were just continuing to leak, THEY WOULD NOT STOP! I wiped away tears, I went underneath the water, I looked up at the starry sky… Nothing but tears.

The next morning, we all kind of laughed about my never ending crying, and chalked it up to the Rumplemintz mixed with the need to release pent up emotion. Yet, something had shifted in me… Exasperation had left my body. The angst I had been carrying of not being good enough, the fear of being the real me, the sadness of not being completely loved, the constant stress of the unknown with my job, the burden of trying to be everything to everyone… It was gone.

I was finally filled with an overwhelming peace and knew I was fully loved, right where I was at. Without being able to explain what I was feeling, I wanted to soak in the day and experience this feeling that felt so incredibly profound that words were not enough.

Without realizing it in the pool, I went in to my full body float and that is I had another discovery… I was laying completely still… Both shoulder blades where they needed to be, neither fighting for a different angle… Staring up at the Indiana sun, with a genuine smile.

A few days later, I sent my friend Marie a text to let her know I was heading back home. Her reply, “Are you sad? Refreshed? Rejuvenated?” I contemplated the best word to explain what I was going through… “Balanced. Does that make sense?” While that word made sense to me in a way, I still felt like I was meant to learn something from this. But, what? Not wanting to get in to this peace, love, happiness mumbo jumbo, I kept it in the back of my mind, yet it was pushing forward.

Thank goodness for my weekend pool days with Diana… She is my worldly traveler with an open mind, thinking before she speaks, but knowing she can be honest with me. Diana exudes a sense of wisdom and it is because of that, I have always had a natural calm around her. Explaining my release to her and brief findings of a heart chakra, but not sure what to make of it, I am 90% sure that she had a firm grasp on what I would find, but was confident that I would have to accept it myself… “You’re good at research. Look it up.”

What an intriguing lesson I found myself in the middle of… The heart chakra, when open to receive, is just between the shoulder blades, and your body takes in the energy of love, joy, abundance, forgiveness, trust, relationships… But, when this is closed off, a person will begin to feel apathetic, unforgiving, distrustful, and detached. The tension in the shoulder blades represents an inability to let go or forgive… Not just to others, but to ourselves. Finally, I found something that explained me almost word for word!

Here is where some would say that it gets tricky… How could I believe in something like this but also believe in God?

A gift had been handed to me as all of the pieces to this puzzle finally came together. These past several months and the struggle for connecting my thoughts all started to make sense… I have been working on putting my life back in to balance. I had not felt worthy of love, even from friends, and detached myself from anyone that I didn’t know if I could trust. By nature, I am a very distrustful person, always waiting for the ball to drop. Self-sabotage most would call it.

What I have realized the last several years, not everything is black and white. Just like when we are raising our children, they are not the same and generally need to be handled differently. Therefore, I believe that God allows us to learn in so many different ways, and that is what makes us unique. If you don’t think so, think about how one person feels God’s presence and has an ongoing conversation with Him while walking through a forest, but another feels it sitting silently in prayer. I have prayed to God to show me how to change my life and He chose to show me in a way that would bring me balance. By allowing God to explain to me that I need to allow love and trust in, I am still aware that HE is the one to nudge me and guide me to my purpose.

If your life is out of balance, I urge you to listen to your body. Is something feeling off? If so, pray, meditate, do whatever you do to help bring clarity to your life. Open yourself up to love and know that you are worthy of it. I promise, when you feel the answer, you will feel tension leave your body and it is quite profound.

Entertainment

Father’s Day as a Single Mom

June 21, 2020

I used to hate the phrase “Single Mom”. I am a mom, who cares that I am single! Let me say this louder, “I AM A MOM!” But, through the years, something has changed in me when I hear the phrase, “Single Mom”…

Because I am a single mom, I have taught my son how to ride a bike, how to tie a tie, explained the birds and the bees, carried him when he was three through a hospital with a 105 temp, cried by myself on his first day of kindergarten, explained how to tip at a restaurant on his first date, always the disciplinarian, helped get the swimsuit netting off of his body parts after a day at the beach, watched him get student of the month alone…

Yet, I have also been the one that he would crawl in to bed with when there was a storm, asked for help on school projects, confided in after a breakup, bawled like a baby when he graduated high school because “we did it”, high fived when he bought his first car, cheered him on when he played basketball…I have been THE ONE.

He’s 26 now, but I get a phone call every now and then when he is bored and I take those calls, even when busy at work. As parents, of course we will take those calls because they are our kids, but I know what it is like to be away from my parents since I have lived away for over 20 years.

Father’s Day is hard for us single mom’s, especially if we are away from our own father’s. Because it is a day that we are reflecting… Of course we miss our dad’s but we wonder if we messed our kids up because their dad’s aren’t in their lives. And we cry with sadness because it is the one day of the year when it is smacked at us on social media and reminds us that we have been alone in raising our children. There is no one with us that is so deeply connected to our children as we are when we are stressed about their grades, worried about their driving, not sure of how to discuss dating issues. It is us mom’s that do it when we are single, and we have no one to bounce these ideas off that will take such a vested interest in our babies.

Disagree with me or agree with me. Either way, this is my opinion and how I feel today. As I said, “I AM A MOM”, so I don’t expect to be celebrated on FATHER’S DAY. But, be patient with us single mom’s today. If our children are with us on this holiday, we are feeling guilty and wondering if we are doing enough. If they aren’t with us because they are lucky to have dad’s in their lives, we miss them, but still feel a bit of guilt.

These days, I’m ok with being called a single mom. I have done the toughest job of all ~ Motherhood, by myself. I didn’t have family here to babysit on random nights or to join me for school events. I raised a remarkable young man BY MYSELF and I am so proud of him. I am also proud of me for not letting him become one of the well known statistics of boys raised without their fathers.

20 years ago, laying in bed on a Father’s Day morning, missing my own dad and kid, my friend Ann called and asked what I was doing that day. I’m sure I had a few choice words of what the day meant to me. But, since her dad lived over a thousand miles away and her husband was deployed, she suggested we go and grab lunch. We headed to a local outdoor restaurant overlooking the water, ordered Pina Coladas, oysters, tuna dip, you name it. We had our table full of food, added in a couple beers, and had the best time, making Father’s Day easier on both of us. That perfect day started my tradition of doing something fun and relaxing for myself on Father’s Day. I have went to the beach, I have went to a water park, I have had friends over for dinner, and sometimes I just lock myself inside and watch chick flicks… Whatever my heart is needing that day to ease my guilt of being a single mom on Father’s Day.

Now, I’m going to call my own dad up to chat for a bit (after I wipe my tears away) then go lay in a pool and soak up some sunshine with friends. On the menu is Chicken Salad, Spinach & Artichoke dip, and a few Truly’s (Too old to drink White Claws! Ha!). And I am going to get through today being a single mom on Father’s Day.

Health & Spiritual

Pool time = Me time

June 1, 2020

Don’t be jealous when I tell you how I spent my day… Doing absolutely nothing. Ok, maybe only a few hours, but it is exactly what my soul needed.

I’m lucky to have a friends with a pool. I’m even luckier that they are usually travelling during the summer and have entrusted me with watering the plants.

Wait, that sounds bad. I really do miss them and would love to have our evenings on the back porch with a glass of wine (or two or three… bottles). But, the pool needs to get used, right?

So, during the summer weekends, I make time for myself by just floating on the water. And in those couple / few hours, I listen to my choice of music, let thoughts run through my head and stretch out, easing my muscles and tension. When I’m done, I am a more relaxed version of myself with a bit of sun glow.

Do your best to find time for yourself, outside Whether it is sitting in a lawn chair at a park, blanket at the beach, or floating in a pool, we all need moments in nature just to relax and let the tension release from our bodies.

God, Balance, and a Heart Chakra

Father’s Day as a Single Mom

Pool time = Me time

My favorite articles