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Living in My Shame Storm
Right before I began to write this one of my former coworkers and friend, messaged me that she loved to read my stories. And that she misses my big hugs. At that very moment I was sitting here staring at this blank screen and thinking, “I can’t do this”. Who am I to think that I can write something and provide value to anyone. I’ve failed again. Unknowingly she reached down and pulled me out of the shame storm that I often find myself in. I discovered what being in a shame storm meant from Brene Brown’s book, Daring Greatly. And boy am I in one. I feel like a…
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Did You Breathe Today? Let’s Start Now!
Did you breathe today? I mean really breathe. Took a quiet moment, just a moment, and filled your lungs and belly with air and slowly exhaled. If you didn’t then you should try it. Taking a moment or 5 minutes or 20 minutes to do some mindful breathing can make a huge difference in how you’re feeling. Big Deep Breath Notice if you’re shoulders are almost touching your ears because you’re so tense. Let them drop, roll them back and take a big deep breath and blow the tension out. It works. When my son was younger and struggling with anxiety and overwhelm, we would do breathing exercises. He would…
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OMG My Kid is Going to College
This post contains affiliate links, that just means it helps me to make a few coins. Last fall my oldest son went to college. I’m a first timer you see. First time with a kid out of the house. Mind you this major transition for both of our co-dependent selves. It happened during the pandemic, just months after losing my Mom and after an abrupt end to his senior year. He was the Class of 2020, the class of no prom, no senior skip day, no senior breakfast, and no awards program. Therefor, a very anxiety filled graduation ceremony. But he was doing it, although there were no awards program…
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The Hurricane Spell
I am a Louisianian, born and raised here and will probably never leave. I love it here. You live where people give you the head nod at the stop sign, you can buy alcohol at a drive through and everybody is family. We take the good with the bad and trust me, we have a ton of bad. We even take the hurricanes. People ask why do you stay and wait for something so devastating and the answer is this is my home. The Loudest Quiet There is a certain eeriness and surreal feel in the air when a hurricane is on its’ way. There is the loudest quiet. The…
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My Mantra and how it keeps me from flipping out
I needed to find a mantra. I have massive anxiety and I worry about everything. Literally everything. I don’t just worry about some individual thing or instance; I worry about the outcome of the worry. Playing the whole scenario out from the anxiety induced worry through the worst possible outcome. To how impossibly broken and out of control I would feel. This, my friends, is what my anxiety looks like. It is exhausting. I do this all day long, every day, with very little non-anxiety freak out moments in between. Worrying about Worrying It makes me tired just thinking about how exhausted I am from worrying about worrying. Holy shit…
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My Crappy Attitude about doing a Morning Practice
I have read a hundred books, articles, and blog posts about how vital and important it is to have a morning practice, a magical morning or “here are three things to guarantee a great day”. Well, whatever, I would read these things, process it, think about it, write down what my morning practice would be, decorate the page with washi tape and stickers, stick it in my planner…and never do it. Why? Because it involved getting up early, creating a new habit and once again getting up early. I have resisted this crazy notion for years, all while immensely enjoying my very pretty, “Morning Routine “page in my planner and…
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I Did the Privilege Walk and it Changed Everything
In 2019, I was honored to be selected to be in the Emerge Louisiana class. Emerge Louisiana is a program to train Democratic women to run for office. The group of women selected were picked from across the state and weirdly I was also selected to be in the group. I was so excited, a little overwhelmed but, the first day of class the imposter syndrome settled deep and heavy in the pit of my stomach. These women were amazing. They were lawyers, two of which are now Judges, they were long time advocates and activists, and successful businesswomen. Women that were teachers and directors of big and important things.…
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Living in My Shame Storm
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A Creole Love Story…What Happens in Vegas Doesn’t Always Stay There
In 2012, I was a struggling single mom raising two boys, 10 and 7. I was working two jobs, trying to be supermom and definitely not dating. I was 34 years old, divorced and okay with the fact that I would probably never get married again. I was over it and I found true contentment and happiness in the sweet, quiet life I had created for my boys and I. I wasn’t rich, I worried, I was tired one hundred percent of the time but I was happy. I felt like I had my cake and was eating it too in other words. One of my jobs at the time…
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I have a therapist…and why you need one too
I’ve gone to therapy off and on for about twenty years. First, that makes me feel old as hell to say that. Second, that’s the only part of that statement I feel blah about. I have a therapist who is the bees knees do you hear me? The bees freaking knees. We are wildly inappropriate and we laugh and talk and she gives me “the face”. I have cried, celebrated, been pissed off and 47 other emotions in her office. And I love her with all the heart eyeballs emojis in the world. I do NOT hide that I go to therapy, I yell proudly that I go…
