What I Learned from #100HappyDays

What I Learned from #100HappyDays
by Lorna Tedder · in Positive Thinking

Hi dear friends and followers. Welcome to my blog and thank you for visiting. Today's topic is working on staying in a positive mood, 100daysofhappiness. Text in orange ar my own quotes

My friends convinced me to share their #100happydays or #100daysofhappiness with them, but somewhere along the way, they’ve let it drop. Too much a chore, I suppose. Or not enough happiness. Or too much crap from other people for being happy.

When I embarked on this one-photo-a-day of “happiness,” it wasn’t to force myself to be happy 100% of the 100 days. Far from it. It was an exercise in positivity and in learning more about myself. I started a few weeks behind most of my friends and quickly found that businesses everywhere were jumping on board as a way to sell their products or services. Sorry, but happiness isn’t in a bottle or a shop. At least not for me. But then, I already knew that.

My intentions in this exercise were to look for at least one thing every day that delighted me, that made my heart soar. I already had a few ideas of what would do that, but I was curious about where most of my small moments of happiness come from. I was also dealing with some heavy, serious issues I wasn’t sharing with anyone much, and I needed the daily reminder to find something joyful.

Some of the things I learned were just validation of what I already knew. And there were surprises, too. Not always good surprises, either.
1. You can’t be blissfully happy 100% of the time.

Not everything in life is going to be pure joy. Even with a great attitude and a strong faith, downers will happen. External forces will plot against you. Old patterns and ghosts from the past will re-appear when you least expect. The #100happydays project for me wasn’t about forcing myself to be deliriously happy every single moment or even most moments. I’m a fairly serene person whose drama tends to come from those around me. As an empath, I allow–to my detriment–myself to become immersed in other people’s problems and emotions. When I’m alone, I’m on an even keel. In spite of painful moments, I’m usually in a pretty good place, but I still didn’t expect 100% bliss. This isn’t, after all, the same exercise as not complaining for 21 days in a row.

But you know what? It’s okay to not be deliriously happy 100% of the time. You can still be generally happy, even with tough things to deal with in the periphery of your life. You can take your mind off the bad stuff and find things to delight in, even for a few moments–just long enough to take and post a photo of what brought a little smile to your heart.

Note: This is true. After retirement ten years ago I had already planned on what I wanted to do to keep my moods up while filling in the empty space of no longer working with something productive to do. It was not easy, here I am four websites later and finally I have found an island on the web where I can share my thoughts, feelings as well as my sense of humor, and information I hope people find interesting.

Like providing a refuge to people where they can come to relax and leave the stress of daily life behind them for a while. Bringing  + and smiles and the occasional comment are all I truly require to make me feel good
2. It really is the little things that bring happiness.

I’m not even sure what could be considered a “big thing” when it comes to happiness. I suppose that might be a wedding or a new baby or some big milestone. Those don’t happen that often in life, so we need to find delight in the “little things.”

For me, it was almost silly stuff or a little synchronicity. It was going for a walk after dark with my daughter, home from college, and finding the tiniest of turtles on the path moments after I’d unwittingly stepped over him instead of on him. It’s a weird cloud formation or a dumb joke that makes me laugh. It’s a phone call from a long-lost friend. It’s quoting Mal on “Firefly” when the kids are wrapped in quilts and pillows on the floor on a trip back home.

It’s a new recipe or a really good pot of Southern sweet tea with real sugar. It’s discovering a new iPhone app for productivity or my name written in cement when I was in middle school. Just little stuff that connects the dots in my life. All those little things add up.
Note: Those are certainly the little things that are dearest to my heart as well, like walking in the woods and noticing the little things most people don't; like that caterpillar on the tree, or that funny looking plant you never seen there before; or sounds you never noticed before. 

I more readily remember laying on the floor with cushions with the kids watching silly cartoons on TV than I do remember the new car I bought that same year. Well little things and old cars have their way about them too. 

Going for long walks in nature has always been one of my delights and still is to this day, I love exploring the woods and taking in the scents and sounds. Also this year I have resumed going on picnics. I have been on more picnics this summer then I have for  many years. And the lake being so close to the back of our apartment it also has been an asset. I have posted many pictures from these little adventures to share with my online friends. 
3. Sometimes you must dig deep to find anything at all that will delight you or give you a positive thought.

The first 30 days had their ups and downs, but it was generally quite easy to find my “happy” for the day. The heavy hardships in my life were in the background much of that time, and though I was aware of them, I didn’t have them in my face 24 hours a day. Even with a couple of very large expenditures, I found my daily “happy.” Call it “looking on the bright side,” if you will, but the fact that I’d saved enough cash to not take out a loan for the HVAC system I knew had to be replaced within the year was a big step toward keeping my serenity and less stress.

By the time the second 30 days arrived, all hell had broken loose in my life. These were things I’d been aware of, but I had no way to change them myself. They were “other people’s problems” that had a big effect on my own life and a big heaviness in my heart. Some days, I had to reach–stretch–stretch harder–to find even the smallest of delights. They were hard, hard days that I had to bear alone or, if I shared them, I had to be the pillar of strength for someone else.

There were times when I realized it was dark in July and I was just leaving work, going home to what I was worried would be bad news I’d been waiting for all day, and when I thought about #100happydays, my reaction was “Fuck it. There’s nothing happy about today. Nothing delightful. Today, everything sucks.”

Those were the days that it was more important than ever to find just one little thing that could make me smile. Even if it was the deafening sound of rain frogs in the marsh as I sat in my car and cried while talking to a stranger on my cell phone. I couldn’t bring back what might be gone, but all of nature was there with me to keep me company.
4. Where certain types of things delight us, we must seek more of that kind of delight.

What I was searching for most with this #100happydays experiment was exactly what types of things brought happy thoughts. As I suspected, Nature played a big part in the process. More than anything else, it was the little things in Nature–flowers, animals, sunrises, sunsets, trees, grass under my feet–that brought me joy. Behind that were the work I do and the team I work with, my family (long distance during much of this experiment), my writing, my self-development, friends, fresh food. Funny, but I just realized I turned down all but 2 dates during this time period because I was so busy…but that was perfectly all right and didn’t detract from the happy moments at all.

The idea here is for me to expand the role of Nature (and other areas of happiness) in my life. How can I be out in Nature more? Adventures in the woods on weekends? More hikes? Maybe more hikes with my Fitbit and with picnics of fresh foods with good friends and experiences I can write about later?

5. Others don’t want always want you to be happy–or at least they don’t want to hear about it if you are.

You would think that looking for happiness intentionally made me happier. It made it more noticeable to me, but not necessarily happier. I was enjoying my life before the experiment and during, but I hit some serious and unexpected glitches during the course of my first 2/3rds of #100happydays.

The biggest surprise of all in this experiment was that in sharing what made me happy, I found myself the brunt of a lot of anger and retaliation. Some of it was mean-spirited, including acquaintances and co-workers copying Friend-only items on social media and passing them along for the ridicule and enjoyment of others. I’d say it was nice that I gave someone else a “happy” but there was nothing happy about it except the glee with which my moment of delight was torn apart. I have to say that I was surprised: this isn’t high school and these are supposed to be professionals. The snide remarks and jokes were mostly about little delights that had nothing but nothing to do with any of them. Honestly, it sorta ruined some shining moments for me to see good things ripped apart by the rumor mill when I was struggling to stay positive in the face of some serious issues that didn’t involve them.

One of these people told me later that my #100happydays was nothing more than bragging. This was because one or two of the first 68 items were about appreciation for something I’d done and had not expected to be acknowledged or a new level of activity in my physical regimen. The fact that an unexpected kudo represented a positive response to months of learning a new skill or long hours of extra effort was perceived as mere bragging.

If I’d posted #100CRAPPYdays, I would have received plenty of support…or at least not the backlash I did. Misery does love company, especially on social media. Actually, it would have been easy during most of this time to have photographed the things that made me feel worried, upset, sad, angry, or helpless. But I chose to focus on the good things–sometime the rare good thing to get me through the day.

We’re allowed to bitch and moan about all the bad things–and you can always find those if you look–but if you simply state what makes you happy on a daily basis–and you can always find those if you look–then some folks just can’t let a moment of joy shine. It becomes “bragging” or somehow a challenge to God to bring you down. Suffering is acceptable, but being happy isn’t.

I wonder why that is.

Holy hell. What is wrong with people that you can’t tolerate someone having just a little bit of happiness every now and then? We’re all going through something heavy that we don’t let others see, so why not let some light shine in when it can?

Note: As I said above, Lorna, hon, I have been working to bring the lighter side of life to social media for over 10 years. Tough bunch aren't they? Yes, I have often asked that question, what is wrong with these people? And the really good ones, the ones that were probably truly empaths, just seem to drift on. It appears then, only the ones that hang on are the naggers, the negative ones. I just persevere, if for no other reason, even if I don't get any likes or +.  Some people do read this stuff that we put in websites and communities, and only like or plus our work. OK, even if I am only doing it for those few likes or +, then I think it was worth it. I touched someone.  

We live in a very negative world, and in order to survive I believe we are doing all we can to survive through it, in our own way.

Thank you very much again, dear friends, for visiting my blog. Please share your thoughts with us, if you will. Have a great day.

✿ڰۣ❤In Loving Light from the Fairy Lady❤ڰۣ✿

How to Survive the Worst Year of Your Life

How to Survive the Worst Year of Your Life
by Lorna Tedder · in Grief

Hi dear friends and followers. At this point I would like to pause to give thanks to Lorna Tedder for providing us all this wonderful and informative information. My only cotribution to these  entries are the sections of print in orange. Thank you so much for visiting and your comments and +s which are valuable to me

“How do I survive the worst year of my life?” a young friend asked, around two months after a bad breakup.

She wanted to know because it appeared to her that I’d one day snapped my fingers or taken a magic pill and all my heartaches had disappeared overnight. They didn’t. They haven’t. They’re still there, with me, just as anyone else’s grief is still with them. You never “get over” deep losses but you do gain perspective and “get through.” Intellectually, you may understand that one day you’ll get to that place, but that doesn’t help the heart right now when you feel like you’re going to die. You may even recognize that this heartbreak is the best thing that could happen to you because you’ll–in the long run–end up in a better place. That also doesn’t really help emotionally.

Emotionally, you’re caught in the missing closeness of the past and you’re nowhere near the future when all this is long over. So how do you get through the pain now?

Day by day. Hour by hour. Sometimes moment by moment.

The trick–if there is one–of getting through each moment is to take a step back and look at where you are right now.

Right now, in this very moment, can you be okay? Are you okay?

You’re not in that past moment of pain. You’re not in a new future. You are in the present moment. It sounds trite to say the present moment is all you have, but it is.

Note: One heart beat in eternity. The place where for that second, past and future are at a stand still, and all that exists is the present second. I call that one heart beat in eternity.
What’s happening in your present moment? Are you breathing? Are you okay right now?

And in this place, this moment in time, can you find that understanding and knowledge that in this one moment, you are okay?

Don’t worry about yesterday. Don’t fret about tomorrow. Are you okay right here, right now?

When yesterday’s pain and tomorrow’s uncertainty tug at you, can you just stop, focus on the present moment and your present location and see that just for this second, you are okay?

Whenever you start to obsess about your pain, stop and look at the moment. This moment. Not when everything went to hell. Not when everything will be fine again. But this moment. Separate yourself from the timeline of events and focus on yourself, your existence, no one else, just your breath and your heartbeat and that just for this moment…

You are okay.

Note: Thank you so much for this wonderful and useful advice Lorna, Living one day at a times, and keep on walking one step at a time is the only way it worked for me. I am not aware of any other way to heal from past traumatic experiences. All the pills in the world won't fix the problem, we are our own best healers.

Thank you very much again, dear friends, for visiting my blog. Please share your thoughts with us, if you will. Have a great day. 

✿ڰۣ❤In Loving Light from the Fairy Lady❤ڰۣ✿

Everybody Talks about Manifesting

Everybody Talks about Manifesting
 by Lorna Tedder · in Law of AttractionHi dear friends and followers. Thank you very much for visiting and reading my blog. Today's topic is about dreams and manifestation. You're comments are most appreciated. Orange text are my comments.

A veces tengo que recordarme a mí mismo que tengo que soñar más grande y más a menudo porque tantos sueños pasados se han hecho realidad y no puedo permitirme soñar menos ahora - Lorna Tedder
Yeah, everybody talks about manifesting, but who’s actually doing it?

I’m acquainted with a great number of people who adhere to the Law of Attraction, earnest prayer, and/or magick to bring things into their lives that they strongly desire. Some even teach these things and have large followings. Yet it’s surprisingly few, even among teachers, who actually do manifest what they want for themselves. They understand the principles, well enough to teach them to others who show success with their teachings, but still they struggle in private.

Some are so determined to have wealth, and I watch as it eludes them. Not just wealth but great wealth. They talk a good game, but it never happens. They make plans, but nothing happens. They set intentions but then lose their way. Most of them are somewhat confused about what they really want and what to do with it if they have it, so their intentions seem diluted by fear, doubt, and plenty enough jealousy of those who succeed in manifesting the same things.

By the same token, I’ve seen people manifest wonders with nothing but a very simple faith. No secret formula. No well-known vocabulary for what they’re doing and for anything more than an intuitive understanding of the manifestation process. They know what works for them and how to turn their desires loose to come to fruition, without every taking a webinar, watching a YouTube video, or reading a book on how to manifest.

For myself, I’ve gotten really good at manifesting most of my desires over the last few years. You might look at me and say, “Yeah, sure you have. You don’t have ___,” and yet…I do have that. I don’t advertise it, but I actually do, and it’s much to my surprise that I’ve manifested it. Where I put my attention gets a lot of energy. I’ve lost some of what I manifested because I let fears creep back in and there are few things that I’ve consistently not been able to either manifest or to hold onto if I did manifest. For the most part, though, I get what I want. I surprise myself at times, too, because I know enough to not attach exact specifications to a manifestation and I get something sooooo much better than I knew existed. In other words, a lot of my dreams come true on a consistent basis. I’ve figured out most of it now, and the things that elude me are rooted in childhood’s painful beliefs and lessons. I’m still working on healing such ancient distractions and wounds and probably always will work to heal or improve them, and I must sometimes remind myself that I need to dream bigger and more often because so many past dreams have come true and I can’t allow myself to dream less now.

Note: I believe this to be the truth. I have had high expectations to manifest certain things in my life which never came to be. Looking back, I believe I have a good idea of why they did not. It was because of my negative outlook on life. Example: "Why should I expect something good to happen in my life when nothing good has ever happened to me before in my life?" I thought that I might get punished by the unseen forces for so much as thinking something good might happen in my life! A good part of my life was wasted with such negative thoughts. But like the turtle in yesterday's blog entry, I felt complacent in my rut.

I worked myself out of that rut was when I began my spiritual journey and learned that Universe gives us what we expect in life. You see, I never really had any desire to be important, famous, or rich. My greatest desire when I first started out on that journey was to do all that I could to help others living on the same streets where I myself had been for some years. I did that, and I graduated to being a social worker. I loved this job the most of any of my previous employment. My intentions were to help others and I did so for twenty years until I retired.

My dreams were not big but they were what I truly had desired. Over time, I had all but given up on having another personal relationship; I had resigned to live on my own for the rest of my life. However, Universe had a surprise for me. I met my new mate! So In that way, my dreams did come true.
The internet superstars tell us we can have it if we can dream it. They tell us both great lessons and bullshit, depending on what they’re selling–and I don’t necessarily mean they’re selling something in exchange for income because many need to feed the ego more than their own mouths. I know some of the stars of social media and various websites personally, including ones who charge big bucks for workshops and courses. For as good as some of their material, they still have desires that don’t manifest. Some are mere facades, teaching ancient knowledge. They’ve manifested an income producing business, so I’ll say that for them, but for many, the things they preach have never flowed into their own lives. As I said, I know some of them personally, and it’s a surprise how screwed up some are behind the curtain they show the world (then again, most people are). It’s easy for their audiences to admire that facade and feel inferior because mere mortals can’t just manifest everything they want like their teachers seem able to do. It’s just not true of most I’ve encountered.

To stop feeling inferior. Stop kicking yourself if you don’t have everything you want in life yet. It’s part of the journey.

And that, my friends, is as much of a message to me as it is to you.

Thank you very much again, dear friends, for visiting my blog. Please share your thoughts with us, if you will. Have a great day. 

✿ڰۣ❤In Loving Light from the Fairy Lady❤ڰۣ✿

It’s a God Thing…and I’m a Turtle

It’s a God Thing…and I’m a Turtle
by Lorna Tedder · in Positive Thinking, Relationships

Hi dear friends and followers. Thank you so much for visiting my blog. Today's topic is about like and the ruts we sometimes get ourselves into in love. Enjoy treading the entry. Print in orange is my own Notes.

The sun wasn’t even up yet—though the deepening pink on the tall white clouds announced its arrival—and my Fitbit had just buzzed my 10,000thstep. I’d already said “Good Morning” to the usual dozen or so joggers and runners I see on my morning miles when I stopped at a little bridge to take in the smooth reflective waters of a lake. An old woman in bright pink jogged toward me and as I said “Hello,” I noticed what looked like an oversized potato in the middle of the road beside us. We looked at each other and then the potato and, at about the same time, we both realized that is wasn’t a potato at all.

A turtle.

A small turtle crossing the road from one side of the bridge to the other, leaving one side of the lake for the other.

I could hear an oncoming car in the distance. That little turtle might have spent the entire night to make it all that way from the lake to the middle of the road…but he was about to become a bump in the rut he was trapped in. I had just enough time to pick him up, tumble him on to the roadside and dash back to the jogging path before the headlights bisected the road. The jogger in pink and I watched for a few moments as the turtle stayed quiet and then, finally, started to crawl toward the lake.

I’m like that little turtle, I realized. Occasionally picked up by some greater power and tumbled to an entirely new and unexpected place, even after I had worked so hard to get to the dangerous rut I was in. Far too many things have happened in my life at the last possible moment to either nudge me out of my rut or send me tumbling furiously in some new direction that kept me from becoming road kill.

Note: I do so agree with this part. It seemed that just before I got rolled over by the steam roller, superman came along and swooped me out of harm's way, finding myself in a whole new set of circumstances. It was like being dropped in the middle of the forest without a compass. Divine providence? Call it what you may, but I came to discover that wherever I was deposited at, it was the place I needed to be to learn life's next lessons at the time. In later years I was to teach those very same lessons to others.

All was for a purpose. If the turtle decides to choose to remain in the rut in the middle of the road, the bus will inevitably run over him. But then, if it's not meant to be, some good Samaritan will come along and save the turtle from the rut he is in, the rut in the middle of the road.

Each rut one ends up in, we know we are there. We can feel it within ourselves; maybe we decide to hang around to learn where it will lead us, or maybe just too complacent to want to leave. But whatever route, or should I say, rut, we choose, it is experience with a different lesson to be learned in life's journey. New people, some angels, some dark souls, all teaching a different lesson.
-The pilot announcing we wouldn’t be taking off after all because two of the engines were out.

-My mom looking out the kitchen window in the exact moment that the ground swallowed me up in my sandbox.

-The misdirected “I love you” text message from a boyfriend of two weeks, who wasn’t nearly as single as he claimed.

-The boyfriend who butt-dialed the wrong person while he was on a date with someone new.

-The sting set up to catch a child predator that caught something else entirely.

-An unsettling appointment someone made with my daughter for her photographic services.

-A boyfriend leaving town with no notice and no forwarding address.

Life happens in a moment–the good things, the bad things, being saved from worse things.

One “good Christian woman” I know calls it “a GOD thing,” however heartbreaking it may be at the time. These coincidences.

Another friend of mine calls it “the great reveal of the universe”…when we’re going about our daily lives, making choices about our futures based on lies, insufficient information or both.

I don’t remember being squished. I do remember surviving. I remember being scooped up, protesting all the way, from my comfy spot in the middle of the highway. I remember being thrown. I remember tumbling. I remember sometimes landing on my back. I remember the disorientation and the slow crawl towards some new place I couldn’t recognize from that vantage point.

I’m in a different place now though. A better place and a wiser place than I’ve ever been in before even if I still miss some of the things about the roads I’ve left behind. There are times that I wonder if I might, one day, part the grasses and see ahead of me the same lake I saw a long time ago from a certain road right before I got kicked hard to the sidelines.

But even though I’m open to it, that destination depends on the decisions and development of others. So if it’s not that lake, it will be another. But if I’m on the wrong road and in the wrong rut, I know that I’ll be moved out of harm’s way in the nick of time.

The woman in pink and I stood beside the road and watched the turtle disappear into the grass.

As if by confirmation, once I got home, I found something surprising, amazing, relieving. I sat with my breakfast while I researched something for my daughter online and stumbled across a reference to an old love interest.

It’s a story of what’s been happening in his life since I last saw him. The illegal activity, the unethical activity, the hearts he’s broken, the finances he’s ruined, and I haven’t been among a one of them in this past decade.

Just more evidence that even when it seems I’ve been dealt a cruel hand at times, I was always being guided by a divine one…who throws turtles when we get too close to our own destruction.

Thank you very much again, dear friends, for visiting my blog. Please share your thoughts with us, if you will. Have a great day. 

✿ڰۣ❤In Loving Light from the Fairy Lady❤ڰۣ✿

Dating the Mentally Ill

Dating the Mentally Ill
Lorna Tedder · in Relationships

Hi dear friends and followers. Thank you so much for visiting my blog. Today I wish to share with you about relationships and mental illness.    


Primero Podemos ver la belleza nos presentan cuando la relación es fresca y temprana pero con el tiempo, la flor de la novedad se desvanece, y empezamos a ver las viñas de la enfermedad mental y que es fácil de conseguir nosotros mismos enredado, incluso si su haciendo su mejor esfuerzo hackear su camino a un lugar mejor. Nuestro propósito no es para tirar de las vides de raíz o cortarlas en rodajas bajar en el tierra, no importa lo mucho que queremos querer, fortaleza  de amor no es suficiente. Por Lorna Teddler

Mama always told me, when I was a teenager, “They’re best to you while they’re courting you.”

It was a warning against all men, but she didn’t mean it as a misandrist attack. She’d had experience with really only one man, and he was the basis for her conclusions. She married a young man who was mentally ill, spent her life with him, raised a family with him, took care of him 24/7 for the last six and a half years of his life, and still–like the rest of our family–lives in his shadow after his death. There were a few times that were better than others but for the most part, he never changed. At least, not for the positive.

We never knew what was wrong. Or really that that there was anything wrong. Mama married him when she was 17 and didn’t have enough experience outside in the real world. The rest of us were born into a family where this was our normal. Where his tantrums and physical and emotional abuse were normal. Where we knew no different. He was just…Daddy.

Someone on social media shared their opinion with me on dating someone who is mentally ill. As someone who grew up unknowingly in the shadow of a man with borderline personality disorder, and as someone who has had relationships with men with narcissistic personality disorder and bipolar disorder as well as borderlines like my dad, the quote hit me especially hard. It said:


If you start dating a depressed person, don’t be surprised if they are still depressed while dating you.

They’re not depressed because they’re single, and you are not an all-powerful cure for mental illnesses.

Just be there for them.

It’s one of the truest things I’ve ever read on social media, but it’s only half the story.

The first problem with “just being there for them” is that we don’t always realize that we’re looking at mental illness or signs of it don’t show up until we’re already heavily invested emotionally. And then we make excuses for it. Excuses for them. Excuses for their behavior. Excuses for hurtfulness, lies, withdrawal. Excuses for abuse and manipulation and cheating. Excuses to other people whom we don’t want to know how bad it is and excuses to ourselves…because we don’t want to believe how bad it is.

When Mama said, “They’re best to you while they’re courting you,” she was referring to that easy-going, charming, eager-to-please, little-boy-ego that shows up initially in so many relationships, and is so easy to fall in love with when they’re pursuing you. After they’ve caught you, someone told me long ago–and they’re sure you won’t leave them–they can “relax and be rotten to you.”

Of course, it may not be that they are intentionally being rotten, although I’ve had my share of relationships where it certainly seemed intentional. They may instead be rotten to you because it takes so much of their personal energy to keep up the facade, and after they feel safe with you, they can let down their walls. At least, some of their walls. They can save their expenditures of positivity for occasional ventures into public life or even into new romantic relationships.

Speaking from personal experience only, I know that sometimes they can hide their illness very well, for months or even years. I was once close to a man who told me about his diagnosis shortly after we met, and I didn’t believe him because he put me on a pedestal and didn’t seem anything like the person he described himself to be. Five years later, I saw some cruel behaviors I didn’t understand. After a decade, his mental illness had progressed to a point where he could no longer hide it except to new people in his life–very new, very shallow relationships.

To those of us who are empathic and to those of us who are born the children of a mentally ill parent, we don’t seem to have the normal mechanism for recognizing danger and running away. We are either so accustomed to identifying with the emotions of others, however turbulent those emotions may be, or we are overly understanding and supportive–codependent–which is a left-over survival strategy for coping with a mentally ill parent from a young age. We love them deeply but our loyalty knows no depth. So, as with a parent, we refuse to flee when we see behaviors that scare people away so much sooner. We’re so proud to be loyal and loving.

The other reason we can’t always be there for them is that sooner or later, they do something so damaging that it cannot be ignored, not only to us but to themselves. They hurt those of us who stood by them through it all. No matter how much we love them, they still have a tremendous capacity to hurt us. So we either sink into the mire with them, harden our shells, or limp away.

Note I am not a stranger to unpleasant relationships, of which most I walked away from except the last one. The mental disorderly behaviour of this individual didn't rear it's head until three children later. I knew that he suffered Bi polar-disorder and was also aware that this disorder could be controlled with the right medication, and so it was. What I didn't know is that he was a recovering alcoholic as well. At the time we met he was not a practicing alcoholic. After he started drinking again he also stopped taking his meds and his behaviour became quite psychotic. To the point I began to fear that one of us would wind up dead, or even worst, one of the children. In the middle of the night I took the three children and just whatever I could gather in in my hands and packed the kids and what ever else I could grab and stuffed them in the back seat with the kids and left. At this time I suffer alcoholism myself and lost the three children over this. After the loss of the three children I took to the highway and lived on the road for nearly ten years before I returned. What the author here is saying in this posting I can quite readily identify with much of it.

The only other solution that I’ve found–the one I’ve adopted in this calendar year–is to run like hell when I see those first signs of mental illness. It’s not out of hard-heartedness. It’s out of self-preservation. It took a while for me to understand what those things look like and to spot them before I cannot extricate myself easily from a new friendship. We don’t have to be magnets for troubled partners, but there is something about us that is understanding and caring and seems to draw the troubled into our lives where we happily and unwittingly become enablers.

Many of us who stay in relationships with mentally ill partners have fixer personalities. We believe that we can change people for the better–and many of us have plenty of evidence of that with people who don’t suffer from a mental illness because we spend so much time coaching, mentoring, or just listening and then advising those who come to us either personally or professionally. We help people grow and change, become better versions of themselves, leave behind behaviors that aren’t good for them, all the while practicing behaviors that may not be good for us in the long run, either. We pride ourselves and on being the most loving and the loyalest of all potential mates and friends.

But do you know what’s really going on in our heads when we find out the person we love has a mental illness?

We’ve bought into the lie that love is the greatest catalyst of all, that love can change anything, can heal everything. That if our love is deep enough and strong enough that we can somehow pull them out of the mire. That we can “Be the change.”

For cancers, infections, illnesses confined to the body, it is easier for us to “just be there for them.” Though truly, nothing is ever easy about loving someone with any illness or watching how it wastes the person we love. We stand a better chance of realizing that it’s medicine or change of habits that will make the difference, if anything will. Or even prayer.

But with mental illness, we somehow think that we are enough, that our love is enough. We take their continuing and progressive mental illness as personal rejection, even when intellectually, we understand that certain behaviors cannot be helped or cured. Or even acknowledged. We are emotional beings ourselves, and we are unable to distinguish the mental illness from the man. It becomes a deep personal defeat.

Our love wasn’t enough.

And what we fail to realize is that no one’s love will ever be enough. We don’t have that kind of power, whether over mental illness or over the person we love. The mental illness itself is a part of that person, and though it can be treated, medicated, and talked through, it is the undeniable shadow side of the person we have chosen. Sometimes the shadow is too much for us, and if it’s too much for us who don’t experience the illness first hand, then how much harder it must be for those who live in the shadow every minute.

Thank you very much again, dear friends, for visiting my blog. Please share your thoughts with us, if you will. Have a great day.

✿ڰۣ❤In Loving Light from the Fairy Lady❤ڰۣ✿

Empaths: To Shield or Not to Shield

Empaths: To Shield or Not to Shield
by Lorna Tedder · in Empathy

Hi dear friend and followers. Welcome to my blog and thank you so much for visiting. Today's topic is about Empaths and when to shield or not to shield

From 125 miles away, I could feel what was happening in this place.

All it takes is once and you’re hooked.

It’s another hour before dawn and you wake with the strangest, awfullest feeling that something is wrong with someone you love. You feel their fear, their dread. You know the energy signature of the person whose feelings are flooding through you. Normally loving, strong, taking care of you.

It can’t be him. He’s not sick. And, It’s the middle of the night. He should be in his bed, asleep.

But no matter. The feelings don’t stop. If anything, they become more intense.

Finally, unable to sleep, your own stomach churning, you pick up the phone and make a call. You ask the other person, who lives 100 miles closer to your granddad than you do, to please check in on him. Your request is met with yawns. You’re chided for being a bother, for your silliness…for being disturbed by what must have been a nightmare.

“I hope that’s all it is,” you say. “Just a bad dream I can’t remember that’s causing these feelings.”

And, finally, you convince the other person to go check on your granddad–to prove how silly you are.

A few hours later, you learn he’s still alive. Because of you. Because of your silliness. Because of your gift.

And you’re not only relieved that Granddad is okay, but there’s something more…a new feeling. A feeling of having saved someone with your superpower that you didn’t realize was a superpower. That this gift is a blessing in disguise. That you can help people. That you can save people.

And there’s nothing like that feeling…nothing.

Over time, you learn the darker aspects of your gift. That it is as much a curse as it is a blessing. You ride the currents of other people’s emotions, tossed on their emotions. Motion-sick and at their mercy…until you learn to shield. You learn to keep out the negativity, the heaviness, the overwhelming emotions. You learn to seal yourself off from your sensitivity to others’ emotions and energy. You learn that through shielding, you can find a place of serenity. You come to the understanding that you can live without being a superhero who saves everyone in trouble or in pain or in fear or in anger or in hurt or in heartbreak.

No matter how great that feeling was of saving someone, you prefer to live with serenity through the turbulence of other people’s emotions, desperately trying to find your own boundaries and hold tight to them.

You’re okay. You’re all right. You’re okay. You can deal with not saving everyone or the adrenaline high of knowing that you might can save everyone because you’ve never lost anyone.

And then, it happens.

For the last several months, your dad has been a jerk to the nth degree. His attitude is hurtful. His words are toxic. You keep your shields up for your own preservation and you go on about your business. You’re fine. You’re serene. You’re raising your kids and all is well.

You take your kids out for an evening of pizza. And as you park the car, your 14-year-old daughter asks to borrow your phone. She wants to make a phone call. She wants to check on her grandmother because she has the strangest, awfullest feeling that something is wrong with her grandfather. You go cold inside–remembering what that feeling is like–as you hand her the phone.

She dials your parents’ number, but a neighbor answers and explains that your father, your daughter’s grandfather, is, at this moment, being loaded into an ambulance. Even though no one could’ve stopped his heart attack, you still lie awake at night wondering, if you’d had your shields down, would you have felt something in time…to have warned him, to have called and said goodbye, to have prepared your mother for what was to come?
Note: I had this experience five times with people close to me: my dad, my mom, an aunt, and two very close friends. I could not live through these feelings any longer and had to learn to shield from them.

I still have many premonitions. Some have come to fruition but I know now that these things do come to pass, both the good and the bad. I have no control over them. All I can do is to pray for the strength to get through them. But death is something you can never prepare for or shield against, gifted or not. 

And my dear friend if you are reading this. I will tell you from my own experience, you cannot save the whole world, you can maybe save one soul at a time and that is only if that soul is looking to be saved.
And that’s when the self-torture begins.

Can you ever let down your shields? Do you ever again dare? Are there not still people on the planet that you love, that you might be able to save?

It’s far easier living without the feeling of owning a superpower and being able to save others than it is to live with knowledge that you have a superpower and the ability to save others and yet you don’t.

And so, you make it all your responsibility–to stay unshielded, to keep yourself open to any pangs of fear or anger or physical pain that might signal someone needs your help…someone you love, someone you don’t want to hurt or die or be in trouble. And so you bear it because you don’t know how you would ever bear it if you lost someone and the curse you bear everyday might have been the blessing that stopped it.

Thank you very much again, dear friends, for visiting my blog. Please share your thoughts with us, if you will. Have a great day.
✿ڰۣ❤In Loving Light from the Fairy Lady❤ڰۣ✿

Poetry composed by me

Hi dear friends and followers, welcome to my blog and thank you very much for visiting. I hope you enjoy these two short poems  I wish to share with you today
A short poem composed by me +Cindy Groulx

The Fairy Ring

Let us dance! Let us sing!

As we form a merry ring;

round and 'round the big oak tree*

We'll be like the fairies 

our magic to weave!

For anyone whose heart says "Join!"

we have room in our merry fairy-dance ring.

We come and we go, 

like the seasons of the year.

'round and 'round the circle,

we have merriment day and evening.

I'll be the Summer, you can be the Spring;

but if you dare follow us, beware!

We cannot guarantee in which season

you will return to whence you came,

to once again join us in our fairy ring.

A short poem composed by me +Cindy Groulx

My Reflections

I hated my reflection.

I despised it so

When I saw it in the pond,

this person staring back at me,

so dull and half-hidden in the shadows.

She sought her solace in the darkness.

Now she sparkles with an aura so bright

that if you were to ask me whence the aura came,

I would have to say that I do not know.

It came to me so gradually that I had not noticed

until I could see the reflection of its brightness

one day when I looked into the pond.

What I discovered that day

is that its light comes from within me!

In the past I had sought perfection

in what I could see, my physical self.

Since then I have learned that true perfection

lies within the heart and not without.

Let your inner light shine,

and you will see your true reflection

upon the deep, dark pond of life;

watch it ripple and dance as your inner self

takes joy in the days of your life.

Thank you very much again, dear friends, for visiting my blog. Please share your thoughts with us, if you will. Have a great day.

✿ڰۣ❤In Loving Light from the Fairy Lady❤ڰۣ✿