Gratitude on the go! 12-9-13

Today I am grateful for:
-this quote:
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."
-lunch with Jen. It was nice to catch up just the two of us. And Oscar too of course.

Look at this little guy!
 He's gotten so big!
I suppose I can't really call him little guy if he's gotten big...

-babysitting Ila and Lena. Once again, they bring me a lot of joy to my day. We did some crafting and playing make believe. They're just really good kids that are super kind and fun to be around. My favorite thing of the night that made me laugh really hard was when Lena was singing a counting song and the following exchange took place:

Lena: "Three little dumplings, four little dumplings, five little dumplings...One little dumpling" etc 

Ila: "Lena, what comes after 5?"

Lena: "...Dumpling."

Here are the crafts we made tonight
Some homemade little Christmas Trees
Thank you internet! 

-my actual Christmas tree!

He's cute and adorable and brings me much joy. :)

-the director of Lena's preschool, Kumi, raving about the new holiday show. She said that she's been coming to see them for the last 20 years! That's so awesome! 

-group. Oof. Things got deep today. There were just two of us again, but it was still fine. Talked a lot about my mom. We kind of determined that I was feeling stuck. I guess I am. Stuck about how I want to get closer to my mom but at the same time just be done with our issues. Out of sight, out of mind kind of deal. One of the counselors asked if I would be up for a role play, which I did but it was super hard. My gut reaction was to say no effing way! I could feel myself start to get overwhelmed and I could hear my therapist's voice saying, "what do you feel in your body?" I felt super tight in my stomach, I got really warm, I almost started shaking, my heart rate sped up but at the same time I wasn't really breathing. I did my best to find the areas on my body that weren't feeling stressed and tried to focus on that. It's so hard when its in the moment because my reasoning part of my brain is switched off and I'm so in survival/back brain mode. Like I said though I did it and I think it was helpful. It gave me a lot to think about anyway. And if THAT wasn't enough then we actually started getting into talking about what happened when I was young. Woof. It doesn't get easier. I'm grateful though that group was supportive and let me kind of ride out the waves of what I was feeling and also checked in with me to see if I needed to stop or if I wanted to keep going. That was very helpful. I'm glad I talked first so I was able to decompress a bit while listening. 

-Anna H and W coming over to watch the Sing Off. 

-the basics

-laughter

-as always, my friends