I love my life

In the Spotlight

Andrea — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:53:13 +0000

Our focus this year at Women’s Weekend is ‘In the Spotlight’. What does that mean to you?

Who’s spotlight are you standing in?

It’s not an easy question to answer and I have been thinking about this lately. A few weeks ago, my message from the universe said something like, ‘When you are stuck in your stuff and want to react, throw something, scream at someone or just eat a bucket of ice cream, imagine that there are a room full of angels watching you and cheering you on’

If you had a cheering squad, cheering you on at every move, would you react differently? I started to practice this and laughed myself through a few situations that week. At one point, I was in my story about how I have to do everything (again) and went to react, caught myself and wondered if I would react differently if I knew those angels were sitting there watching me, laughing and shaking their heads.

That’s the way I think about our ladies at I Love my Life; my cheering squad. It’s been proven scientifically that when we wire together, we fire together.

We got talking today about what Women’s Weekend is all about. How it started when I was diagnosed with Tiny, my brain tumor and 30+ wonderful women came and loved me up, got me ready to begin my treatments. And how, during the times of my treatment, knowing that I was, in a sense, standing in the spotlight, never alone, I was inspired to act as if those angels were watching me.

This is our fifth Women’s Weekend and three out of the four we have hosted before have been in honor of someone going through some kind of change.

This past year has been a time for change; loss, grief, celebrations, endings, beginnings and we have decided to honor all of our changes in a ceremony that we will prepare for and facilitate over the weekend.

Now if you love coming because of all the fun and craziness that will be there too…

This will be a week end full of feelings, healing and fun!

The post In the Spotlight appeared first on I love my life.

Power of Pulling Together

Andrea — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:41:46 +0000

I love to look up and see the geese flying over and know that they take turns at the helm and take turns at the back of the pack. It’s like what I believe of leadership,’ that a great leader knows how to lead and also, how to follow.’ Phyllis Nielsen sent me this lovely clip and story about geese and now I get to admire them even more. http://play.simpletruths.com/movie/pulling-together/ The first caption reads, ‘Are there lessons about teamwork we can learn from geese?’ Let’s compare: The video says, ‘by flying in a v formation, the whole flock adds 71% greater flying range than if any bird were to fly alone’ That’s what I call support. 71%… that’s amazing. Do you think we create that much more by being part of a flock? I think we can when we are simply ‘part of the flock’ and allow ourselves to be supported, loved and accepted for the lovely geese that we are. If we share a common direction and a sense of community, we can get where we are going more quickly and easily because we are traveling on the thrust of one other. So true, this goes back to the statement, ‘When we wire together, we fire together’ Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to fly alone and quickly returns back to formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front This is where I think we might be different, some of us anyway. How easy is it for us to quickly return back to formation to take advantage of the support of those leading the way? Not as easy for some as it is for others and I believe it’s all practise. For some of us, we don’t even realize that we are resisting until we have shut down. We tell ourselves all kinds of stories to prevent ourselves from asking for help or showing our vulnerability. Why? Have you ever done it? What are your reasons? If we have as much sense as geese, we will stay in formation with those who are headed where we want to go and we will be willing to accept their help as well as give ours to other. Again, practise. And awareness; being clear on where I want to go and why. And sometimes I need to ask for help and other times I get to give the help. If we take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership, as with the geese, we become interdependent with one another Someone told me recently that they weren’t going to do something anymore because they weren’t getting anything out of it; what about putting back in then? Just like the geese, we need to take turns. The geese in formation honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed. We need to listen to our flock and truly hear their inspiring words. Sometimes when we are in a place of resistance it is easy to only hear the negatives. I know that when I hear the honking, I have support to keep up my speed. If we honk we have to make sure it’s positive and encouraging I was taught as a gosling that if I don’t have something good to honk, then don’t honk at all. We too, should stand by each other in difficult times, as well as when we are strong. I personally see this everywhere, especially in the fold of I Love my Life and for that I’m grateful. Let us all try to fly in formation and remember to drop back to help those that might need it. Life is too short not to fly in a formation. I love seeing how we are all supporting each other, to stand up and clap when we see each other stand in our greatness and to support each other when it’s needed. I’m proud to be a goose amongst our flock of geese, I’m happy to fly at the back of the flock (sometimes) when I get to see others lead. And I’m so happy when I see you honoring each other through the love, laughter and support you have for one another. I look forward to growing our flock so we can all honk louder. Lorraine.

The post Power of Pulling Together appeared first on I love my life.

I Will Speak Up…

Andrea — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:37:01 +0000

On Thursday evening in Nanaimo, McKenzie Brown will be sharing her story. She has written a book titled ‘Walking on Eggshells: Living with Psychological abuse and Codependency.’ It’s a story many of us know; men and women, children and seniors. It’s a story many people have come to accept as normal behaviour. Codependency is something many people don’t know that they have. My own book speaks of me being a ‘Love Junkie’, doing anything for love. Giving up myself in the hopes that someone will see the love in myself that I could never see. I was taught that being codependent meant being addicted to people, places and things and I have certainly been that in my life. And by that I mean that I have completely given myself to others to the point where I have been hurt physically, mentally and certainly emotionally.

I, like most codependents, have put everyone else first; well that’s not true. I had often left my own child behind in the hopes of finding someone to love me. She already loved me and always would, I knew that. It was like I couldn’t get enough love, or so I thought it was love.

My daughter was born into an abusive and addictive life and it wasn’t very nice. And it wasn’t just me that took the abuse and it wasn’t all his fault. Being codependent led me to push and push to receive more and more attention from him and all the time wanting love that I didn’t know I didn’t have the capacity to receive. He told me once that all he ever wanted to do was love me and I wouldn’t let him. I get that now.

That relationship wasn’t the only unhealthy one I’ve been in and I’ve watched my little girl look at me over the years and wondered what she has thought of me, being so weak and broken. Always wanting what’s best for her and not knowing how to provide it for myself.

I can honestly say that through lots of work and walking together we have come a long way and we are clean and have nothing left unsaid between us. She is only 28 and four years ago, the day I was diagnosed with my brain tumor, we lay on the couch together laughing and crying and in that moment knew that through all the support we have had from our friends, family and many other organizations we would always be good.

I feel so blessed.

One of my reasons for starting I Love my Life is to leave a legacy not just for my daughter and her daughter but for all the other mothers and daughters out there. Right now some of our members have lost mothers and even fathers and we just want to let you know that in your time of grieving, we are all loving you all.

Please join us for the “I Will Speak Up” Fundraiser Event Thursday evening…
7:00 VIU Building 250 Room 125
$2 admission will go to Haven Society

The post I Will Speak Up… appeared first on I love my life.