My Ticker Tape Heart

I have sat down to connect with all of you so many times over the past few weeks, however, for a reason I couldn’t get my brain around, I couldn’t find the words I wanted to say.  Today, it all became crystal clear, I couldn’t connect with all of you, because I wasn’t connected to me, to my feelings.  

I was traveling through this amazing, bittersweet, roller coaster of a season, trying to stuff my emotions so I could steel myself for today.  Today, when we walked in the door from a wonderful family vacation, dropped our bags on the kitchen floor, and began loading my eldest sons bed, dresser and his belongings into his truck…my first born was taking flight.  

I had one cherished, blessed week with all of my children around me and now, what I hoped and prayed would one day happen…was happening.  My child had become his own person, beginning his own life, under his own roof.  

The dichotomy of my emotions was as unstable as a see-saw looking to find balance.  Thoughts like “I am so proud of Garrett,” “I will miss him so much,”  “he will never sleep in “his” room again because he has a new room he will call his,” “ I have completed my job of raising him,” and so on and so on.  

“If the ticker tape inside my brain was to be printed out, the wild ride it would convey,” I thought.  So, as a life coach who spend hundreds of hours every month walking through similar scenarios with countless clients, I did what my I know serves me well, a thought download.  I got everything I was thinking out of my brain and onto a piece of paper.  I connected with my feelings and asked what thoughts I was having that were creating all of the yo yo of emotions.  Looking at that piece of paper and the thoughts on it, made it crystal clear why I feel like I do.  

I am choosing to lean into this season of life and feel every moment of it.  The joy and the bittersweet, the desire for one more day and the clarity that it is time to let go, the recognition of the passage of time and how I wish it would have just stood still a bit longer.  

My heart is so full.  Full with the full spectrum of human emotions – both positive and negative, and the realization that I wouldn’t  trade a single one of them.  I am stepping into my full human experience as a mother who has just launched her child.  

We are heading into August.  A time when many of you will send kids back to school, off to college, on a semester abroad, to preschool for the very first time.  Are you equipped with tools to fully feel and experience what the ticker tape in your mind is offering?  Do you allow your feelings to really process or do you stuff them down for a “better day?”  I promise you, a better day will never come.  

If you find yourself bunched up with so much emotion and no idea how to unravel it, I offer the thought download as a place to start.  Get everything out of your brain.  Take a look at what you are thinking.  Are there facts on that page or just stories you are telling yourself.  Need help understanding how to do this, reach out friend, I would love to help empower you.  

My son may have packed his bags and tonight, will lay his head on his pillow elsewhere, however, my brain has full clarity of what I am choosing to think.  It is not full of chaos and disarray like I have allowed recently.  It isn’t clouded with thoughts that are not serving me.  I am stepping into full belief that my son will always have a room in my house, it is just called a chamber of my heart.