Sharing the Happy

This morning my son ran to my bed, jumped in and snuggled with me. He bent his head back, looked up into my eyes and beamed. "Mommy, you make me happy every day and all the time."
My eyes welled up and my heart warmed and swelled until I felt like a beach ball in the hot sun.
What was instantly there for me was not all the moments that I made him happy, but the enormity of his generosity and choice to not let times I did not make him happy ruin his perception of being happy.
God knows there where those times! The crying fits and screaming rages, the "just a minute's" and outright "NO!"'s.
But he chose to declare his life was filled with "happy all the time," to remember those moments and to make our current moment, the present, happier with his choice.

He remembered the giggling moments, trike riding moments, and reading together moments; the times we laugh and play and snuggle moments. He chose to love me including every moment and make them all part of happy.

Because being together is being happy and those together times include ups and downs, anger and joy. The choice of togetherness, embracing all those moments, being able to be with them, is what makes up happiness.

Recently I had a falling out with a friend. We misunderstood somethings that happened. She did something that hurt and shocked me and I did something that hurt and shocked her, and not necessarily in that order. The hurt lasted longer than I expected and we hashed it out for quite a while. And in the midst of the worst of it all, just when I thought we could no longer be friends, the opposite of that misery flashed itself in my memory like the glistening of a coin in a fountain. Those moments when we were laughing until I almost peed my pants, the moments when we called eachother first thing in the morning and spoke to eachother just before bed, the moments when we screamed with joy about our day together and I felt like she was my sister and best friend, sent like an angel from heaven.
I remembered those moments and knew that is who we truly were for eachother. I chose to remember those times.
We resolved all our misunderstandings. What we choose is to live happy with our friendship because we value that more.
The most challenging and difficult times can actually show us what we truly value.

So I look at challenging times to ask myself, what is it that really matters to me?
To Bronson, it is to love his Momma. Thank God, because I love him so too. I love all my boys so much I would do watever it takes to be healthy for them. See, I have recently seen that working as much as I do on the cause of health and freedom in America has left me with fatigue and inability to function as I would like. My health is seriously being impacted. I am letting the challenge and difficulty of the times take away the happy.
That is not what I am commited to. I choose the happy. I value health. So that means rest, sleep, love, laughter, fun, writing, art, walking, yoga and eating healthy food I love. Being inspired by life!
My expression of being inspired by life is writing or making art.
So I promise to make art or write everyday for the next two weeks. And share them, share the happy.
Thank you for being people with whom I can share the happy.
Love,
Zen

The Secret of Getting What You Want: From a 4 year old

It was not how a Sunday morning is supposed to go. I woke up itching from the unsettled brewings of an argument the night before with my husband. Something about "not listening to me" was festering into a full blown rage.
I orginally intended just to talk. I really did.
I asked my husband if we could talk. But in hindsite I see now I really didn't mean that.
I meant "If you go downstairs and write now like you normally do I will feel ignored and angry again. You better listen to me rant right now or there will be hell to pay."
If I had said that at least I would have been being honest.
But I didn't.
I explained to him that I needed his support more, his listening and most importantly his affection. In hindsight I imagine it might have sounded like a plea from a mom for her teenager to pick up his socks.
But I didn't think so at the time. I was just justified. I knew what I wanted.

See, most nights he goes to bed earlier than I do and wakes up at 5:30 to write before going to work. I stay up late because it's the only time of the day I have to myself, when the house is settled in silence and the demands, bickering or distant squeals are not crying out for my attention. I can breathe. I choose to stay up late.
But then when I go to bed I want to connect with my husband. I want him magically sense from his oblivious slumber to roll over and reach for me, hold me and listen to me talk about the day. I want his affection and snuggles to envelope me, protect me and yearn for me.
Instead, he sleeps. Sometimes, he snores. It's like a Mac truck gargling.

So I stew in resentment. Then my brain, at midnight, kicks into second gear, my heart beats in a near panic and I start thinking of all the things he and I need to discuss...after school activities, are we parenting the way we could, can we budget better to make more room for college, what does he think of my plans for Moms Across America, does he really get the gravity of the GMO situation and can he just tell me what to do that will fix everything? Can't he just hold me and make it all alright?
Instead, he sleeps.

So today I woke up stewing, and my request of him, it boiled down to after 20 minutes of spitfire accusations and complaints, was really not a request. It was a demand. And who would want to be affection to a demanding person? No one. They would rather roll over and go to sleep. They certainly wouldn't want to wake up and listen to them demand more.

I got it. It wasn't pretty but I got it. With my game face on I sucked it up and went downstairs to join my family instead of eating the breakfast he made me in bed. I did my best to set the resentment aside and just be with my family. I was still feeling a undercurrent of shame however, because I realized that what I was asking for from him was really what I needed to be giving...my attention.

After lunch, as I was washing the dishes, my 4 year old sidled up to me with his cute chubby face and said "Snuggle wuggles?"
"Do you want to snuggle sweetie?" and he nodded.
"I am doing the dishes now-"
"After you are done..." he said with a hopeful smile, "Snuggles wuggles time?"
I was struck that he wanted affection and just asked for it in the cutest way.
I am not sure he knows he is irresistable but he sure knows how to ask for what he wants.
"Okay I said, I would love to."

I finished the dishes and found my son in the hands of my husband, (who was lying flat on his back on the couch), flying through the air.I saw that my son was just being cute and loving..anyone would love to snuggle him. I saw also that how he asked made all the difference in the world. Cute, agreeable, patient.

I didn't blame my husband anymore. I stepped over my husband legs and wedged myself in the fold of the couch, laying along side him, full body snuggle. I hugged Bronson who came in for a landing and it was "snuggle wuggle time". My husband smiled at me with tenderness and forgiveness. I saw deep in his eyes that all he ever wanted was to connect too. We just need to make it "time", and when he was awake worked. We hugged our son and rubbed noses and wallowed in loving affection.

At the beach later that afternoon my husband surprised me with a lovely back rub while we watching dolphins show us a glimpses of their dorsel fins while curling between the waves. I sighed in bliss.I went to bed as I usually do and this time he back was not a barrier, but just my man, a good man, to snuggle up to.

Sometimes, I realize even bigger than giving up one's pride to ask for something, is to just give it.
My sons continue to inspire me with their love, joy and play.
My husband inspires me with his commitment to providing for our family so I can do everything I am doing....which is exactly everything I want to be doing. I think he deserves some affection!


Zen Honeycutt

Cleaning Out : Communication and Taking a look at Ourselves

We had one of those nights, as a married couple. You know, the kind where as a wife I am stewing, overwhelmed, resentful and sputtering obsecnities under my breath. My husband is confused and has almost completely given up.
We lay on the bed for the first time together all week.
Todd has been staying up late doing research for his book most nights, I was "checked out", either out one night or watching TV or working late the other night.
I stare at the black TV at the other end of the room,shiny dead and heavy. I feel the weight of many days of built up information, thought,concerns,guilt,frustrations and issues boiling inside. As I begin to share them with my husband, I don't make eye contact. I can't look at him and be as angry as I want to be right now, so I indulge my bitterness and continue to stare at the TV.

"I can't stand the mess anymore,"I am spewing..."There is no place to put it all anymore.The knobs on the cabinet over there has been missing for months, there are 8 boxes of papers and toys that I don't know what to do with...the kids are constantly hungry and making messes and I am the only one who does anything about all this, it's all on me and I can't stand it!"

My husband,smart man, just listens. We have done some courses about men and women and he gets I am just "emptying the trash", so to speak. He is holding the basket and catching it all for me. Not easy for him, as his instinctual urge as the man that he is, is to fix it,but a generous and loving act that enables me to get it out, Get it ALL out!
I keep going. I've got more...."The car is rattling, you are always working or writing and ignoring me,the shed is stuffed full, I want a garage, we still haven't opened a bank account for Ben,taught him about money,Ben got picked on at school today..."
I essentially make me husband wrong for everything ( allll his fault!)until his part in it dwindles and it just becomes about some things that are just the way they are...and have nothing to do with him.
Then he speaks. He says he hears me. Gets me. And he promises he will be present.
I breath and look at him.His eyes are promising and loving,asking me for trust.
I do.

The next morning, as he is cooking a beautiful breakfast I start putting dishes away and again cannot close a cabinet drawer. Instead of my thoughts going to blaming him for it like I have been for the past few months,silently, I open and close it again,investigating...and I hear a crunch of paper behind the drawer. I reach my hand back there and find a brown paper lunch bag and pull it out. I reach again and there's more...and again and again...paper bags, ziploc bags, tin foil scraps, pretty soon I have a mountain of garbage in front of me and I am incredulous that it all fit in there...and begin to giggle. I make the connection between me cleaning out the junk in my head last night and what I am doing right now with my kitchen drawer. In both cases I was blaming him, when in actuallity it was all just my own crap! By the 7th brown paper bag I am lauging so hard tears are coming to my eyes. My husband is smiling to himself as he flips the bacon. Yea that's right...his nodding head says. I am just bubbling over with laughter.
In all there were 7 paper bags, 9 ziploc bags, 3 pieces of foil, a fabric rice bag, two large plastic trash bags and an entire plastic tablecloth. Hilarious! Astounding!
All that, like all the rambling, accusations, resentments,stories I have made up about how woe is me...all was cleaned out in a few moments.
I am free. My husband is vindicated. I kiss him sweetly before we eat his gorgeous generous breakfast.

Sometimes the solutions to our upsets are right before us. And always, they have much more to do with us than them.
Just share,listen, look and then laughter will come.

Zen Honeycutt
www.zenspurplegarden.com

P.S. I wrote this a week or two ago. Since then all of the issues mentioned here, and then some have been or are being completely handled. I created trust and love for my husband and he created taking care of us. And he has. Thank You Todd.