Lindsey Wamsley

10/08/2021

27/07/2020

‘Rona days are for the birds am I right?
I vividly remember telling my friends in my moms play date group a few years back how I couldn’t IMAGINE doing life without these amazing women by my side in the trenches of motherhood together everyday supporting each other.
💪🏻
Then a chronic illness and new disabling surgery kept me home for the better part of a year. I experienced profound loneliness and fought to find self-compassion and hope amidst the hard days.
🧎🏻‍♀️
At the end of that season my 3 year old daughter was diagnosed with cancer and our family experienced another wave of trauma that felt so deep we didn’t know if we could find our life raft.
⛵️
But somehow we’ve made it—one day at a time. Sometimes one hour at a time. And here we are in the middle of a global pandemic with an immunocompromised child, after our house flooded and we are temporarily displaced from our home, and our storm continues to feel stronger and bigger ⛈.
🤷🏻‍♀️
And YET somehow we are finding moments that feel lighter 💡. Running through sprinklers, digging in sandboxes, building legos for hours and learning new board games.
🙇🏻‍♀️😬😭
Oh yes! For sure all the crisis and trauma are still there and very present. But those are things that we cannot control in our life right now.
🛶🎡🏖⛲️🧩♟🎲🥁🤹🏻🩰🎨
For now we are leaning in to each other, connecting through play and nurture, and sharing empathy/grace/and every drop of compassion we have to give.
🏄🏽‍♀️🧗🏻‍♀️How have YOU found ways to play recently? If this is a struggle area for you...I challenge you to pick something new and try it out.🏏🥏🎱🪀🎾

25/07/2020

🤭Ever give a compliment and immediately feel your thoughts go to the dark side?
“Wish I had better skin”. “Man my eyebrows can’t be shaped like that.” “How does she eat that and not ever gain weight?”
🙅🏻‍♀️
Diet culture has us stuck turning our wheels in the mud of comparison.
🟤
So let’s all practice something...
Fill it in...🙇🏻‍♀️
👉🏻“I am beautiful because...”
Then stop and look at your list. How many attributes are 100% based off of your outward appearance?
💡
Now set that list aside...let’s try it again...only this time you are not allowed to use a single body descriptor (ie: legs, weight, freckles etc).
💖
“I am beautiful because...”

🦩My list in the comments🦚

21/07/2020

🌊 What if we all let our defenses down and took off our masks (the figurative ones) and LISTENED to one another?💡 Listening takes practice. It’s an art form and skill. Start by exploring these tips:
🔍Do a self feelings check. Examine how you feel about what the other person is saying. Ie: when someone is speaking about their political views and it incites rage in you...maybe take a step back until you are not filled with rage but instead can hear the persons position.
🔍Give yourself grace. Just because you don’t get listening perfectly the first time doesn’t mean you should fall back on old habits like interrupting, dehumanizing, and criticizing. Instead dust yourself off and try again. You got this!
🔍Be a mirror. Before responding to the content of what the person says...reflect back what you *think* you hear them say. I guarantee this is how we can catch miscommunications.
🔍Try to pick out an emotion even if the person isn’t saying the emotion. Ie: “that has made you feel frustrated.” This is an opportunity for that person to elaborate and confirm...yes it has or no it has not. This isn’t a way to label their emotion but rather confirm with them that you are understanding their position.
🔍Save your words and minimize content. We can only process so many words at once. Keep it to under a minute and your communication partner will thank you.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

17/07/2020

🌿🖤💡

16/07/2020

💡 Have you ever lived in a sea of choices and felt so overwhelmed you began reaching for life rafts? 🤷🏻‍♀️. This has been me during such a weird season I’m in. We have been forced to remodel after a massive flood in our home is now leading to kitchen makeover.🛠 I mean who really complains about a new kitchen? No one!
But when you are walking through DEEP 🧗🏻‍♀️ trauma, grief and losses just keep coming at ya...then suddenly picking out lights at a light store becomes HARD.

🌿What helps when this happens?🌿
1️⃣ Lean in and honor your feelings. Get uncomfortable for a bit and name those losses (with a safe friend or without).
2️⃣ Call on your safe tribe to join you in your hard moments, phone a friend, or in my case text the friends the photos of lights and have them help you pick and empathize.
3️⃣ Turn to your self care plan and begin doing the hard work of caring for your mind/body/heart/soul. What does that look like? It’s different for everyone but for me it’s typically talking to a dear and uplifting friend, going for a swim/walk/take a bath and take my meds 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

03/06/2020

🖤We are not free until we are ALL free. 🖤

✨Still I Rise✨
BY MAYA ANGELOU
“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.”

25/05/2020

I used to think that life was filled with happy endings. According to Hollywood I should be enjoying my beautiful career with a wonderful office, coming home to a husband that cooked me a meal, and my dog should already know how to make my coffee by this point. ☕️
The problem is that our path is not some straight road where we can see the ending from the beginning. We are on a twisting and turning journey around rocky and at times dangerous paths. Sure sometimes the sky is clear and the road 🛣stretches before us for miles and miles and we can see the dotted boundaries that guide us so clearly. But in my experience, most days can be a thick fog ⚪️filled with unknown debris in your path and the destination is super unclear...or worse...you get so close only to find you’ve been headed the wrong way for hours/days/months/years.❌🤦🏻‍♀️

In these moments I’ve felt like giving up. I didn’t know what to do to feel better. So I rested. I sat and rested and I asked for directions. Suddenly...helpers came. And even though I was stuck in the fog, I had voices to guide me out, people cheering me on, a clear direction to head and I didn’t feel alone anymore. I can find my way now💛. What if I stayed stuck? What if I never asked for help? Even when it feels like it’s not possible to get out of our circumstances, the good part could be just around the corner. I may not know where my journey may lead, but I am capable of enjoying the view from where I am.✌🏻
🔜

11/05/2020

▪️In 2018 I found myself alone for a week with a 5 year old, 2 year old, and 2mo old baby. In the course of a week I had to take said 5 year old to the hospital for 105+ fever (ended up being HFM), had a tornado come through (we were all fine), had to take a week out of the office and work from home, and then of course I somehow and horribly caught hand foot and mouth! It was an extremely laughable moment in mom history. When hubby got home from his business trip he found my lying in a fetal position bed shaking with fever. In order to capture the essence of that Mothers Day...we decided a photo in bed was appropriate. And thus a tradition began.
▫️I never could have imagined last Mother’s Day that I would be where I am today. Walking through childhood cancer with my daughter, not working, and living in a temporary space after a massive flood in my home in the middle of a global pandemic. ▪️We still laugh it all off. Today was a crazy day just like every day in motherhood. I had a terrible headache this morning, followed by some unexpected emotions from missing my mom today. We got a nail in the sidewall of our tire and it’s going to cost us $490. My five year old got stung by a wasp, and the kids were all in the WORST moods ever whether it was chemo or lack of sleep, who knows? 🤪
▫️But it’s my beautiful life and I’ve never felt so loved. What an honor it is to be called “mom”. What a unique privilege I have to be given such a treasure as a hand to hold and a tear to wipe away. ▪️Here’s to hoping next years Mother’s Day will try not to be a one upper but if it does I feel like together we can handle anything 💪🏻▫️▪️👏🏻🎗🦋💛

07/05/2020

What’s your current music vibe?
🎼🦋Music has always been a HUGE part of my 💜self-love plan💜I’m really feeling these lyrics to one of my favorite songs. It reminds me of the incredible healthcare workers that I’m surrounded by daily who work with grit and compassion to care for our daughter. ✨ Being in the hematology/oncology world daily means we see lots of worn out faces.🦋
What lyrics speak to you today?

04/05/2020

My List of Losses
🗝my sense of safety with my health
🗝my creative time
🗝hugs from friends and family
🗝my regular schedule
🗝watching my kids play with friends

💜🤗Hey you! It’s ok if you are struggling to find balance. Our brain struggles to make healthy choices when we are grieving our losses. When you begin to feel stuck, overwhelmed, anxious, depressed...
💜Take a HUGE deep breath
💜Wrap your arms around yourself in the biggest hug possible
💜Feel sunshine on your face for at least 5 minutes
💜do a light stretch for ten minutes
💜take a shower, brush your teeth, put lotion on your skin
💜Give yourself a nice foot massage
💜AND sit down to make a list of the things your have lost.

What are you grieving today? What do you miss most? What used to bring you joy but is difficult to access now?

✨The more times we are patient with ourselves through the fog of losses, the easier it is to find our path out. Take your hand and guide yourself toward the path. I bet you are closer than you think. 🌿🌫

28/04/2020

I can still remember the way the hammock encased me while the gentle breeze rocked my tired body. 🌿 I was allowing myself to slow down at the age of 16 during a time that felt very chaotic to me. I had friend drama, boyfriend drama, was in the throws of an eating disorder, and struggled deeply with perfectionism/depression/anxiety.
But I was fine, everything was “fine”.
Only it wasn’t.
And yet when I think of peace I remember this beach and the time I spent letting go and forgetting who I was for a moment. Losing myself to the salty breeze and smell of hibiscus surrounding me. 🌺
It was SO easy for me to find peace that day. Peace came and found me, really.
I wish peace came this easily all the time. But it doesn’t. Peace is especially hard to grasp when you are stuck in the revolving door of trauma. You just can’t see a way out. These are the times that you have to fight for peace. Our soul craves the eye of the hurricane. 🌪 The small break in our storm that tells us “ok things will be OK”. Its ok if peace is hard for you to find and even harder to hold tight. Lean in on your support system. And try to make “fighting for peace” a part of your survival guide during whatever storm you are in. 🕊

20/04/2020

After spending many hours in the chair listening to teens weave the complicated web that is their family dynamic, I ask them...
“If you could wave a wand, what would you want more OR less of with your family?”
95% of the time a teen expresses the need to spend actual quality TIME with their parents and sometimes they include siblings in that list too.
Teens desire connection, affirmation, and love just like we all do! They want phones down, screens off, board games out and drives to get snow cones.
💜
Parents will sometimes cry when I tell them “your teen just wants you to SEE them”. But being seen and heard is a gift parents are able to give and have such a HUGE impact.
💜When the time is right, dig deep and decide a story from your own past where you handled disappointments and losses. Talk to your teen about the way you handled it (good, bad and ugly!). Don’t be afraid of the mistakes in your story. Your teen is likely so afraid to share with you because they will add another layer of disappointments.
💜 Inspire them with acts of courage. Maybe they won’t be attending their last art classes BUT maybe they will be courageous enough to try working on a new series of paintings. It takes courage to try new things. It takes courage to call an old friend from school you haven’t seen in a while, it takes courage to talk to new neighbors and open up to parents and be vulnerable...go on and praise them for that.
💜Make sure when their heads hit the pillow that the last thing they are thinking about was the words of hope you spoke to them. Tell your teen they are brave, loved, adored and treasured. Let them know what a gift it is to spend time with them.
Empathy, courage, love and time...not going anywhere!
💪🏻💜🙌🏻✨🤗

18/11/2019

✨I’m taking a break from the chair for a while. My bravery is being pushed to new limits as I step into a new role that no parent ever hopes to be thrust in to “cancer mom”. 💜My 3 year old daughter Adaleigh was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in August. She is doing well now and fighting strong. Her battle means constant care from her favorite securely attached adult (my husband and I) but for logistics I’m stepping away from the office for a while.
My journey will lead me toward new things. Unknowns can be scary. But I’m holding fast to hope. And I’m writing a bunch. 🌱 And I may or may not be involved in helping my succulents through their recent trauma of moving pots and working through the stages of grief over losing their succulent buddy to some sort of mold...but that’s another conversation entirely. 🌵

26/07/2019

Starlight swimming was the perfect way to end a hard day yesterday. We all have to find ways to clear our headspace.
🌟🌊💫💦🌿

04/06/2019

Forgot my make-up this morning. I usually put it on at work and then realized I left the bag at home. Looks like a great opportunity to practice vulnerability today 💁🏻‍♀️😊🤗💜☀️🌿☺️ 💪

09/05/2019

Celebrating the Spring Session graduates this week from our Teen Girls group.
Brave. Bold. Courageous. Empowered. Fearless. Loved. Trustworthy. Confident. And a little sassy.
🥳💜🌸🌿🦋🐛☀️🎈🎊🎉
Teen group is anything but dull people. 🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈