Garden of Common Ground

03/11/2025

What a beautiful, beautiful day...

I woke up.

Sunshine. 75 degrees.

Breakfast with two cutie-pie grandies and walking them to school with their sweet grandpa.

Conversations with my mom and daughter.

A great Pilates workout with a personal trainer I adore.

Lunch, strolling, chatting and shopping on non-crowded streets with a good friend.

The first porch sit of the season. Lots of birds singing, chimes barely ringing.

Clean bathrooms and laundry caught up.

Cauliflower pizza.

Dang, life is good.

Grateful beyond measure, grateful for every moment.

08/30/2024

08/01/2024

Long post alert!

I have been mostly quiet on this platform for some time.

I closed up my studio that was created for sound healing about 11 months ago. As the one-year anniversary of that closure approaches, I feel compelled to reflect on how life has changed.

Something felt 'different'and I was just coming off of a pretty tough double arm surgery and then I became suddenly and mysteriously ill.

It was so serious, I was worried that I might die.

It took me quite a while to get my feet back under me. I have never felt so vulnerable or dependent on those I love.

It was quite frightening to experience.

It broke my heart to close my business. Owning a business was a personal goal that I had for my whole life and I LOVE sound healing and the feeling of connectedness it brought to my life.

I adored what I had created.

Yet, after all the hard work, time and training that went into that beautiful sound studio, I KNEW, deep in my bones, that my body was telling me that my priority had to be my own well-being.

Before I could serve my community for another minute, I HAD to take care of me.

And I had to do it on a level that I never had before.

I accepted help and meals from people. I partook in healing sessions, found a therapist and spent countless hours of work on my mental, emotional and physical healing.

My closest relationships have improved immensely. This was important to me because when things were at their lowest, never was I more aware of how much I was loved. Far more than I ever realized.

What a beautiful gift to feel in the midst of not knowing how I might make it through the day.

It truly was these acts of love that kept me holding on to how much I had to live for.

These days, I am taking much better care of myself.

And surprisingly, through the heartbreak of closing my much-loved business and feeling like it was a great failure, I learned that I hadn't failed at all.

I gave myself the time to 'just be' on a deeper level than ever before.

I have been traveling a lot with my amazing, charming husband. I have been having so much more fun than I ever allowed myself to have.

I have been enjoying more authentically connected moments with those I love than ever before.

What is the point of all this, you ask?

Don't wait until something knocks you down to allow yourself to be deeply loved.

I had to be knocked down to death's door before I could accept or receive the love that was available to me. I just couldn't feel it prior to almost dying.

My family, friends who have always had my back and clients who have become friends have been incredibly generous with their love, support and care.

I can't believe that it took my near death experience to FEEL it.

I had closed myself off from receiving by over-giving and holding a feeling of inappropriate responsibility for everyone else's happiness and well-being.

While in the midst of leading others in creating a lifestyle of self-compassion, I ended up learning a whole new level of self-compassion and self-love for myself - through the most difficult challenge I have ever experienced.

It makes me wonder how many levels and lessons there are in this journey. I suspect there are as many lessons as there are breaths that I take.

Please, look inside and find more ways to be gentle with your tender self.

Don't define success by how much you do. Measure it by the amount of love you allow yourself to receive.

Trust your gut.

Take the time to eat healthy food as defined by how your body responds to your meal more than what someone else tells you that you need to eat.

Spend time in nature. Really - breath it in deeply. And frequently.

Move gently and often.

Commit to spending quality, engaged time with yourself and with anyone who is important to you.

Do the things you LOVE to do - do not wait until you have 'enough' money or time. Do it now.

Life is meant to be lived, friends!

Enjoy every moment of it right now - don't wait!

I don't know if I will be re-opening my business in the future in the way I served before. I don't think I am finished serving my community, but I also don't know what the future of serving looks like yet.

This is a lot - but I just wanted to share my heart and my gratefulness for this humbling experience and how it has helped me gain some clarity I didn't realize I needed.

How grateful I am to be alive and to be loved.

Life sure is beautifully rich.

This is a recent photo of me spending a reflective moment in Waterton Lake in Alberta, Canada.

Sending love out to you all!

07/02/2024

I love this corner in my sunroom.

The plants surround Mary all around the room.

My grandma's rosary hangs around her robe. I didn't get to be too familiar with my grandmas in a deep way, and I always imagined what my relationship with them could have been.

I daydream about it not in a way of longing, but out of curiosity.

My mom and I talk of our own perceived shortcomings of our mothering and grandmothering styles. I can see personal and ancestral traits that shape how we both showed up.

I am grateful for these conversations.

They can feel incredibly personal and sometimes painful, while also being quite expansive and heart-warming.

It gives us space to consciously engage in our personal relationship in a way that we aren't charged about an event where either of us wish we had been or done better, and to see each other as the human carving out our realities. Lives shaped by our experiences and our beliefs that created who we feel we are and might be.

I feel so blessed, that the more I talk to my mom openly about these things, the sweeter our relationship feels.

It's like tasting a fresh blueberry picked at the peak of ripeness; I savor this feeling!

I feel the heartfelt prayers she uttered when I was in her womb. Her sweet whisperings to God to be the best mom she could be and that I would know how much I would be loved and was wanted.

You see, sometimes when I was little, I didn't always feel that. Even though it was her greatest prayer, feeling she wouldn't measure up was her greatest fear.

And sometimes in the department of parenting, the fear won out over the prayer.

Turns out, it's the same for me, too.

After conversations with my daughter, I know she shares that same sentiment.

Parenting is quite an adventure. I look to Mary as a possible representation of the ultimate role model for being a mother.

Or, at least, the idea of what I believe Mary represents. My beautiful heart and brain synchronize to contemplate the most loving divine mother of mothers, the wise, kind queen of all...

And how she would mother her beloved children.

It's lofty, but I aim to be that kind of mother.

Not defined by a specific thing I do, but defined for the ever present, open hearted loving presence I can be to my chikdren and grandchildren.

I fall short, I get up and brush my hands and b***y off, and I take a deep breath, and I start again.

As I suppose it might be for all mothers, every where, in all times.

May the mother inside of us rise to the occasion, knowing that we are, just by simply showing up and trying.

May we forgive ourself if we fell short or disappointed our self or those we love and may all hearts understand that mothers learn to love in the moment.

We create love by our learning, and still having the heart to show up.

May we all be blessed with an abundance of ease and grace in all endeavors to love ourselves, our families and friendsx, neighbors and strangers.

May we forgive easily, love fully and find peace, joy and happiness with grace and humility.

May our hearts be content.

May we be forever grateful for the opportunity to live and love.

May we always be grateful for the adventure!

06/18/2024

Heehee

05/31/2024

I believe this so deeply.

I have sent texts in an attempt to communicate important things before - and I think it was a huge mistake.

I have also misinterpreted things others have texted me.

Texting is great for convos like, 'can you grab some lettuce on the way home' or little things like that.

Important things are better left to in person talking, in my opinion.

05/31/2024

😂😂

05/28/2024

From 'Welcome Home' FB Page...

A big lesson I have learned recently so eloquently expressed:


I’m slowly learning that I don’t have to react to everything that bothers me, that the energy it takes to react to every bad thing that happens to you drains you and stops you from seeing the other good things in life.

I’m learning that I’m not going to be everyone’s cup of tea and I won’t be able to get everyone to treat me the way I want to be treated and that’s okay.
that trying so hard to ‘win’ anyone is just a waste of time and energy and it fills you with nothing but emptiness.
that not reacting doesn’t mean I’m okay with things, it just means I’m choosing to rise above it.

I’m choosing to take the lesson it has served and learn from it, to be the bigger person. To honor my peace of mind because that’s what I truly need.

I don’t need more drama or people making me feel like I’m not good enough, fights and arguments and fake connections.

I’m slowly learning that sometimes not saying anything at all says everything.
that reacting to things that upset you gives someone else power over your emotions.

You can’t control what others do, but you can control how you respond, how you handle it, how you perceive it and how much of it you want to take personally.

I’m slowly learning that most of the time, these situations say nothing about you and a lot about the other person.
That maybe all these disappointments are just there to teach us how to love ourselves because that will be the armor and the shield we need against the people who try to bring us down.
They will save us when people try to shake our confidence or when they try to make us feel like we’re worthless.

I’m also learning that even if I react, it won’t change anything, it won’t make people suddenly love and respect me, it won’t magically change their minds.

Sometimes it’s better to just let things be, let people go,
don’t fight for closure,
don’t ask for explanations,
don’t chase answers and
don’t expect people to understand where you’re coming from.

I’m slowly learning that life is better lived when you don’t center it on what’s happening around you and center it on what’s happening inside you instead.

Work on yourself and your inner peace and you’ll come to realize that not reacting to every little thing that bothers you is the first ingredient to living a happy and healthy life.

05/27/2024

Necessary distinctions....

05/27/2024

Let’s take our hearts for a walk in the woods and listen to the magic whispers of old trees.
~ Unknown

05/22/2024

I have heard the saying, 'no mud, no lotus' and I get it.

The bad comes with the good, challenging with easy, pretty with ugly, light with dark... etc.

I honestly believe opposites are two different places on the same spectrum.

I've been pondering this and how it applies to my relationship with myself.

If I feel, think, hear, smell, see, sense 'mud' on me... I have rushed to shower it off or to 'fix' it in the past.

And my mud-meter was REALLY sensitive.

Trouble was, I took other's opinions and reactions about my mud more seriously than my own.

It didn't have to be extreme for me to create an action plan to be 'better'.

I spent a lot of time walking on eggshells and teying to be better.

But the thing was, so many people see my lotus side. I am inherently a kind person.

I go lengths to make sure others feel welcomed and comfortable in my presence.

And I realize that for all the 'lotus' that folks see in me, I have been so very fortunate not to have been called out on some muddier parts of my behavior.

Or is that fortunate?

When someone bashed me for some of my mud, I didn't know how to take it well, because I have never had much conversation around this.

It was some of my first shadow/inner child work I ever had to do. It is surreal to be a grown adult and learn that parts of your child self are running around all butt-hurt in your psyche!

It makes me laugh to say that, but it's so true!

It's like this part of me that wants to be mature - and just doesn't realize it is immature. And that is always seemed to be something difficult to accept.

But, in my meanderings through some really tough life events, I have finally found some sort of grace to see myself when this happens and to lean in and be a bit more tender with myself rather than to become defensive.

That has taken so much work! Sooooo much work!!!

What's this all about?

Nothing really - except for this has sort of become the way I document things for myself, and while I know curve balls are always being lobbed in one way or another, I feel a real inner peace with this that I never have before.

A way of seeing myself in a way that doesn't feel harsh and snappy. More like I kinda see other people and give them the benefit of the doubt if they are eating some mud pie..

I don't hold grudges towards others, and I won't do that to myself anymore, either. Waste of time.

It's not perfection I am speaking of here. There is no such thing as perfect except for in fleeting moments.

It is temporary.

Perspective is everything.

Claiming fun in a life where I was deeply groomed to accept what others said of me very seriously and all of it hinged on my work and doing rather than around just being... there was a lot of entangled stuff in there.

Suspect there's even more where that came from.

I know more how to deal with that now in loving ways to myself that it isn't as big of a deal if it comes up.

Turns out, I call myself out more than anyone else ever does. As long as I am doing it kindly, I am in great shape!

Breathing deeply and choosing love every day,
Misty
5/22/2024

05/22/2024

Holy moly, mother nature.

Your beauty astounds me.

To say I love on charmed land feels so very accurate.

Wow! Wow! Wow!