I attended the Open House journaling class this afternoon. I have also been taking the three-word journaling classes for quite a long time with Denise and Bette. I can’t tell you how much I look forward to them and how much I have learned. I would urge anyone that can attend to do so.

Anyway, during the class today we were talking about second guessing ourselves. I was talking about how I let others allow me do this. During the last live call-in show I called in about what I should do with Nicole turning 18 this year and how she’s not ready to take on the adult responsibility of her own care. (You can listen to the show here.) I am usually told by friends and family members anything from “You are babying her too much” to “She has to learn to do it all herself.” I don’t feel that way. I think I do baby her sometimes and she does have to learn to take on the responsibility of her health but not at 18. I allow others to make me second guess myself.

Others (and this includes my husband, Rick) don’t see what I do. Take today for instance. I finally got her out of bed at 11:30 a.m. because I was busy doing laundry, cleaning up, cleaning the turtle tank etc. so I wasn’t standing over her bed. She got up, we had to have a student/teacher/parent conference about school, ate some muffins I baked for breakfast and when I left to run to the library she was brushing the animals (two dogs and one cat). When I got home and I was gone 30 minutes she was laying in bed on her iTouch. I asked why she was back in bed, she said she was resting… I asked “why” … she said she was tired as she had brushed all the animals. After about 15 minutes she took a shower. She has told me since then she is tired today from doing this. People don’t realize how tiring a little bit of activity is for Nicole.

During the journaling class Bette was talking about her mom and taking a shower. I have to fight with Nicole to take a shower too because it is very tiring for her even though we have a shower seat. She only washes her hair a couple a times a week and I do this for her. She doesn’t always take a shower every day and this is okay and I try to make sure that she knows this.

Bette said something that was so true… we have to trust our gut and have confidence in that. I am going to start trying to do this on a regular basis or as Denise says practice using our confidence muscle. Denise asked me what I thought of when I think of the word “space” and my first thought was “air-head” which I have a tendency to be. I ran out of the house so fast to go to the library as I was looking ahead to the open-house, Nicole’s second-opinion appointment tomorrow and all the other things I have to do that I forgot my cell phone (which can be very bad especially in a caregiving situation) and the books that I was taking back.

Denise said to me that this and my feeling of being an air head is from thinking of things that haven’t occurred yet. Wow… this is so true. I will have to physically tell myself to stay in the moment but even as I type this I know I have to let out the dogs, make sure Nicole takes her medicine, make dinner, clean up dinner etc. It is tough to learn to stay in the moment when you have looked ahead to the next thing for longer than you can remember.

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