What this says about me as a mother

last night we went to watch bull riding. It struck me as insane. We electrocute animals in their most primal spot then clap and scream while that animal bucks and jumps until the man on his back falls off and tries not to get trampled in the process. I saw it momentarily as a sign of our madness--how sad and bizarre that millions of people get pleasure from watching or participating in this process. The crowd was often drunk or odd and my eye was sadly frequently caught my parents and their kids and all those things I look for that are unhealthy or dangerous or uncaring... And amidst this insanity, one beautiful rose. A 60 year old Savannah cowboy with a smile--it never left his face. For his 4 year old daughter, for his Central Asian wife, for the kids below riding the metal bronco, for the riders, for the audience members trying to win cowboy hats...

My self knowledge today is this: I woke up and smiled to myself. I'm going to read the newspaper on line, I thought. I lit a gratitude candle, came downstairs to the computer, decided to turn on the lovely Greek music I get to listen to here while house sitting for a Greek New Yorker, and began dancing. I haven't done that in so long. I was positively mincing! And this early morning joy was due to this: my son is not here. He's spending the night with my parents. I don't have this morning joy when he's here. I rush to do things for myself like meditate or write in a journal or sneak around so I don't wake him up so I can have MY time before he's up... and I anticipate the things he'll want to do, like watch TV which I can't stand hearing early in the morning and also which I want to control--I don't want him to do that first thing--so I'm rushing to do "Centering" or "expanding" things for myself which of course doesn't work cause you can't rush it and at the same time anticipating his demands and our conflict when he wakes up. What does this say about me as a mother. What it feels like is this: I'm resentful. I'm not living the life I seek when he's here. Even if I let him just turn on the TV upstairs where I might not hear it while I do these things, it's not the same. I get stuck between feeling like I'm supposed to be doing house things or mothery things or that I'm sneaking to do things for myself--I'm no where near living in the moment! What can anyone tell me about this. What world view is skewed here? How do I create the harmony and respectful co-existence I wish, mixed with affection? How to allow the spontaneity? do you first need a routine for spontaneity to be possible? Probably. I wish he had friends in the neighborhood that he rushed out to play with on a weekend morning so I could take this time without guilt... Is that it? Is this guilt and then resentment that stops me from enjoying? Guidance please.

Parts of me

Doing EFT tapping on joy, my feeling of heaviness where joy could be, I discovered a part of me. It's this judging part. I decide what people should or shouldn't do. I decide that it's selfish of my friend not to volunteer in our kids' school since she should be giving back wherever she can... I decide that people who don't have their parents move in when they're old and alone but rather put them in a nursing home are bad children. This means of course, that if I ever do that, I will have to consider myself bad. That's no problem, I've gotten into the habit of doing that anyway. Then digging deeper, I find that I don't trust my own judgement about choosing people to be close to who are good for me. Actually, I know that I choose good friends and people who help me grow or make me laugh... but what I'm really talking about is men, those people I would give me heart to. I don't trust my judgement about them. That seems to come from something that happened with my father when he threw my idea of trust and of what is OK and not OK to do, right out the window. I think I trusted that he knew best since he was my dad and older and loved me, and I guess I betrayed what I knew was right for me--so ever since, I doubt myself and my ability to know what is right for me. I couldn't seem to tap that one away.
So you know what I did? I offered it up to the Beloved, the Divine. I admitted I didn't feel that I could do it on my own--make the right decisions for myself, pick a man that is good for me, and that feels good, seems right now. I asked that I be guided, shown, given the understanding.

Of course all this judging of what people should and shouldn't do, say or feel, is quite a big responsibility and a lot of work. No wonder joy doesn't have room to come in. I've been very busy with heavy moral judgements. I've been doing the work they're too afraid to do for themselves. See, i just did it again. I judged that people should be judging themselves, so I don't have to! That those who don't examine themselves are failing somehow. And in order to put myself in the appropriate position to make these huge moral pronouncements, I must be suffering. I can't be happy---I have to be carrying the weight of the world so that I have the moral authority to prounce judgement upon you.

Something I noticed 4 months ago about this judgeing aspect of me, is that without it, I didn't know how to relate to people--I mean how to connect with them. This judgeing was my connection. If I wasn't watching you and having opinions about what you're doing, then what am I supposed to feel? How am I supposed to see you? This one is still a bit of a mystery to me. I still wonder how to communicate without judging. How will I connect myself to you and others without that? I opened myself to a new way of relating and communicating--I opened myself to the possibility, and I'm still waiting for it to manifest. Like "Linda is doing lots of workshops. She must really like those." Instead of "Linda is doing lots of workshops. She is such a hardworking and creative person. I should be like that. She is better than I am. She is changing the world like I want to. I am failing." Boy, I just realized that when I'm judging others, what I'm really doing is judgeing myself. I'm measuring myself by comparison to some evaluations I've made up. I'm deciding my worth based on how I come out compared to so and so--and it's all going on in my head. Holy moly. Time for some serious mind-quieting and relaxing the consciousness--meditation.