How to Stay Positive When You’re Brokenhearted

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

Today was hard. It is the anniversary of Chase Varney’s death today and it sucks. He was only a high school, senior. My son will be a senior next year. This is too close to my heart and I adore and admire his mother and I can only imagine what she is feeling right now. Heart broken.

I felt paralyzed and helpless. I felt anger and sadness and loneliness. I felt compassion and frustration and helplessness. I also felt grateful and guilty. I felt present and short-tempered and nervously laughed a lot. I was anxious.

I am not in control and I feel vulnerable and fearful and sad and mad all at the same time.

How is one supposed to be positive when you’re dealing with such negative feelings?

This is what we need to learn to do. We need to learn to carry on, despite the S*(#. We need to teach our kids and ourselves that we are going to face ugly moments and days and we can get through them. We don’t have to be perfect. It’s okay to be sad. We get to choose how to deal with the bad things, just as we know how to deal with the good things. When we make bad choices, we can recover. One bad choice does not define us and this too shall pass. It’s okay to mess up. We’re all still learning. Do our kids really know this? Do they know how to make mistakes? I don’t know for sure, but I’m hoping we teach them to fail and to be resilient.

No one thing or event defines all of us. We can be broken and we can start again. We can be forgiven and we can rebuild. We have to be kind to ourselves and allow the pain to just be without feeding it.

I just ate an entire chocolate bar. I am feeling it. I am lost.

I don’t have to have all the answers and it’s okay to cry my eyes out. I did that tonight. I yelled tonight too. I’m so frustrated.

And then I wiped away my tears, and said enough. I didn’t want to cry the rest of the night. I was crying that ugly cry and it felt good to let it out and I don’t like to lose self control and to cry like that.

Charlie asked if I wanted to hear a good story. Thank God for the littles. I said yes, please. Lift me up and share something good because I am so sad right now. And he did.

He told me how he won a raffle prize tonight for wearing his shirt. Another new kid forgot to wear his member-shirt and this was his first year participating. Charlie chose to give his prize to the new kid and made his night. Seriously? He knows compassion already and to be self-less? Good job, Charlie boy. I am proud of you. You’re getting the meaning behind this life circus. I am proud of you and this story was just the right one I needed to hear tonight. Thank you for this precious gift. Thank you for being you, kind and loving and compassionate.

I smiled. I cried. I smiled again.

We are all a little broken. Let’s choose to take care of each other. Let’s choose to forgive others and ourselves and to offer do-overs and compassion. Let’s support one another and lift each other up.

And just maybe we’ll get through this life happily ever after together.

nAMaste

p.s. These little gifts brought light and warmth to me today, still a year later. Thank you Elizabeth and ML for your gifts of friendship. I love you.

2Oct2015

One People, One Love

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Every day I stop to think about what to write and what to share that might be meaningful or funny or that connects to a current event.

Today, Juliana’s shirt caught my eye after I looked at this picture we sent her daddy, who’s been out of town all week. I noticed and reflected on the One People line.

We are One People. We are One Love and we are interconnected, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. Our actions and our choices affect others and we need to look out for one another and be kind and loving, no matter what.

My mind is on Oregon and the tragedy that was created by one lonely and disillusioned person. People are looking for blame and for reasons why and want to politicize solutions. They want an easy fix to a complex problem.

How can we make a difference? I have several ideas and I’m sure you do too.

I think we start with ourselves. We can love who we are and be okay with the choices we’ve made and have experienced.

We can take care of our families and love one another and lift each other up.

We can teach kindness and practice kindness every day. We can be role models and examples through our actions and through our words by gently reminding and coaching those in our influence to act similarly.

We can take care of our community by volunteering in our local schools, and at our local spirtual establishments, in our neighborhood shelters, and by coaching and leading and mentoring kids and adults.

We can build relationships and partnerships and connections. We can see each other.

We can focus on positive, real life (s)heroes and share stories of hope, the stories that lift us up and inspire us. What we focus on, we create.

These take time and work and dedication. And genuine, authentic relationships take more than social media and instant gratification to develop roots.

Get rooted.

Get connected, your way.

Make a difference where you’re planted.

nAMaste

30Sep2015

Rooted

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What makes you feel rooted?

What makes you feel established and firmly grounded?

Where is your place, where you feel you belong?

I think growing older is a beautiful thing because I can feel myself more rooted in knowing who I am and what is important to me. These 2 things guide my daily choices, decisions and reactions to life’s daily events, opportunities, changes and challenges.

I am continuously learning and practicing (and failing) and connecting to all that is good and letting go of all that troubles me to live the best life possible, every day, moment to moment. I know this sounds dorky, but it’s true. It’s how I think and it works for me.

I wish the same for you, that you feel rooted and loved and valued and connected to this good life and to one another.
One Love.
nAMaste.

4Sep2015

Be Courageous

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The Pope sent a message of courage that I love. I believe in One Love, that we are all connected in our humanity however we choose to believe or not believe as long as we are practicing living with love as our intention. If we look closely, we are more alike than we are different. The world is especially feeling this with the Syrian refugee crisis and feeling a connection to the family whose little boy drowned on the beach in Turkey.

“Pope Francis and the People” aired on ABC News’ “20/20” on Friday, Sept. 4, at 10 p.m. ET. The event is posted in its entirety on ABCNews.com. http://abcnews.go.com/beta/US/pope-francis-tells-americans-courageous-abc-news-virtual/story?id=33490392

Here are some of the highlights:

“We are all created for friendship in society. All of us bear responsibility for everyone else,” the pope said. “And each one has to make a choice in his or her heart. And we have to help that choice to be made in the heart. ….” Pope Francis

We are social beings and we need our friends and neighbors to walk with us on this life journey.

“What I hope for from youth is for you all not to walk alone in life,” he said. “Life is very difficult. It’s difficult to walk alone. You get lost. You get confused. You can find the wrong path or you can be walking around in circles, in a maze, or worst, you can stop because you get tired of walking in life. Always walk hand-in-hand with someone who loves you, someone who gives you tenderness.” – Pope Francis

BeLoveD.

BeLoveRs change the world, with every thought, every word, and with every action.

One Love.

7Jul2015

Liberty and Love

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We visited Philadelphia today and showed the kids the liberty bell. It’s not exactly thrilling for kids, but I felt the significance of it as a big kid.

I’m especially glad we went to see it near Independence Day as it represents our freedom, our pursuit of happiness and our rights to living freely and equally. I think it is just as significant a symbol today as it was 239 years ago.

My dream is that we continue to practice loving one another every day and accept and be curious about our differences that make us all so very interesting!

BeLoved. nAMaste

19Jun2015

Practicing One Love

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I am so sad about the shootings in South Carolina. I don’t understand hate and I acknowledge it exists. I just don’t understand why we have to hate those that are different from us.

I love everyone and want to know everyone’s story and culture and history. I want to celebrate our differences and learn from each other. I want to celebrate each others’ rituals and live it up together and lift each other up.

I want us all to learn how to get along and to see our connected humanity. We are one love, BeLoveRs. It’s really not all that complicated.
Today was our family’s last day of volunteering all week at Vacation Bible School. I know we don’t all believe in the same faiths, but what I do know is that we love our communities and what brings us together. We shared a common experience this week and practiced one love and I hope that our practice makes a small difference in our one little world.

nAMaste BeLoveRs

10Mar2015

My New “Daughter”

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I feel like I have another child, in a good way.

Akie has become part of our family now. She is comfortable asking for what she wants and shares in our activities. She is loving and kind and polite and I adore her.

Today when I picked my girls up from school (I always wanted Juliana to have a sister!), they both wanted to go to a birthday party for their Japanese friend at the park.

We have a google group between the parents of host families and I had read about the party invitation from the host mom this morning. She was bringing chocolate cake and drinks and all were invited to attend. I was happy for our family to be part of the celebration and so we brought a gift and some food to share and off we went. I love kids of all ages. I especially loved walking up to the park and seeing small Japanese children under the age of 5, playing with and teasing our students. At first, I wondered if they were siblings of one of the host families. I quickly realized that there were young, Japanese moms playing with their little kids at the park, and the little kids made a connection with our “real” Japanese teenagers. There was a natural connection for them and the little kids and big kids were all playing and having fun together, chasing and tagging and running around together. I loved this moment and realized that there is a natural comfort in the familiar that we all share.

We sang “Happy Birthday” and the birthday girl blew out her candles. I hope she enjoyed celebrating with us today as much as we did celebrating with her.

After the birthday party, I dropped off Charlie at his practice and brought the girls to Daiso, so that Akie could compare the Daiso in Cupertino to the Daiso in Japan. They were both relatively the same, of course. We also drove by the Apple Headquarters campus that is being built and tried to use English words to describe headquarters. What words would you use? I think she understood.

Tonight I decided I didn’t want to cook and clean again, especially because we had a very busy day. I hosted a tea party for several friends this morning and had been busy all day, with no time to cook. We decided to go out for American fast food at Taco Bell, instead of eating left overs. She picked what looked good from the picture menu displayed and we ordered a couple other things for her to try. She really liked her steak burrito and the nachos. She tried the mild sauce and it was pretty spicy for her. This is why we chose Taco Bell over Chipotle, because she doesn’t care for spicy food. It was fun to see Taco Bell through the eyes of someone new. Even the girl working behind the counter was intrigued by our new “daughter.”

The girl behind the counter came over to my side of the counter to ask me a question. She wanted to know if she could give Akie a hug, because she had never met a Japanese girl before and she was so curious and happy to see her. I told her that in Japan, there isn’t a lot of hugging and kissing and that this would be uncomfortable for her. Having a stranger ask for a hug would be weird in any culture, but I could tell that she genuinely was wanting to see her and connect with her. As we ate, I told Akie about the strange request. As we left the establishment, I introduced Akie to the girl and they bowed to one another. This was a really cool moment. I wish you could have seen it. Love sees no color.

Today was busy and rewarding. I learned a lot again, even in Taco Bell.

How was your day?

26Aug2014

Diversity and Silicon Valley

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I love where we live, however I miss where I grew up because my family is still there. I long to move back so that we can share Sunday family dinners and be close to each other to help one another and share in each others’ daily lives. That was part of my dream when I was younger.

But what I love about what we are giving our kids just by where we are living, is an appreciation and integration with diversity, with many aspects.

Yesterday at our first soccer practice, we met new friends who are Indian, Chinese, Caucasian and Mexican, as well as other ethnicities I could not identify. I loved seeing everyone kick around a ball and learn new foreign names. Being at the the meeting was symbolic of the place we live and this is my kids’ normal. I love that they are growing up with people who look differently than they do, who have different cultures and norms and religions than we do and that we all can get along and play together and appreciate one another. This is a true education.

Tonight at our final back to school night at our local elementary school, I learned that there are 26 different languages spoken, and that 32% of the students are Caucasian, 32% are Asian, 23% are Hispanic, 4% are African American, and 5% are Philippino, while the rest chose not to disclose there ethnicity. This is an education in itself and I love that our community supports one another and honors our unique differences. Diversity is normal to my kids and expected and I love it. Everyone fits in because we are all different and at the same time the same. We all respect one another and our differences and celebrate and honor the uniqueness in one another. We are curious about each other. This is our normal and we are so lucky. It works.

I am thankful for our incredibly diverse and friendly community and wonderful public schools. We have so much to learn from each other And my kids are truly lucky to be growing up and living in a multicultural society. We are ONE.

Namaste.

5Jun2014

The Happiest Place on Earth

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Today I decided that I’m related to Walt Disney and that it’s my mission to create the Happiest Place on Earth. Here. Right now. Where we are. Don’t laugh. It’s true.

I think we all have the power to be happy, to create happiness and to live happily ever after despite the chaos and craziness of life.

This is what I do really well.

I practice it daily.

I sing. I laugh. A lot. At stupid things. And it’s hard to not smile back when someone is laughing at herself. Just ask my family.

I dance. I smile. I make connections.

I get it. I get you. I get life. And I’m not afraid to show it. Or to live it. Or to forget about it and let go. So what?

And don’t bother me, because I’m living happily ever after

Just kidding. But that is another one of my life mottos.

I choose love.

I choose happiness.

I choose you and me and them and us. We are one. One love. And we all can live happily ever after. Just choose with me. Right now. Smile. Laugh. Live. Love.

Namaste.

15Oct2013

What’s Your Mism?

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Tonight we somehow got on the topic of religion at the dinner table. We were talking about all the different beliefs and what they mean and who believes what and why. Two nights ago we debated and explained politics and whats happening with our government. Did I tell you I have very smart kids? Or should I say thinking kids? They have opinions that are different than mine, they ask lots of questions, and they think for themselves which I love and which also presents interesting conversations.

We talked about how religions are shared based on what family you’re born into and how they believe. Sometimes children choose to follow the same beliefs as their family and sometimes they branch out and choose to believe differently. We also talked about knowledge and philosophies like Buddhism and Taoism and also the belief that there is no higher power. The cool thing is they are not afraid and add greatly to the conversation.

They asked why we believe what we do and questioned whether they had to believe the same way we do. I told them for now we will share our journey together and one day they may choose a different path that works for them. Part of our journey is also exploring and experiencing other faiths and beliefs that are shared with us and those that arouse curiosity in us. We believe in the celebrations of life and enjoy the rituals we are invited to witness even when they are different from ours. We feel like honored guests and respect our loved ones for being who they are and are filled with gratitude when they invite us to join with them as witnesses to their faith journey

I shared that we have chosen one path and one mentor that provides a foundation for our family. I also shared that we believe in one love, one people, and that we are all connected despite any perceived or real differences.

And that’s when Charlie said, “ok, can we be done with all these misms now?” I laughed and we changed the topic of conversation. Enough deep thought for one night. How do you celebrate your mism? :-).