Musings from an Overwhelmed Mom

I am so excited to be on the ChicagoNow Blog.  I originally started blogging to provide an expressive outlet for my joy, angst and experiences as a 47-year-old raising 3 kids aged 9, 5 and 2.  I pined for a husband and children in my twenties and early thirties and I am absolutely grateful for having my loving, hard-working husband and my 3 beautiful children. However, some of the challenges I face are a deep feeling of inadequacy, lack of discipline, overwhelm with my 9-year-old's autism, and a sense of isolation from my friends and former busy, self-involved life and guilt for feeling overwhelmed. At the same time, I have a great family and loving friends and the privilege of being a stay-at-home Mom.  I also work as an actor on rare occasion these days which gives me an occassional creative outlet. So, this is where I plan to let loose and I hope I don't shock anyone too much.

Around Christmas, I was given the gift of a massage that was like no other massage I had ever received.  The massage therapist was exceptionally skilled and for those who might want to contact her, her name is Nancy M. Turcich (www.naturalmassagetherapy.com) and she has written "Finding My Way From Paralysis To a Rich, Full Life," wherein she recounts her experience of a devastating spinal injury while in college to her present day healing philosophy and purpose of her life.

I love massages and I had read about certain deep tissue massages that help a body release long-held unresolved hurts and emotional pain, but I had no idea what I was about to experience. Using very small manipulations and gentle pressure, Nancy helped me release some emotional burdens that I had been holding onto for over twenty years. I left that massage session feeling freed-up in the center of my back for the first time in several decades. I know that I was holding onto a lot of guilt and pain from a long time ago. Nancy suggested that I might want to start to keep a journal as a way to process any left-over pain that I may still need to process.

Now, I have known about the mental-health benefits of keeping a journal for what seems like forever, but I have never kept one on a consistent basis. I have taken stabs at The Artists Way course, where I was supposed to keep a daily free-form journal for a number of weeks -- to lead me to some greater insight into my creative self and cause me to bubble over with soul-inspiring waves of artistic productivity. I never followed through with The Artists Way journaling (which I know, BTW, is not a verb, but I keep absolutely up-to-date on irritating buzz words). The thing is, I love writing and words and I need to get what is inside of my bottled-up self out! So here I am -- journaling about my life.