Motherhood

It has been many years since I wrote in this blog and I am amazed about how much I have changed but mostly from how much I haven't. But the biggest change is that now I am a mother two little humans that I adore with all my existence. And there is no bigger love that the one for our kids. You can call it biological, survival of species, love, attachment, learned behavior, whatever! It is the biggest love... and with big love many changes happen in people. In my case I have become better in all senses. I manage my time better, I have to "put it together" all the time in front of my children and everybody and that is a self-control that nobody could enforce on me. When motherhood hit me it changed me forever and there was not coming back.. you would never be the same, you can't understand yourself in the past and the future is full of anxiety. And what is the feeling that more often I feel?.... GUILT. Being a parent is about guilt about everything... guilt move us in all directions and doesn't matter what we do... we could always have done better. All these things are coming to my head as I am sitting here at 11:00pm on a Friday after having one of the hardest days of my life and it involved my daughter. Everything I know as a Mom and even as a Therapist was tested.. and I am exhausted of trying extremely hard today to be the perfect mother. I can't be explicit about the events to protect my family's privacy but I can tell you that I felt so much fear of losing what I have, my kids, my life, and kids are my life. It is true that kids should not be everything for a parent, that we should have more things to leave... but I will be honest here... BS! We live for our kids (well most of us) and it is a state beyond we can comprehend. I think this is where evolution kicks in because this feeling is so strong that has maintain families together and civilizations surviving. Often I think how an act of procreation so common and mundane can be at the same time the most amazing phenomenon. Becoming a parent is a miracle every time for everybody yet it is so common! I have to leave and rest because tomorrow my kids will not forgive that their mother felt philosophical.

Why do we suffer?... There are plenty of theories and plenty of philosophers that have explained what is suffering and its function. Let's jump and appreciate some phrases about suffering from these great thinkers: "We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to other men. The suffering which comes to us from this last source is perhaps more painful to us than any other." Sigmund Freud “If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.” Viktor Frankl “The root of suffering is attachment.” The Buddha "To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering." Friedrich Nietzsche They all seem to agree in something: Suffering is part of life. We can't run away from it, we can't escape it and we will all feel it. Then if suffering is part of life, part of being humans and we are experts on it (we experienced suffering since the first day of our lives when we were removed from the most perfect home we would ever experience), still we feel like we won't survive our pain and that it is unfair to feel that way. Every single time we don't accept it, we don't like it and we want to remove right away. And every time that we fight suffering we make it worse, because now we are suffering our suffering. If you ever have experienced panic attacks and have received treatment from a mental health professional you have learned that the key to stop the attack is to stop trying to eliminate the attack. Treatment for anxiety and panic attacks has an important step from where all the other interventions will develop from: the acceptance of anxiety, the acceptance of the uncomfortable, the ability to "let go and let it run its course". Suffering is like anxiety, fighting it would just make it worse. Acceptance doesn't mean passivity or conformism. Acceptance means that I listen right now to my body and accept what my body needs to feel and what my body is telling me. Suffering is the signal that we need to make changes that move us towards happier places. Suffering makes us move; we need suffering to change and get better. All emotions have functions and suffering has many different functions for each person or what Viktor Frankl may call "meaning". Find the meaning in your suffering, find the function of your feelings and walk along your suffering that it will be leading you to a more comfortable and happier place and perhaps will help you pursue and accomplish all these things that you wouldn't reach if you always felt "comfortable" or in your comfort zone.

Humana pero no de este mundo

A veces no se si soy de este mundo. Mi cuerpo se ve como los de otros, hablo como los otros, me enfermo como los otros pero no siento y pienso como los otros. Sera que mi cerebro funciona diferente? Sera que soy una rara especie de humanos que no evoluciono? Si soy positiva podria pensar que soy un humano mas evoulucionado y que esta nueva manera de pensar y sentir me hace mas fuerte, pero no creo. Yo siento mas que el promedio de los humanos. La tristeza para mi se convierte en malancolia, la alegria me convierte en una nina, el enojo invade mi cuerpo y quiere destruir! Y la gente a mi alrededor me mira preguntadose: que le pasa a esa persona? Que exagerada!.... Y es cuando me duele saber que no soy una de ellos, que no me entienden, y que yo no pertenezo a su tipo. No solo siento diferente, tal vez pienso diferente. Pienso que ser sensible es normal, que ser honesto y demostrar lo que siento es lo correcto siempre, y que la gente me va a entender en cuanto vean que estoy llorando y que algo me duele. Pero nunca pasa asi. Cuando lloro la gente se aleja de mi, cuando los necesito ellos estan hartos, porque piensan que mis emociones son las de un loco, de una victima. Ellos dicen que es mi culpa, que yo decidi ser asi, que podria cambiar si quisiera, y por eso, no sienten nada cuando me ven llorar. Llorar es lo que major hago, y cada vez lo hago mejor, la gente cada vez se aleja mas. Yo entiendo lo que ellos dicen, entiendo porque me culpan de ser como soy. Pero entender no es aceptar, entender no me hace que me duela menos, me duele ser diferente. Pero en mi especie no somos debiles, y voy a hacer algo con este problema de vivir en un mundo donde no perteneces. Tengo que aceptar mis diferencias entre ellos y yo. Mas que aceptar mis sentimientos, tengo que aceptar los de ellos, sus reacciones, y tal vez asi dejen de doler tanto. He buscado humanos de mi especie sin mucho exito. Creo a veces que mi familia tiene un poco de esta evolucion/involucion que tengo yo. He encontrado algunos como yo pero me duele ver la intolerancia hacia ellos. Ellos estan en Hospitales Psiquiatricos, tomando medicinas que eliminan las caracteristicas de mi especie y los hacen parecer mas como los de esta especie. Los Hospitales Psiquiatricos son como escuelas donde te entrenan para ser exitoso entre los humanos de este mundo. Sin embargo, yo no quiero ir a esa escuela. Alguna manera habra para mi de sobrevivir en este mundo siendo libre al mismo tiempo. Tengo que sobrevivir, he sobrevivido muchos anos y lo hare mas, aunque duela. No te he dicho mi profesion. Trabajo dando apoyo a humanos como yo, que estamos perdidos en este mundo y les doy esperanza de que habemos mas gente como yo que los escucharan, que los dejaran llorarar, expresar…. Este es nuestro club secreto, donde nos reunimos, los incomprendidos y nos dejamos llevar por nuestros peculiares rasgos humanoides. Seguire en este mundo que no es mio, como una visitante perdida, apoyando a otros como yo y esperando que algun dia nosotros tambien encontraremos otro mundo como nuestro hogar.

San Juan Capistrano, CA

Today I want to talk about San Juan Capistrano, the city where I live. I never thought that I could find a place that I would like almost as my hometown in Mexico (Aguascalientes, which is my number one of course). However, I discovered SJC due to work, and I fell in love. This is the oldest city in California, and I have been obsessed with living in a place with history, that I can almost feel the ghost!. Where here is the oldest city in CA, which is still pretty new if you ask me, compared with OLD CITIES in other countries, but this is what I found. Here you can feel the mix of culture as on all Latinoamerica, of the native American and Spanish traditions. I live in a cottage from the 20's, I love coming home everyday. On ther corner of my house you will find a church, which bells you can hear everyday four times a day (it remembers to Mexico!), I have the library, coffee shops, fine restaurants, tennis fields, and you walk to all these places!

You will think that I was looking just for the most similar place to Mexico.... and you are right. However, SJC has the coolest American people. Everybody knows everybody (little town), they take care of the city and I would say they are pretty relaxed. If you know SJC you are thinking that all the people here are rich... well you are almost right.... but you will find some places (my place) where we are not rich at all, so we have to do a big effort to live here, it is an expensive place, but it is totally worth it.

I will post some pictures and I hope if you pass by California, this is one of your destinies if you like history. If you are my friend, what are you waiting to come and visit me!!!!! I would love to give you a Tour!

Trying...

Does somebody recognize that somebody is trying...??? Well, Obama won a Nobel Prize for that right... Not results yet, ideas, right??, Well this is sort of my consolation... I am in a bad day... I had pretty good ones recently, but today I feel that I small in compare with you.... I feel that you are more than me, I feel that you bright while I am in the darkness losing. You are wining and I am losing. I am not a good fighter this time, I am not competing even, I am so slow... Fear... Pain, I feel so embarrassed, pathetic, and I trying... this is my step, for now I can not go faster or I do not want... and while, while, I help you to bright more, and you extinguish me more.

Diseases

Well, this is my first blog on English, Why? Because I need to practice English written, so I ask for your tolerance to my broken English. Ok, I have been sick for three days already, I do not know even what is happening to me for sure. I have dad fever all day and night long, but besides that, NOTHING, weird, I have a little of pain in my throat, but well, this is third day and I am still weak, bla bla bla. Result: A lot of time to think about my body. I really think people that I did not get sick because the weather or external things, I am almost sure that was stress or emotional things, I have to say the last week I have a couple of surprises that made me feel a little crazy, and this week my body say: Veronica!!!, is time to rest and relax, your body needs you, your body work with you the last week now you help him!!. This is a little of my own thought and some writers and Psychologist who I follow. Remember people, if you do not cry when you are sad, if you do not scream when you are mad, if you don't laugh when you are happy, I mean, if you do not act your feelings, if you do not let your body express too the stress, happiness or sadness, he will charged you that the next weeks, because the body needs to express like our mind, check it out this:

The body, according to Freud is causal, mechanical, secular and a symptomatic representative of the mind....

Freud indicates that the mind-body relationship is a reciprocal one...

- And, then, how is necessary to manage the emotions? - If one cries when it has desire to cry, it laughs when it has desire to laugh, shouts when it has desire to shout, never arrives at a sadness, an hysterical joy or a wrath.

Hysterical in Psychoanalysis terms, means, neurotic, means, not healthy, means that to express late and emotion, will be probably and failed expression.

Well my body is charging to me... but never is to late to start again and learn about our bodies and emotions...

Update

Rebovinando.... o revobinando???.... Amo los puntos y los signos de exclamacion, disculpen. Y amo disculparme. Tengo ya 7 meses viviendo en este pais y ultimamente le que agarrado mas carinillo a las cosas. Ya no las veo asi como turista, o quejandome de todo de que en Mexico todo es mejor, ya le voy agarrando amor a mi nueva casa, mi nuevo clima, creo que ya no me querria ir porque ya estoy superando el reto e irme representaria ser una cobarde. En fin, eso en cuanto a vivir en un lugar diferente. Cumplo manana 4 meses de casada, y han sido bastante lindos, definitivamente nos vamos conociendo los pequenos detalles dia a dia, y ahi vamos... una buena noticia es que mis papeles de migracion ya van caminando, eso quiere decir que pronto voy a tener una respueta de si me aceptan en este pais o retachan jeje, francamente espero que todo va a ir bien, y probablemente en unos meses me encontraran en Craiglist buscando trabajo. No en Monster porque le encuentro muy sofisticado para mi en este momento, no busco algo genial ahorita, no podria, busco algo sencillo que me guste y que me dinerito para cosas mas grandes. Extrano a mi familia, y la unica esperanza que me queda es rezar cada noche, volver a Dios y sentir que es la unica manera en que los puedo cuidar y hacer algo por ellos.

El reto mas grande: El amor

La ganancia mas grande hasta ahora: Estar sola aunque duela