Author Archives: edaley84

Mid-Week Gratitude

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Today’s card was “When I’m grateful for what I have, I can feel good along the way to what I desire” Gabby Bernstein, Super Attractor Deck.  Another perfectly timed card as I spent a lot of today thinking about what I am grateful for.  I had been feeling some frustration with how things are shaping up (in general) and it made me pause.  I didn’t like the feeling of being trapped in a negative loop so I immediately started thinking of what I was grateful for.

I am grateful for the opportunity to continue to learn in my role.  Even though I’m not taking the project exactly where I want it to at this moment, I am learning how to deal with setbacks beyond my control.  I am also learning when it is appropriate to push my case and when to step back.  It’s a lesson in using experience to judge what is best for the overall outcome rather than merely pressing my point.

I am grateful for opportunities to practice redirection and how to gracefully go with the ever-changing course of things.  For so long the most important thing was making my opinion known and forcing people to see that my ideas for progress were the right ones.  It’s nice to take a step back and see the alternatives rather than being set in a rigid path.

I am grateful for help teaching my kid and for help making sure that he is always loved.  His caregivers definitely take the time to show him new experiences and they ALWAYS take the time to give him a little extra love during the time I’m away from him.  He is learning to be more independent under their guidance.

I’m grateful for the chance to listen to what my body and mind need.  I’m fortunate enough to have the time to pause when things get overwhelming and to take stock of where I’m at and take care of my needs.  If I need a minute to regroup, I am able to do that.  It’s nice to recenter and look at an issue with fresh eyes.

I’m grateful for friendship and surprise visits!  It lets me know that people think of us and that it doesn’t take much to let people know you care—or to feel cared for.  It’s nice to feel connection when you’re a little scattered and to have someone to bounce ideas off of.  Just someone to pass the time and someone you find you have more little things in common with.

I’m grateful to be able to share these little reminders of things to be grateful for.  It’s so easy to get swept up in our problems that we lose sight of how many things are going well.  It’s a powerful step to learn how to look at the good in everything and to remember to look for the good in the middle of a storm.

I love the life I have and the fact that this has given me the chance to start building the life I want.  Sometimes it isn’t about the end result—it’s about being happy for each achievement along the way and understanding that each small victory is a step toward the goal.  We wouldn’t throw away a raw diamond because it hasn’t been polished.  We shouldn’t throw away what we have in front of us simply because it isn’t doesn’t look like what we are hoping for.

It’s ok to feel joy for the little things.  Brene Brown speaks of forboding joy and how we can be distracted with worry for losing something we love or that things will go wrong that we miss out on the good that is happening right now.  Something good happening doesn’t mean that something bad has to happen as some kind of cosmic balance.  Joy doesn’t require pain to be felt, and the more we allow ourselves to feel that, the more we can experience what brings us joy without holding back.  Feeling good only brings what we desire even faster.  So relish it and welcome the joy with open arms and know that what you want is coming your way.

A Surge Forward

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I listened to Marie Forleo this afternoon and she was asked about some cool things she’s done with money.  Her first goal was to get out of debt.  Once she hit that, her next goal was to be able to afford to not work again if she didn’t have to.  She hit that goal as well.  This is so powerful because this is about setting a goal and speaking it into existence and not giving into our crap, owning what we need to do and DOING IT.

I realized that these were goals I wanted to set for myself as well.  I had never thought before that I could ask for something like that, or work toward something like that.  I had assumed that we always operate under debt and that we work until we are permitted to stop.  I want to take control of my destiny and look at the big goals, the big picture.  I have a message to share and that includes getting clear on what works for me and not shying away from my goals even if others view them as unrealistic or taboo.

I want to be completely debt free.  I’m talking about having enough income to pay off existing debt and afford all future needs.  I want to be able to never have to work for someone again.  I want to be able to spend my time doing the work I love and sharing my message, my gifts.  THAT is my job.

In order to do that, I’m dropping all barriers to success, opening to magic.  I want complete freedom in my life.  I’m raising myself to the next level.  I’m giving up the demanding child inside of me that waits for someone to meet my needs and I am stepping into the confident, calm, secure, powerful, capable woman I am.  I’m giving up laziness for action.  I’m giving up fear for courage.  I’m giving up who I thought I was and who I “had” to be for the woman I AM and WANT to be.  I feel so blessed to have this life, the life I want, rushing toward me, unfolding, welcoming me.  It feels like home.

Prior to finding real mentors (not people out for their own purposes) and real guides, I’ve often lived in the in between.  You know, between two worlds.  Between being a perfectionist, and feeling helpless, feeling powerful and powerless, feeling like the boss, and feeling like a doormat.  It took me a long time to realize the flux between the two dynamics came from not knowing my own identity or standing my ground.  Simultaneously, I would hide and show myself.  It came from not owning MY truth.  From trying to be something I wasn’t.  From using my time to prove my worth (and believing I needed to prove myself).  It came from being the chameleon in every group, no matter who I was with I wanted to be their ideal member.  I let myself live in a constant state of non-identification.  It led to a state of non-connection.  No connection with myself, with people, with source, or with purpose.

When you’re not connected and always moving between identities/groups/norms, you’re on shaky ground, not a solid foundation.  When you have a solid foundation, even if YOU’RE shaky, there’s a steadying force that can help put you right.  Trying to be a pleaser (the chameleon) where you’re always changing your skin keeps you out of connection because you’re focused on being what others want you to be.  when you build a foundation on authentic self, the self that is connected, you know who you are in every situation.  YOU ARE YOU.  You’re not shifting your personality to be accepted or changing your behavior.  You know what’s meant for you and accept it and move on from what isn’t you.  We attract what is ours with no force—the universe wants us to have what we need to fulfill our purpose.

For me, I feel my purpose when I’m speaking of these things.  I feel my purpose when I see signs and affirmations that I’m on the right track.  For example, this morning, my Super Attractor card was “I accept that good things come easily, I am a super attractor.”  Shortly after I wrote out the draft of this, I kept seeing 1119 EVERYWHERE—and today is 11/19.  I looked it up as an angel number and it is indicative of initiative, ambition, will power, self-leadership, assertiveness, instinct, intuition and CREATING OUR OWN REALITIES with thoughts, beliefs, and actions.  It spoke of goals almost being fulfilled and a higher purpose as a positive example for others.  It also spoke of recognizing new ventures and auspicious opportunities.  I mean, come on!!! That kind of confirmation that I am on the right path gives me the single greatest thrill that I feel all over my body.  THAT is the feeling we should all strive for every day.  That is how you know you found your purpose.  I’m so grateful to feel that.  Now I am asking the big questions: how to be in that state every day.  One step at a time.

Owning Your Power

 

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Today was a lesson in both surrendering to things beyond my control and stepping into my power.  A project I’ve been working on at work got delayed today—not just a little, but significantly altered to the point where I’m not even sure our partner team understood what we were looking for in the first place.  For some brief context, my team doesn’t own the contract but we are the end user so I have been working closely with another team to upgrade our primary software.  Because the other team owns the contract they are responsible for actually handling the implementation.  My contact has not taken the initiative to follow through on system requirements to even begin transferring data.

All of that being said, this means that I am not able to begin testing and moving forward with THE key objective my team had for this year.  Realizing that this is 100% the result of a team not doing their part felt good at first only because I can easily explain what happened.  Then I realized that it changes nothing.  It doesn’t matter that they didn’t do what they were supposed to, it mattered that communication had clearly broken down between our teams.  Yes, we were ultimately the ones who suffer for it since we are the user, but what happened that so drastically changed the course?

I was forced to look at what I could have done differently in this instance.  Even though on the surface I can say with all confidence that we established expectations up front and we were merely waiting for the other team, I know that there were probably several moments I could have stepped up.  I had stopped our weekly touch base assuming that we were good moving forward and I didn’t stop the moment I felt like things were getting skewed.  I should have made sure that the other team understood what was going on.  They were completely unfamiliar with our software in the first place and I should  have taken the time to level set much earlier on.

Knowing that getting angry wouldn’t resolve anything in this situation, I knew I had to pause and ask what could be done next.  This is a huge project and I need to move it forward regardless of the reason for delay.  I took a moment and asked what was going on, what I was feeling about the situation.  Frustration was the key emotion that came up and I knew it was because I didn’t understand how this could have happened.  I didn’t feel responsible for knowing what the other team’s day to day functions were—I felt they were responsible for simply laying out the timeline and doing what was necessary.  I know I need to clarify what everyone’s position is moving forward.  I felt unheard and jumped to some bad conclusions about gender roles and the other team’s perception of me as a female in the industry.  From the depths of my heart I know that wasn’t true, but I felt so disrespected as a project owner and I was fed up with all of the placating and no action from the other team.  I understand it has more to do with overwhelm on the other team and a lack of understanding of everything necessary.  I know I need to clarify steps further so we are on the same page.

This is one of the first moments that I actually acted on the insight I got from the pause.  Had I not taken the time to re-evaluate what was going on there would have been a massive breakdown amongst the teams and I couldn’t afford that kind of set back after learning that we still hadn’t been able to take step one.  It was a realization that I was trying to control two teams thinking that because I was in charge, they would understand what needed to be done.  I understood that this is not where power comes from, and authority doesn’t equal power.

Owning power is learning to take a beat.  It is one of the most challenging things I have to learn to do—and I am still in the middle of learning how to do that.  In the course of a few hours you can easily swing from high to low and it is up to you to maintain your emotions.  THAT is where your power lies: in not being swayed by what is occurring around you.  It is recognizing the moment for what it is and responding to the need.  It is responding with feeling without being overwhelmed or owned by the emotion.  It is living in the pause and taking the time to respond how you WANT to respond, not by impulse.  In short, it is owning the course of your day.  Hell, even owning the course of this second–and then moving forward one step at a time.

Sunday Gratitude

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I awoke this morning feeling a little rushed.  There was a gorgeous sunrise that I wanted to get pictures of, the dog needed to go out, the cats needed to be fed, I knew my son would be waking up soon…a normal morning in all honesty.  But I felt the creative urge pulling at me and I knew I needed to get out and walk to get the pictures that I wanted.  So I took the dog out, fed the cats, grabbed the camera and LEFT! I didn’t care that I left my husband with our son—they were in bed anyway—I didn’t feel guilty about the million things that need to be done around the house including laundry, meal prep, organizing toys, clearing off the junk on the table, finishing cleaning the garage, showering, and a baptism for good measure.  I listened, I walked, and I got the photos I needed.  And I felt good.

After I got back from my walk, the card I pulled from the Super Attractor deck was “When I make joy a priority, brilliant ideas will come naturally, support will surround me, and movements will form.”  The truth is I have never felt more connected to what I want to do with my life than in the moments when I am taking action on what I want to do.  This isn’t a revelatory statement, I know, but it is a nice reminder that sometimes we have to let our creativity free and just do what feels right in the moment and not worry about the future.  It is in those moments when we are connected with source and we are fulfilling our purpose.  We are so trained to do what we are “supposed” to do that it can feel uncomfortable honoring what we want.  But the latter is infinitely more rewarding.

Today I am grateful for listening to my gut and honoring what my heart wanted to do this morning.  I easily could have fallen into the usual pattern of jumping into the things I needed to do, but I knew I needed some time to turn off the “gotta do” brain and just do what I wanted to.

Today I am grateful for taking action toward building a future that I want.  Making peace with what I know I am meant to do and doing what I need to do feels like the next step.  Often when we are in transition it is easier to take the path of least resistance and repeat old patterns.  It takes a strong will to stick with what you know is right for you in spite of what people tell you, you should be do.

Today I am grateful for gorgeous sunrises.  Seeing those colors light up the sky is a nice reminder of both how small we are and how it’s important to let our inner light shine too.

Today I am grateful for continued synchronicity.  The simple reminder to make joy a priority after I had already made that decision is truthfully the only validation I am looking for.  The universe saying, “You’ve got this.  Take it one step at a time.  Go with what feels right.”

Today I am grateful for making better decisions.  The last couple of days I hadn’t been feeling myself both physically and emotionally—my brain felt foggy, I wasn’t eating right so my stomach was off as well.  Today is about listening to what my body needs, what my heart is asking for, and what my soul is telling me is right.  I feel the improvement almost immediately.

Today I am grateful to have the opportunity to share this.  I’ve often thought that in order to make in impact on the world you needed to take large, dramatic steps.  Sometimes the biggest impact can come from simply listening to yourself and sharing your truth.  The biggest impact comes from sharing your authentic self.  Souls recognize truth in another without saying a word.  When we are in alignment with our own purpose, there is no better feeling, and that truth flows freely into the world.  That is what makes an impact.

Getting Back on Track

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“I feel my way into faith one step at a time” Gabby Bernstein, Super Attractor Deck.  One aspect of my faith that has never wavered is my ability to believe in signs.  When I receive a particular response to an emotion or to a question, I DO listen.  For all of my stubbornness, I am grateful that my heart recognizes guidance when it sees it and is wise enough to listen.

After the intense emotions of fear, anger, and failure over the last few days, I woke up this morning knowing that I had to recommit to belief…in something.  Even if it meant one small step and learning to do one thing at a time, as much as the mind is willing to move forward at full speed, my soul has been telling me it doesn’t work like that.  For someone as driven as me this feels incredibly limiting and frustrating.  I know I have the capacity to do all of the things I want to so when things get in the way to prevent them from happening, it’s hard to accept those limitations.

Drawing that card this morning is a strong affirmation that as much as we want to take leaps and bounds toward our goals, it is merely our ego that is in a hurry.  The soul knows what it needs to do and it knows in what time.  It amazes me how easy it was to fall back into the patterns of self-loathing and fear simply because a few things didn’t go according to plan.  No one is meant to feel like a failure—because there is nothing that we can truly fail at.

Having faith is as simple as reframing failure into redirection.  It was a challenge for me over the last few days to get my mind back in line.  That in itself was disappointing to me, but I think about a few months ago and how long that would have taken me previously to snap out of it.  In the grand scheme of things, a few days in a funk isn’t that bad for me.  And I’m proud I was able to get myself out of it.  It quite literally was one step at a time and recognizing that those emotions were not what I wanted to feel and I had to change that.  Everything is a choice and sometimes we have to slow down and look at where we are being guided.  Even if it wasn’t what we had in our minds, the plan laid out for us is often greater.  I’m making the choice to step into that—one step at a time.

Synchronicity-An Extra Post Tonight Because Signs Are Everywhere :)

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So after I just published that last piece, I drew another Gabby Bernstein Super Attractor card and it was “I can decide today to recalibrate my energy and commit to love and joy.”  I believe that this was a little nod from the universe saying that impatience is a choice and that I have to think long and hard about what my reactions are from now on.  The beautiful thing is that I can choose love and joy over impatience.  If the universe is powerful enough to create that kind of synchronicity, then that is something to pay attention to.

I mentioned feeling like a failure in the last piece and that is because I truly am hard on myself especially when I react negatively.  I feel it in my stomach as a lead pit every time I yell over something.  I feel out of control when I yell or when my emotions are so big I let them explode everywhere.  It makes me feel like a bad person.  I know I am human and we all do things we aren’t proud of.  So I guess I am lucky that this is something in my life that is entirely fixable.  It is very uncomfortable, but if I want to get to where I want to be, it is a process I need to go through.

This too is another practice—and practice I must.  I don’t want my child thinking I am some horrible monster or that he is worthless because I can’t handle his meltdowns and I yell.  I want to honor his personality and his creativity and let him know that he IS loved for who he is.  So I will use that as motivation for tonight, in addition to breathing, I am going to recalibrate my mind and focus on love.  Thank you, universe for the signs that we all have the power to make things better.  Any mindset can change as long as you are committed to changing it.  So, deep breath, deep love, and an open mind.  Here’s to recommitting to love and joy.

Patience

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One area that I have always struggled with is patience.  I am NOT a patient person.  That isn’t to say I’m not understanding of times when things happen, but I am absolutely all about getting it done and doing it as soon as possible.  My mind has operated under the premise that the goal is to accomplish the goal.  It isn’t to waste time doing other things—it’s to accomplish a task.  I’m not saying I felt like the task couldn’t be fun, but I did believe that I wanted it to get done so I could go onto the next thing.

The universe, in its infinite wisdom, sees fit to put me in situations that often feel like a test.  For example, people cutting me off constantly or driving under the speed limit, or me needing to work competing with my son needing attention.  My card today said I am patient knowing that whatever is of the highest good is coming to me—Gabby Bernstein.  I also had a conversation with one of my employees about patience as well.  I’m working on a project at work—a significant piece of work that is going to affect the direction of my entire department.  I keep facing a lot of delays and I’m concerned about some of the ideas that have either been turned down or changed.  The conversation with my employee turned into a discussion of how we have the right ideas, but it may not be the right time.  I have trouble accepting facts like that.

Now, again, the logical part of my brain knows that things like that happen all the time and that I should just learn to be calm and work with it.  The forward thinking, goal-driven, future oriented me struggles with this because I have specifically been charged with accomplishing a major change and moving forward, and I don’t understand why we let certain things get in the way.  Then I have put myself in the situation with two new animals in the house so I essentially have three toddlers.  My attention is spread thin and because I am so goal-oriented, I do feel like I should be able to do it all.  I hate not being able to be able to handle it all.

That is where I know I need to check my ego and listen.  No one is ever able to do it all no matter how capable.  This is self-inflicted chaos.  It is a challenge for me to learn to settle down and listen to what needs attention in the moment rather than working on what I want to be doing.  In all fairness to the human spirit, we ALL need to be allowed to work on the things that bring us joy every now and then.  We have to have that one thing that is solely for us and that makes us feel happy.

It’s especially challenging when dealing with people who also have engrained behaviors that will not change for any love or money and they fervently deny those behaviors.  I fell into a lot of anger today for various reasons.  I felt disappointment, concern, frustration, sadness and all of that was conveyed as anger.  Am I angry simply because I am impatient, or am I angry because the ego is impatient?

I struggle tonight because I feel like I failed as an employee, as a boss, as a wife, as a mother, and as a person.  I struggle because I have allowed my anger to steal many moments from me.  I realize that I behave as a petulant child at times.  Had I just taken the time to communicate my needs rather than stifle, and work, and accomplish, and drive, and burn the candle at every end, I may have enjoyed more.  I truly have resolved to work on this so I can appreciate the moments in front of me because, for as angry as I am, I am also well aware that they will be over all too soon.  I don’t want to look back on my life with regret.  I don’t want to feel like I missed out on what I had because I was so focused on what I wanted.  So for my own sense of peace, I am just going to breathe for now and know that tomorrow can be a better day.

When Your Partner is Having a Bad Day

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I came home tonight and could immediately tell something was off: my husband sat crabbily on the couch, the dog was in her kennel, the cats were scattered, and he didn’t want to talk about what to have for dinner.  He told me that the cats had been sick, the dog had peed in her cage and then pooped on the stairs.  My initial thought was simply to laugh it off—the same thing had happened to me so many times and he hadn’t been there to help me so while I understood the frustration of the situation, I didn’t have much sympathy.  He did handle it, but he was definitely stressed out about it.

I felt myself thinking how ridiculous it was that he got upset at all.  Again, this is something I deal with after working a full day and picking up my child as well.  In fact I’ve come home to find cat puke still waiting for me or I’ve woken up to huge piles of puke left in front of the door because he “didn’t see it.”  Now, regardless of what has happened before, I will give him credit that he did clean up the mess.  I was grateful for that opportunity for him to take a step in my shoes.  This is nothing new for mothers in particular: there are a million balls in the air every day and we are responsible for maintaining them all.  Coming home to find your house destroyed by animals is small potatoes.  Especially when it isn’t REALLY destroyed…just gross 😊

During the course of his detailing his saga, I realized that he sounded JUST LIKE ME.  I heard myself voicing the same complaints my husband did and it made me realize I didn’t want to be like that.  I want to be able to enjoy my life, not complain it away.  We chose to bring these animals into the house and we have to deal with life with animals.  We are fortunate enough to provide a home for our animals and our son.  It gets chaotic as someone ALWAYS needs attention, but that is what we brought upon ourselves.

I can’t say that I will ever feel sorry for my husband having to hold up his end of taking care of the animals in the house—it’s a mutual deal.  But I will definitely curb my knee-jerk reaction to frustration from now on.  Clearly I have allowed that in my home and that is something that I want to practice being more aware of from now on.  I want to make sure that we know what we are really reacting to: is it dog poo or is that you waited too long to take her out?  Am I really mad at my child’s caregiver for what she did or am I just mad at myself for not being able to be home with my child and raise him how I want to?  Is it my own insecurity?

Sometimes it takes hearing your words from someone else to realize what needs to change. I have been asking to be more authentically me, to have connection and I find that the universe is constantly bringing them to me.  I know my initial reaction to a lot of those things is anger, and in those moments of anger and frustration the universe is kind enough to bring that emotion to my attention and to let me sink into the realization that I asked to change-and that happens through being exposed to the situation.  It’s a practice and I am grateful.

Following Up on New Inspiration

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After yesterday’s struggle, I awoke trying to put myself in a better mood.  Today’s card was “The universe is always conspiring to support me, guide me, and lead me compassionately toward the highest good” Gabby Bernstein, Super Attractor Deck.  I realized that the lessons I need to learn, even if I “fail” the first time around, are there to be just that: a lesson.  They aren’t there to make me a perpetually miserable person, they are there to help me elevate my game.

I watched a video from Marie Forleo and she spoke about always being on.  Specifically she spoke of recognizing that there are seasons and it isn’t possible to always be in bloom; we have to go with the flow, the changing of our own seasons as much of those in nature.  We are a part of nature and we need to go with what changes in our lives.  Constantly being in bloom will lead to burn out because we struggle to keep ourselves in a constant state of on with no chance for a recharge.

It’s ok to have the days we are down.  It’s important to recognize them as a need to reconnect with source and our purpose.  Everything is a lesson in trusting timing and going with the turns that come our way.  This resonated today, especially after feeling like a failure yesterday.  After that, I found another meme saying “Be patient with yourself, nothing in nature blooms all year.”  Yet another sign to trust in the changing of the seasons and that everything happens for a reason.  Evolution, change, even the changing of seasons can be a difficult thing to weather because there is always uncertainty to the outcome.  But as I think about it, there hasn’t been any circumstance that I have not gotten through.  No season, no change that I have not weathered.  Change takes time, and setting the expectation to always be perfect or always ready to adhere to your new mindset is unrealistic.

Trusting that the universe is always guiding us where we need to be and understanding that change is a natural, necessary, and inevitable part of life is a nice reminder to be gentle with ourselves.  To just allow—flow, not force.  I have learned to constantly adjust my mindset to break the cycles that have always been so familiar to me.  It’s still a difficult thing for me, to completely buy in because I have been taught self-doubt for so long and to lash out.  I will admit it is getting easier to believe and to read the signs and to trust.  Trusting that our path and everything that comes with it is a natural course of life, that you don’t need to see the end and just take the first step, that all is well in the world is a massive undertaking.  But we can do it with one small step at a time.  For me, it was understanding that failure can be reframed-and sometimes it takes MANY attempts to be comfortable with the layers exposed when we let the old fall away.  It’s ok to take the attempts—never give up.

Trying Some New Daily Inspiration

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“My ability to receive is measured by how much I practice good feeling thoughts”– Gabby Bernstein, Super Attractor Deck.  This was the card I drew this morning as my daily inspiration.  I awoke today at exactly 4:44AM and immediately felt a connection and I felt grateful for the synchronicity.  After yesterday, I felt an immediate sense of awe at the continued flow of connectedness.

My resolve and my connection quickly was tested.  As soon as I arrived to drop my son off, he began complaining about his stomach.  He was lethargic and I knew he was both hungry and had to go to the bathroom as he hadn’t eaten much the night before and he hadn’t gone to the bathroom the entire day previously (he has a known issue).  Immediately his caregiver said that I should stay with him and not go to work.  I sat with him and he seemed to perk up and he ate a little bit while I was with him so I went to work.  I called to check in on him several times in the morning and I was told that he was still not doing well and I should be with him.  My gut was that I WANTED to be with him but I knew he was ok and I had to work.

Against my judgement, I went to go pick him up and as soon as I walked in the house I could see that he was completely fine.  I immediately felt angry because I didn’t listen to my gut and I wasted time at work and I learned his caregiver fed him lunch at 10:30 in the morning—something that we had previously argued about as I never feed him that early and it makes him struggle in the afternoon.  I let it go because she said he was hungry and I knew that he probably WAS hungry because he hadn’t eaten for a while.  I got angry and felt like no decision I made was right.  I left in a huff and called my husband to complain.

I felt like a failure because I knew I reacted badly—I was completely out of control and out of connection.  I realized that the reason I felt so bad is because of my own insecurities.  I was listening to someone else’s judgement about what I should be doing and I did something I didn’t want to do.  I should have been strong enough to stand my ground and not leave work and trust that I was right—I knew what was wrong with my son and I didn’t need someone to tell me what needed to be done.

After some reflection, I am still not proud of my reaction, however, I am proud of my recovery.  I quickly realized that it was my insecurity and not this person making me feel terrible about my parenting decisions.  My boss had been supportive and knew that I was bothered by it and let me go check the situation for myself.  All of my anxiety about something being wrong with my son, about my boss being angry at me for having to leave work again, and my anger at myself for both not listening to my instinct and for wanting to work was all for nothing.  But I recognized what needed to be changed.  I was disappointed in myself but this failure was something that could be corrected.  So understanding that I am still able to reconnect helped me get back on track.  Sometimes it takes a few detours into “failure” to understand that we are still worthy and we are still good.  Sometimes we have to remember that we are always connected even if we take a few steps back but that we can always come back to our center and remember who we are.