Heidi G karlsson

"Stop being so helpless!" This is what I had to say to myself while on my hands and knees in the garden weeding. I was thinking, "This is my first garden. I don't know what I'm doing. I need someone. I am not good at this. I have no experience. I've never done this. I need someone to tell me what to plant. I need someone to take me to the store and help me buy seeds. Maybe someone should just give me seeds. What if I buy the wrong ones? I need someone to tell me where to plant them. I can't do this. I need someone. Who can help me? Who can tell me what to do? Who can come do this for me.. ??" I know. You wouldn't think it, but that's what was in the head that day. And it's in there a lot of days. Every time I come up against something I've never done, I want my hand held. .. which is fine, sort of. Unless it stops me from moving forward. And it does. I expect my kids to be willing to potty train and poop and pee in their pants for a ...

Capacity. It's a word I've been thinking about lately. A couple of years ago a friend and I were training for a triathlon. Neither of us were strong swimmers so we decided to take lessons. One of the exercises we had to do was see how long we could swim along the bottom of the pool before surfacing.. to expand our breathing capacity. At first we barely made it half way across the pool. We panicked, thrashed, and emerged spitting water ungloriously and feeling like failures... as if we could ever make it all the way across the dumb pool. We hated practicing it because it was scary. When you run out of oxygen, or THINK you have, you panic. But then we learned a few tricks, practiced a few more things and eventually could complete a whole length. It was amazing. Nothing changed on the outside, but something inside grew - physical lung capacity as well as mental capacity to stay calm and remain under the water while pushing to the end:). My capacity for being a mom has increased. I...