When WAW dropped off the girls on Thu PM, I asked if they were doing the 10K walk on Sun b/c it was her weekend w/the girls. She said yes they were. Then I asked if she was walking w/them b/c if she wasn't, I would. The walk is a church event and since she walked out she hasn't been coming to church (part of her MLC) and since OM left our church too, I wasn't sure if she was comfortable around some people who may be walking and know. WAW said that she wasn't walking with them. The fact that I asked kind of caught her off guard, I don't think she expected it or thought about it. This was a "soft" 180. On Fri AM WAW called to say that she would walk w/them. So I volunteered to sit at the water table. Oh well.
On Fri PM I watched the movie Bedazzled. At the end of the movie one of the lines in the song stuck in my head. "If you want to change your life, then change your mind." If you think about this for a second, isn't that what we're all doing here? Changing our thinking from "poor poor pitiful me" and languishing in our feelings to "Hey, I'm in control of me and how I act and react affects my life, sitch, R and M."
As a part of what's going on, I've also focused on being the best Dad that I can be. D13 is more open with her voicing her feelings. Her LL is physical touch, she likes to sit next to me on the couch and rest her head on my shoulder, she likes to hold my hand, etc. D15 has told me that talking about your feelings is stupid b/c it won't change the sitch. I found a web site called Letters from Dad. I think that her LL is words of affirmation, so over the weekend, I wrote a letter to her in my own long-hand handwriting. It's been a long time since I written so much in long hand! It was a letter of affirmation. She'll find it when she gets home from school. I want her to know that I love her. I want her to know that it is safe to come to communicate to me about her thoughts and feelings. I won't judge her or criticize her. I'll just listen or read.
Jabez, here are the exercises that my counsellor used as best I can recall them. I did them with her, and then sat down after dinner with S13 and went through them. He didn't want to do them, but I made a point of also doing them and once he saw that I opened up he did as well.
Firstly look at how you are right now under 4 categories:
Feelings
Thoughts
Physiological
4th one?? I recalled it earlier, but have lost it. Will let you know when it comes back. Possibly Beliefs. Sorry can't find my notes on this one, and haven't done it for a while.
Write these down.
Then think "if you were the best person you could be, how would you be in regard to these 4 factors"
Also write these down. Now you can see that you do have the power to change how you are feeling, thinking, how your body is. So when you start thinking negatively for example, think "How would my better person handle this?"
This really does work. The first time I did these, I could feel myself sitting up more. Apparently the tone in my voice changed. And I instantly felt more confident about the situation.
Simple breathing techniques:
Breathe in for count of 4 Hold for 4 Exhale for 8
Do this standing up and you instantly feel a lot calmly. I also do a variation of this I learnt with Yoga where you do one nostril at a time.
A visualisation exercise to empower you. Think of a time when life was good. You were confident, in control and things were going well. Work out a secret body signal that you will use. I rub the skin between my thumb and index finger. Recall how you felt at this time while rubbing this point. Now in future, when you are going into a stressful situation, rubbing this point recalls those positive feelings, and you approach the situation with a confident mindset. I find this one of great benefit.
Also the visualisation techniques where you visualise thoughts, memories you want to get rid of. Many different variations of this one. I find one where you blow the thoughts into a huge balloon, and let it float up, and then let it go to help.
I hope this makes sense. I don't see my counsellor any longer as feel a lot stronger, but these did help.
kismet - Thanks for the info. I'll try these exercises by myself and then with the girls. I'm doing OK and so are the girls, but I feel like we are on a plateu and sooner or later we're either going to head up the mountain or down the cliff.
I also feel like I'm in limbo waiting for WAW's A to die out to see if she has any interst in us.
I feel really stuck right now. I feel too passive just sitting her being the standup dad and letting WAW "get this out of her system". I wish there were a laxative to move this $#!+ along a little faster!
Any suggestions?
Nothing has changed in the custody sitch and I haven't heard anything about it this week.
Two weeks ago during discussions about the custody sitch, one of my possible solutions was that we try a night that all 4 of us were together. WAW said "I don't even like you." WTF did I do to deserve that? (Other than not sign the D papers). UFB! (Un&^%*belivable)
So here I am again wondering if it is possible to bust this D.
Another complication. There is this person who I know and well I think she's yano, divorced w/2 kids and yano the last thing in the world that I want to do is get involved with her and have WAW start calling on me 'cuz I don't want to hurt my D15&D13 or her and her S11&D8 yano? Can you tell I'm hesitant about this?
