Beast of the Southern Wild: Parenting 101

I just saw Beast of the Southern Wild last week. I fell in love with it. That only happens for me once in a blue moon.

Why did I love it so much?

Because I write about abandonment. And Hushpuppy was abandoned by her mother; and her father seems a kind of a mixed blessing of a father who, early in the film, is hard for me to bear. But over the course of the film, he became a sort of renegade hero for me because I believe in "tough." I believe there are circumstances that demand having a stiff enough spine to get through whatever the heck you have to get through. And at the end, (with the cutest little heroine on the planet) this movie showed how this seemingly psycho father had actually prepared his child for the life she was inheriting as his child.

At the end of the day that's what I think decent parenting is about-- preparing kids. I think a lot of frustration felt by parents has to do with the feeling that their children aren't prepared for life or might never be what they need to be. But preparing children for life requires real reflection about what they really need at every stage in order to navigate the situations they will encounter without falling apart. They don't need warm and fuzzy all day, every day. They need some heavy doses of reality and honesty, and to know with certainty that they actually have spines-- just as we do.

We get stronger by being stronger. Character traits aren't developed by simply having pleasant conversations; we develop character through lessons learned in real time situations. Better that our kids take some chances and sink now and then while we're still close enough to them to give a little feedback, and help them make a few adjustments-- than to have them floundering around as weak as worms wondering what to do when the flood comes.


Do you have your copy of Salt in the Sugar Bowl yet? Find out why a mother walks out on her six children, and how, years later, the abandonment issues run rampant in the lives of those children.
Click here to order from Amazon! http://tinyurl.com/kky83bh

Are abandonment issues sabotaging your present?

Abandonment infiltrates our psyches like parasites. It makes us feel less than.

How?

We want to make sure we do whatever it takes so people love us, want us, stay with us, think we're worthy, etc. We bend over backwards, make allowances for bad behavior, wear clothes that we don't really like because we think we'll get a particular reaction. We become more mindful of what others are thinking about us than of what we think of ourselves. We try to control how safe we feel by anticipating the thinking and actions of others. This is an impossibility! Sometimes people wind up alone because they're so afraid of being abandoned that they find ways to avoid committing.

Where does it come from?

I can't speak for everyone, but I didn't know my dad, and I spent a lot of my early years with my grandparents, then they died when I was still young. I, therefore, inherited a boat load of abandonment issues! They can also come from divorce, addiction, parental depression and mental illness.

What's my point?

It's really important to see when & where abandonment issues are operating in one's life. I learned that being healthy means having a very clear idea of who I am and what I like that has nothing to do with anybody else. If we are able to clarify that and have our own backs, then we are pretty much guaranteed to take good care of ourselves. When we get too caught up in attachment to others, we are often acting out of fear from our past, rather than having a healthy relationship in our present.

My novella is filled with the fallout of abandonment issues as Sophia Sawyer's six children try to live healthy adult lives after their mother left them behind and never looked back. Check it out! Salt in the Sugar Bowl: www.mainstreetrag.com/AEpps.html

Harness your mind and take it where you want to go

This weekend I reflected a lot on the way my mind works. It seems that even though I focus a lot on positive thinking, sometimes I replay negative occurrences in my mind. Suddenly I remember when I blew up in anger about something that was none of my business. I remember when I left my journals behind and my ex- read every secret and horrible thing I had ever written about him (God almighty!). I think about how two of my aunts were my age when they died. I wish I'd visited my neighbor the week I intended to because she died before I got there. I think about how much more patience I wish I'd had when my daughter was young. And on and on.

It's weird the way our minds troll for things that bring us down or scare us when nothing good comes out of it. I already know better. I know what I won't do again. There's no need to beat up on myself. The lesson is already learned, or the opportunity was already missed. 

Today on the way home from a great weekend at the beach with my husband, I watched my mind try to take me out of my happy moment. I took control of my mind, and did not let it convince me that I am less happy, less worthy, less anything than I really am.

The Abraham-Hicks quote below says it all:

If all you did was just look for things to appreciate you would live a joyous, spectacular life. If there was nothing else that you ever came to understand other than just look for things to appreciate, it's the only tool you would ever need to predominantly hook you up with who you really are. That's all you'd need. 

http://www.abraham-hicks.com/lawofattractionsource/index.php

My novella is now available! Order your copy of Salt in the Sugar Bowl:  www.mainstreetrag.com/AEpps.html

Pretense: a recipe for marital hell

There are many ways to set one's self up for a bad marriage. Pretending to be someone you're not is a prime example. This is an excerpt from Salt in the Sugar Bowl, and it shows how building a relationship based on pretense is a recipe for marital hell.

Sophia's mother, Devora, encouraged her only child to outdo herself-- to put on the best face she could possibly envision. She coaxed Sophia to spend entire paychecks on form-fitting dresses. And every Friday she handed Sophia a fistful of dollars from the petty cash to get her hair fixed. Devora passed off her kitchen skills as Sophia's. Devora’s steady doses of advice fell on deaf ears because Sophia never got the knack of any of it. She was clueless about the glitz. She was plain as paper. But Devora was determined to make all Sophia’s dates worthy of prom night.

Hunter Sawyer was blind-sided by the glamorized Sophia among the drab selection of women in their small town of Haden. In less than six months they were married at the Hope and Savior Baptist Church with a feast for seventy-five in the church dining room. Both Sophia and Devora were pleased at the good-looking, hard-working Hunter. But 19 year-old Sophia had not contemplated the consequences of their deception. She couldn’t match colors, or bake a chicken unassisted, or apply false eyelashes on her own.

In no time, Hunter was puzzling over why the meals all carried a strangling dose of vinegar when a short time ago he’d found pleasure in every forkful. Then when Sophia gave birth to their first child, and she had no paycheck coming in, Hunter looked sideways at how her hair always seemed to settle into something akin to a rooster’s comb. Then, shortly before the birth of her second grandchild, Sophia’s mother died from a massive, after dinner heart attack. Without Devora’s coaching, the baby weight clung to Sophia’s stomach and thighs. There were no form-fitting dresses to accentuate her new, maternal shape.

Hunter’s disappointment was palpable. No more long, sucking kisses. No unexpected grabbing and fondling in the kitchen. Sophia had no tricks up her sleeve, and no money for mirages. So Hunter had ultimately won himself a lesser prize than he’d expected. He had won the small prize on the middle shelf when he'd expected the large one at the top. Disappointment was a heavy weight to carry throughout a marriage of 17 years.

Order your copy of Salt in the Sugar Bowl:  www.mainstreetrag.com/AEpps.html

Reflecting on a Bob Marley truth...

“If she is amazing, she won’t be easy. If she’s easy, she won’t be amazing. If she’s worth it, you won’t give up. If you give up, you’re not worthy…truth is, everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.” ~ Bob Marley

I love Bob Marley, and I credit him with being a real visionary. I choose to make the "she" in this quote "life". At the heart of this message, I do believe, is 1) having a life that is amazing won't be easy, and 2) you can take the easy route, but don't expect it to necessarily be satisfying. Then, as much as I hate to accept this as a truth, following your heart still has pain along the way. But, fortunately, along with the pain comes the bliss of running the race you want  toward a destination of your choice. A lot of the suffering, I believe though, is in getting in touch with what the heck we want, and once we know, figuring out how the heck to get it. I feel our lives are crammed with so much random and necessary stuff, that we must work to find the space and time to hear and understand what our real desires are. And once we get a clue, we're still left with this question: Where do we draw the line between following our dreams and common sense? 

(As an aside, notice how much my hair looks like Bob Marley's.....hmmmnnn)


My novella, Salt in the Sugar Bowl, is available at www.mainstreetrag.com/AEpps.html
$10, plus shipping and handling
When all the sweetness is gone from Sophia Sawyer's life, she leaves her husband and six children and never looks back. Find out how those children fared after their mother's abandonment.

Runaway Mothers

My novella Salt in the Sugar Bowl is about a mother who walks away from her six kids. This week, Dr. Phil featured Brenda Heist, a woman who left her two kids and husband 11 years ago and totally disappeared. Nobody expects that. In our culture, we make assumptions:
- if there's a divorce, Mom gets custody,
- if a child is sick, Mom does the doctoring,
- Mom is more nurturing and comforting,
- Mom has the child-rearing instincts
When a mom walks away, all kinds of questions surface. They usually have negative connotations: What was she thinking? Has she lost her mind? What the heck is wrong with her? Does she have a heart?

When a man leaves his family, again we make assumptions:
- He fell in love with someone else,
- He must have money, gambling, drug problems, or some dark secret, or
- He grew tired of the routine, rat race, etc.

A couple of the news items trace events leading up to Brenda Heist's departure, what she did while she was gone, and why she suddenly reentered the picture. But at the bottom of it all, is still the resounding question: What is it about a particular woman that enables her to leave her children behind?


Brenda Heist returned to her town after 11 years. She had already been declared dead.
http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/851840_Brenda-Heist-admits-trying-to-commit-suicide-three-days-before-turning-herself-in.html


Salt in the Sugar Bowl is available at www.mainstreetrag.com/AEpps.html
When all the sweetness is gone from her life, Sophia Sawyer leaves her six children and never returns. What happened to those children. Order today and find out.

Mother Nature's daughters on Mother's Day

So Mom and I weren't always close. We've never been estranged, but there were years that I didn't think much of holidays and family gatherings. I was doing my thing and they had their own thing, and our things didn't seem to match all that well.

Time passes the way it does-- sometimes slow, and sometimes whizzing by. And I look up and Mom and I have things in common.

WE LOVE NATURE!

We are like twin nature nymphs. This morning we sat on my deck having coffee, and before you know it we were up on my hill pulling weeds and sawing down little trees. HAVING A BLAST!

Yesterday we went to visit my daughter in her new apartment, came home and made lunch, then spent four hours breaking up and moving parts of my HUGE cacti! We had a WONDERFUL time.

So I'm really grateful that we both love something that brings us together in a way that is magic. We get down and dirty, and we plant, saw, and dig, and then sit satisfied--bonded at the core by something that really means something to us. We, Odessa and I, are really Mother Nature's daughters.

Kids and consistency

Recently my daughter and I were chatting, and she mentioned, offhandedly, that her childhood memories are happy ones. It wasn't a deep discussion or anything-- just a comment in passing. Today, I drove three hours (unnecessarily) to a meeting that will not actually occur for two more weeks! Hmmmnnnn. This shows where I am right now-- flying by the friggin' seat of my tight pants!

I've been here before: tight schedules, working till my brain aches, with my body buzzing with fatigue. I was often in that place when my daughter was growing up. So as I was whizzing down Highway 85 South this morning, my daughter's comment about happy memories ran through my mind. And that's when I realized how important consistency is to children.

I was often so overextended and stressed out that I would be burning incense, chanting, praying, writing affirmations all at the same time to get through tight grantwriting deadlines, motherhood demands, and having a personal life as a self-employed, single mother. I worried all the time about how in the world I could raise this child unscathed with such a life as I was living.

Now I realize that the things I prioritized as a mom actually worked:
- dinner every week night (mostly homemade-- because it was very comforting and grounding to have something simmering on the stove as I lost myself in writing),
- getting her to bed at the same time every night with a story and a tuck-in,
- never letting her know when I was short of cash,
- having a network of trustworthy babysitters who gave us both much-needed time away from each other, and
- although she certainly saw me get upset way more than I intended, I always gave her the message that life has it's really hard and bumpy places-- but none that I couldn't handle.

I was thrilled to hear her basically saying that those hard and bumpy places were eclipsed by the happy times. And as I think about it, there were absolutely plenty of happy times.

If your kids are grown, remember all the good stuff you did with and for them. If you're still parenting, take a tip from me-- consistency goes a long way towards making children feel secure-- even if you're flying by the seat of your pants wondering which end is up.

My novella Salt in the Sugar Bowl is now available at www.mainstreetrag.com/AEpps.html
Order your copy today and find out how Sophia Sawyer's six children fared after she walked aways from them and never looked back.

Salt in the Sugar Bowl

a novella byAngela Belcher Epps

ISBN: 978-1-59948-402-0, 104 pages, $12 ($10 if ordered from the MSR Online Bookstore)

My unsolicited review, in writing-- by a MAN no less!!!

I have to blog this because it made me so happy. This is what just popped up in my inbox: "We recently received your book  Salt in the Sugar Bowl:

 

One of the best books I've ever read.  I love the characters. Enjoyed the story line. I especially enjoyed the action. I even shed a tear at the end. I experienced a whole range of emotions."

That made my day! It's my first unsolicited review in writing. I have new-found confidence. I choose to believe him. 

Now I want everyone to buy a copy!

Order yours at www.mainstreetrag.com/AEpps.html

The big moments in life!

Salt in the Sugar Bowl is officially released! I'm really excited because I have always been the kind of person to minimize the importance of good things happening to and for me. It was almost like I was afraid to enjoy it. Or that I might not deserve it. So I'd downplay whatever it was and refuse to let it be a big deal.

Well, I guess I have grown quite a bit because I am going to enjoy this process. Already I have received some positive feedback. My colleague greated me Monday morning saying "I LOVED IT! I REALLY LOVED IT! and I LOVED hearing her say that, and I hope lots of people read it and enjoy it. I'm tickled to have a brand new book, and I'm thrilled that Main Street Rag thought enough of it to publish it!

So my thought on this beautiful spring evening is to encourage everybody to really acknowledge and enjoy the good things when they happen. The spiritual things I read allude to the fact that what we focus on increases. So when it's good, get into it, revel in it, let the joy of it run through you from hair to toenails! And hopefully that blissful gratitude will attract more of the same.


 So find out what happens when Sophia Sawyer walks away from her six children-- never to return. Order your copy of Salt in the Sugar Bowl today! www.mainstreetrag.com/AEpps.html