The art of self care after parenthood

I have found that there are some people in life whose soul purpose or it seems is to make you as unhappy as they are. For me this lesson is repeating itself and as the teacher arrives I confess I the student was caught off guard and unprepared.

I have in my almost thirty-nine years entered many classrooms but somewhere in the last almost two years I lost some of my tools and knowledge. Look I'd hate to blame the cutest culprit around but he took half my brain cells. Parenting as I see it for now is my greatest teacher and I am learning for two so I really want to excel on every level. From his nutrition, my greatest teacher so far, to his learning abilities I am on top of it all so much so I'm even cooking now to make sure his body is fed in a way that benefits his growth, especially with all the needs of his growing brain. Gotta love that DHA producing cod liver oil!

In the process of focusing so strongly on my class with Austin I have completely forgotten, even when opportunity arises, to go to my self care class. So much so that when the latest teachers arrived, they are tied to me by blood and always present but the more unhappy they become the harder the lesson, I was caught of guard.

I love my son in a way words can't express and don't suffice so my assumption is you do too. Who wouldn't? Sadly some don't. Some people's broken hearts, path and journey fills them with pain, sadness and the taste for life becomes bitter. So when you encounter them and share a classroom with them they want you to follow their lead instead of the greatest teacher I have found. I prefer to follow God aka the light aka God and the universe aka whatever you label it, as love truly needs no label. It's such a powerful feeling no word can truly grasp it or define it.

However in the process of focusing on what I consider to be my most important class at this point in my life, I couldn't seem to find the tools that fight off the darkness when it descended and told me and showed me it does not care for me or my accomplishments, once again calling me a soul composed of LA bullshit. Then it attacked and said I cost so much and reminded me that I've always been viewed as a burden and I did what Bev has always suggested I don't do. I bought a ticket, took my seat and rode the carousel that goes round and round and arrives no where.

In becoming Austin's mom I lost my ability to be compassionate with myself and others. Especially those who have a come to teach me repeatedly how truly sick the darkness can make a soul. This lesson is a constant in my life and while I hopped on the carousel I spoke words so unlike my character I actually got sick, physically sick.

Temporarily the darkness consumed me and I told the attacker FU. I realize that to some of you this may not seem like a big deal and honestly I won't lie, it felt a little good until it didn't. That was when my body shut down on me and I realized what I had done goes so against what life has taught me.

I have a fellow student in my current classroom who is also tied by blood who has always loved me as I am and as she sees me, her precious little sister. Roni can recall like it was yesterday the first time she saw me and the excitement she felt. She is always by my side whispering, forgive. She says forgive because I hate to see what not forgiving does to you and she's right. The darkness is truly that, dark. Heavy. Suffocating and so not who I am.

This lesson in this current classroom, I foresee is going to be a tough one because my mind keeps relating family to support and love. I keep thinking that they go hand and in hand. Or that they must but sometimes our greatest teachers are the precise people that will lead us to success, as their doubt fuels our passion and fire.

I will focus on that. I will have gratitude for their dislike for me, my career, my choices, and my LA bullshit. All this culminating in their constant pull at me to change me has actually gifted me a life where my dreams are exceeded! I have been pushed towards the light when their hope was to drag me into the darkness and there lies the greatest question of this lesson. Were this not my classroom and teacher would I know to love myself first? To believe despite all labels of failure? To push beyond their limited mind?

Often I wonder what the word family truly means. I speak not of the dictionary version but the real life version. I conclude for all it's different. For me I continue learning it's focusing on my classmate Roni and her whispers to forgive. The saviors God sent when my blood ties questioned every move I made upon my move Austin, my two boys. The friends that have supported me when I walked the red carpet in Rome and when I lost it all and needed to sleep on their couch and call it my bed. The ones that built me a home when I lost mine.

There in these words is the answer to my current lesson, family are who we choose to walk this journey with and as I've said before, on this road trip called life choose your passengers wisely. Especially those that accompany you as the whispers in your head. Those I believe must be the whispers of love and love only.

After a failed course this student returns to class as the lesson is currently being re-taught. I return with my focus back on what matters most to me! Gratitude for you and your kindness! For that I'm in debt to YOU and humbled by your heART AND I could HAVE NEVER gone this far without you!! So I'd like to thank you for it! Listen she sings it best.

Learning to find my voice in the balancing act of motherhood.

This week a friend said to me, write, and so I came to write as my son sleeps. As I logged in I realized my last post was in October and my last two posts were almost a year apart! No inspiration does not allude me but the source(s) of it require full time attention that allow room for little else and as I type that I realize I still have more work to do in balancing the art of motherhood. The balancing act is hard for many reasons, and a prominent one would be that I always wanted to be mom so I want to be present and delight in the gift it is. Gifts of rediscovery of the world and everything in it. Also if you know me you know I'm a recovering control addict, so I like to be in charge of being his guide/protector, but who am I kidding I'm not the main one. That one presides in the magic and unseen of our existence in between this material world and the other, which I choose to see as spiritual where magic beyond our minds ability to conceive is conjured up. Where my dream of being his mom was conjured up before it was gifted to me in the most amazing of ways.

Yesterday while I Zumba'd my morning away and he played with fellow toddlers I received a text, which triggered a lot of reflecting. A text that reminded me of the importance of surrender and the magic of truly letting go. I've been practicing surrendering long enough to know the difference between true surrender and letting go and when I tell myself I am doing it but I am not genuinely doing so. Awareness allows me to call myself on it and try again. Yet this text reminded me that I was so surrendered to the process that I forgot this possibility could come to fruition. It helps that I am so busy some days I forget what I did the day before. Toddlers are serious beings with curious eyes and require full attention in the guidance of the ways of this world, from playtime to sleep for their well being. Motherhood is no joke and makes what I do for a living look like a cake walk and is a constant reminder of what is most important.

It is with that thought in mind that I show up for auditions and let me share that it takes the weight of everything off of me. Knowing that my most important job is at home waiting for me and my guidance. So when my agent sent a text during my Zumba class that read I was the choice for my tv audition of the week I was humbled by the ways of the universe! I felt an immense gratitude for the way in which God and the universe show up and remind me they've got it. The most amazing thing is the director is someone whom I longed to work with when I arrived in Austin. Someone whose tenacity I admired and what that tenacity has done for Latinos in our field, yet it never worked out.

Not for the first two years I was here and then on my almost three year anniversary of my move to Austin, there it was. The text that to some would look like a booking but to me was a universal conspiracy to cross my path with his. I had let go, I had surrendered and left it in God's hands and there it was, the magic of surrender, timing. The time has come and I am ready! When the time is right I will reveal what I was ready for. All I think of is thank God, God believes in me perhaps more than I sometimes do and that while I am currently delighting in being Austin's mom I am still able to follow my heART! Back in December I booked a Lowes commercial and I was able to take my son to work as he was booked for the commercial too! Then as I struggled to surrender I was gifted the news that I was in three commercials! It was an improvised campaign with hidden cameras and when they did final edits were able to make three commercials from my work!

No one cast was guaranteed a final commercial and yet God did what I've known God to do best, in all my different detoured journey paths, exceed my dreams! Reasons for detours revealed, always in my best interest! I can't help but think of all the voices in my head. The committee, which constitutes of everyone I've encountered and who tries to divert my path to justify their standstill at a station they don't want to be at. Those who monitor the weight of my greatest accomplishment, saying it's taking too long to come off and it's a shame I let myself go. Believing it'd be hard for me to work like this. Those who said I would never get better treatment then what they gave me and no one would hire me in Austin. Those who dreams seem so distant they carry the weight of the distance and are determined to pass it on. To them I say may God open your heart so your eyes can see that anything is possible! The only limitations are the ones YOU allow your mind to confine you to!

Oh and a gentle reminder, this is the path that led me to be able to sit here this morning, in our house windows open listening to the birds while the wind blows in and I have the privilege of watching our son on the monitor.
"And She Danced, Life after loss" Documentary Trailer from Adriana Garza Productions on Vimeo.


Do you honestly think your words would detour me from God's gifts after what I've lived to get to today? After writing this it looks like I'm learning to find myself, my voice in the art of motherhood just fine. Actually making more than I ever did in Los Angeles and my commercials there had residuals, which goes to show that limited thinking creates limited living. My voice will never be silenced my someone's injustice and their willingness to pass on their lost soul's perception nor will it be something I expose Austin too because in the end all my journey has ever done is cracked me open so my light could shine brighter and I've grown stronger. Something I'll always be glad I can share with Austin in the detoured path city that led to his arrival and namesake. Dear Son because of you I'm learning to balance! You are a great teacher! THANK YOU! Lets keeping growing stronger along with dad. Thank you for being our greatest act of love! For you we soldier on!

Thank you Ana for encouraging me to write again!