Wow - when things need to happen, they do. Like realizing you are continuing a habit that has outlived its usefulness. Or realizing that what you thought you ought to be feeling is gone. And for me, both of those things met at the crossroads this week and this intersection has created a reason for me to take a deeper look at myself and my life. Who do I really want to be? What do I really want in my life? Can I deem myself worthy enough to accept not only what others are willing to share with me but also to give to myself what I so freely share with others?
I found this quote appropriate for what I am going through right now:
"If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise you'll just be rearranging furniture in rooms you've already been in." - Anne Lamont
Right now, with these thoughts, what is the truest and biggest risk right now? The possibility I might lose a fear I've grown accustomed to feeling. And we all know, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. We also know that we should bring our fears out into the cold (or hot) light of day and really examine them. What do I have to fear in my life right now, right here? Nothing. Everything is new again, the slate is clean and ready to be filled again.
So with that, I can now do the work needed to rejuvenate my life, restore my sense of self and balance, reawaken dreams that have lain dormant, and resurrect my best life!
Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow! I can sense the petrichor in my life - the healing rain is nigh! What I need and am ready to accept into the plain of my life will begin to fall from the sky like tender drops of rain, and I will drink them up and be full and healed once more!
What a blessing, what a blessing indeed!
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
MaXIMIze - Even More on Healing
Yes, I'm focusing a lot on healing right now - art imitates life, which can sometimes imitate art.
Like I said when I first started to follow this particular thread, healing takes time. It took time to get to where you are now and it will take time to get where you truly want to be. Healing is a process, an iterative one, which means you heal layer by layer. It also means sometimes you have to peel back many layers to find the original source of the wounding, the pain, the hurt in order to heal.
Additionally, you have to really want to do the work, to truly heal and move forward instead of staying in a continuous "do loop," in order for the process to work. And sometimes that work can be difficult and uncover things that we really never wanted to even think we had within us, let alone drag kicking and screaming into the cold (or hot) light of day. The revealing of some of these things, these issues, these deep and festering wounds, may leave us feeling like a lost naked thing in the open with no cover to protect us. However, just as new skin is sensitive at first and then toughens up, so too shall we learn to face that which has wounded us and left us bloody, maimed, disfigured and alone and take away its power to continue to bloody, maim, disfigure, or make us feel that we are alone anymore. And once we do that, once we take away its power by bringing it into the light and looking it square in the eyes, we will begin to heal and be whole once more.
Our emotional wounds may leave scars, however, our scars do not need to define who we are and what we can become. Honor your scars, for you have earned each and every one of them. Do not, however, ever allow them to define you as anything less than a perfect human being, worthy of everything you truly desire in this lifetime!
And with that, I will leave you with one of my newer theme songs:
Perfect by Pink
Like I said when I first started to follow this particular thread, healing takes time. It took time to get to where you are now and it will take time to get where you truly want to be. Healing is a process, an iterative one, which means you heal layer by layer. It also means sometimes you have to peel back many layers to find the original source of the wounding, the pain, the hurt in order to heal.
Additionally, you have to really want to do the work, to truly heal and move forward instead of staying in a continuous "do loop," in order for the process to work. And sometimes that work can be difficult and uncover things that we really never wanted to even think we had within us, let alone drag kicking and screaming into the cold (or hot) light of day. The revealing of some of these things, these issues, these deep and festering wounds, may leave us feeling like a lost naked thing in the open with no cover to protect us. However, just as new skin is sensitive at first and then toughens up, so too shall we learn to face that which has wounded us and left us bloody, maimed, disfigured and alone and take away its power to continue to bloody, maim, disfigure, or make us feel that we are alone anymore. And once we do that, once we take away its power by bringing it into the light and looking it square in the eyes, we will begin to heal and be whole once more.
Our emotional wounds may leave scars, however, our scars do not need to define who we are and what we can become. Honor your scars, for you have earned each and every one of them. Do not, however, ever allow them to define you as anything less than a perfect human being, worthy of everything you truly desire in this lifetime!
And with that, I will leave you with one of my newer theme songs:
Perfect by Pink
Sunday, April 8, 2012
MaXIMIze - More on Healing
Today is Easter Sunday, the day that Christ rose from the dead according to the Bible. Three days he lay in the tomb before he rose.
Note that - three days. Even coming back from the dead takes time, so why do we think we can get through or over things quickly?
We can't - period. It takes time to work through all the things that got us to where we are right here, right now. Rome wasn't built in a day, and healing takes time. And the deeper or more repeated the wound, the more healing time you need to be whole.
So, stop, breathe, realize it is okay to feel your pain, it is okay to pull out those experiences into the cold light of day and analyze them. It is okay to work through your issues, taking as much time as you need to heal from them so you can choose another path when you come to the crossroads again, so you can get out of the roundabout your life seems to be trapped in. And most of all, realize it is okay to seek help.
Also, realize that if you don't take the time to work through your issues and heal your wounds now, you are taking the chance that you will be wounding others that come into your life from this point forward.
So be good to yourself and be fair to others in your life. Take the time you need to become healed and whole. You owe that to yourself as much if not more than you do to the others in your life!
Note that - three days. Even coming back from the dead takes time, so why do we think we can get through or over things quickly?
We can't - period. It takes time to work through all the things that got us to where we are right here, right now. Rome wasn't built in a day, and healing takes time. And the deeper or more repeated the wound, the more healing time you need to be whole.
So, stop, breathe, realize it is okay to feel your pain, it is okay to pull out those experiences into the cold light of day and analyze them. It is okay to work through your issues, taking as much time as you need to heal from them so you can choose another path when you come to the crossroads again, so you can get out of the roundabout your life seems to be trapped in. And most of all, realize it is okay to seek help.
Also, realize that if you don't take the time to work through your issues and heal your wounds now, you are taking the chance that you will be wounding others that come into your life from this point forward.
So be good to yourself and be fair to others in your life. Take the time you need to become healed and whole. You owe that to yourself as much if not more than you do to the others in your life!
Sunday, April 1, 2012
MaXIMIze - Help Yourself by Helping Others
Wow! I logged on to write this post and discovered that I had a comment on my last post. I helped someone find their way back to Science of Mind magazine. That made my day, to know that I helped another human being in some small way! What a blessing!
And last night, I was at a dinner held at the Left Coast Crime 2012 writers' conference I attended this weekend, sitting with people I did not know from Adam prior to that evening, and a woman shared with me her experience of helping people and learning about things in her community that she had never known before.
This woman, who I will call Marie for the purpose of this blog (I truly am horrible with names), lives in North Carolina, in a county with a large wooded area. A wooded area where a large constituency of homeless live. Now Marie had a box spring from an old bed set she was trying to get rid of, and an agency in her county that helps the homeless and down at their luck out accepted this old box spring donation from Marie. In doing so, the agency shared with Marie that many people in her county are homeless and live in this large wooded area, many of them sleeping in mere blankets on the ground, and they are thankful for any help given to them. Marie, being middle to affluent in income level, had never even come close to experiencing what these people lived with in a daily basis. And she felt so blessed to have been able to help in some small way and that she now knows about these people in her community.
Our conversation came about when she asked me what I wrote about, and I was telling her about Papacita, my short story inspired by a newspaper story about an older Hispanic man found dead near one of the homeless encampments along our river parkway here, complete with cowboy hat, button down shirt, blue jeans, and brand new boots. Somehow this led to me telling her about a particular homeless man who I had seen many times over the spring and summer of last year, when I was outside at lunch time enjoying the sun. He was quite polite when he asked for money and I turned him down, as I don't carry cash. One day, I noticed how thin he had gotten, and then I did not see him again until I was at a nearby Starbucks a month or so ago. He had made himself persona non grata at that establishment, so he could not enter. However, I was just so glad to see that he had survived the winter that I went back inside and bought him a sandwich and a pastry.
I might add that Marie also said she rescues cats, and she blessed me for helping out my fellow human being in such a personal manner.
Those of you who know me, know that I believe we are all human beings first and all else comes second to that. And you may or may not know, I have been on that razor's edge of being homeless in my life - with three children - so I understand the despair that the homeless and down on their luck feel.
I also know that you can turn your life around, you can pull yourself up to something better. And that is why this blog exists - to help each of us by helping all of us.
And last night, I was at a dinner held at the Left Coast Crime 2012 writers' conference I attended this weekend, sitting with people I did not know from Adam prior to that evening, and a woman shared with me her experience of helping people and learning about things in her community that she had never known before.
This woman, who I will call Marie for the purpose of this blog (I truly am horrible with names), lives in North Carolina, in a county with a large wooded area. A wooded area where a large constituency of homeless live. Now Marie had a box spring from an old bed set she was trying to get rid of, and an agency in her county that helps the homeless and down at their luck out accepted this old box spring donation from Marie. In doing so, the agency shared with Marie that many people in her county are homeless and live in this large wooded area, many of them sleeping in mere blankets on the ground, and they are thankful for any help given to them. Marie, being middle to affluent in income level, had never even come close to experiencing what these people lived with in a daily basis. And she felt so blessed to have been able to help in some small way and that she now knows about these people in her community.
Our conversation came about when she asked me what I wrote about, and I was telling her about Papacita, my short story inspired by a newspaper story about an older Hispanic man found dead near one of the homeless encampments along our river parkway here, complete with cowboy hat, button down shirt, blue jeans, and brand new boots. Somehow this led to me telling her about a particular homeless man who I had seen many times over the spring and summer of last year, when I was outside at lunch time enjoying the sun. He was quite polite when he asked for money and I turned him down, as I don't carry cash. One day, I noticed how thin he had gotten, and then I did not see him again until I was at a nearby Starbucks a month or so ago. He had made himself persona non grata at that establishment, so he could not enter. However, I was just so glad to see that he had survived the winter that I went back inside and bought him a sandwich and a pastry.
I might add that Marie also said she rescues cats, and she blessed me for helping out my fellow human being in such a personal manner.
Those of you who know me, know that I believe we are all human beings first and all else comes second to that. And you may or may not know, I have been on that razor's edge of being homeless in my life - with three children - so I understand the despair that the homeless and down on their luck feel.
I also know that you can turn your life around, you can pull yourself up to something better. And that is why this blog exists - to help each of us by helping all of us.
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