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May 13th, 2012 Today is Mother’s Day. If I remember correctly, my mother never let me wallow in self-pity. It was always “pull up your boot straps, stop sniveling, and get on with it!”. Last year, on this day, I was beginning my first steps of recovery from my unexpected loss of her, so I dedicate this post to her.
Today I’m sitting on my beach, sipping wine, reading Jillian Michaels book “Unlimited”. Unlimited. That’s how I feel about my life now, one year later. Last year on this day I could barely walk to the beach, much less read a motivating book here. I think I spent the whole day crying in between doing yard work. What a difference a year of yoga, bible study, writing, and making wonderful new friends has made.
All during this amazing year of self-renewal and recovery, something was nagging at the back of my mind. There was a need for something more. This was a great life, but, let’s face it, I’m only 58 and it certainly is a long way from over for me. The writing is settling into place and I know I will always be a writer simply because, as you know if you follow this blog, I ALWAYS have something to say. But writing is my art form. Not a job. I feel the need for a job, now, one that makes a little money, but more than that, one that motivates me to try something new and help others along the way. As I mentioned yesterday, a new prospect has emerged on my horizon. I’m a bit nervous, a little scared, but A LOT curious of just what I’m capable of. Many of you, when you retire from your present career, will understand this right away. You spent your entire life in one segment of the work world. When you leave you suddenly get a little disoriented, but then you look around and start to wonder “What else am I capable of doing? Is there some other thing I’d actually be good at, but didn’t know it all these years being locked in your present job and raising your family?”
Interesting questions, and ones that I’ve been pondering in the here and now ending of my “recovery period”. I’m ready to enter the real world again. I get a feeling it’s going to be a hell of a ride and I should hang on! That’s okay. I’m definitely ready, especially when I think back to last Mother’s Day – if you mentioned the word “job” to me I’d practically would’ve curled up into a ball and cried.
So Mom – here I am. Pulling up my boot straps just like I saw you do so many times over the years raising us four kids. You never curled up into a ball. In fact, you even reached out and helped other family members who couldn’t seem to get it together. Yes, Mom, you were an inspiration and you left me too soon for me to be able to tell you. Rest in peace. Watch over me, sis, and the bros. Don’t worry – we’re taking good care of dad. Love you, Mom.
And so, as another day goes by, we are taught valuable life truths by our parents’ example, and ….I have written.
Need a kickstart? Need a new direction? Need positive motivation? Try this:
May 12th, 2012 Some days ARE truly amazing. For me, today is one of them. I woke up to the day and date and something struck me. Today is Saturday May 12. Sixteen years ago, on Saturday May 12, my husband and I were walking this very beach I’m sitting on now, holding a big dream in our hands. For all of our married life our dream was to live on this beach where we honeymooned. On Saturday May 12 1996 we were shown a house on this beach that we desperately wanted. We had the rest of the day to decide. We already had a house, two kids, and a dog…and this seemed so far out of our reach, but yet so close. We looked at each other and said, “Well, we’ll never know if we don’t try.”
The next morning on Mother’s Day May 13 1996 we walked the beach to make our decision. It was a sunny warm day, exactly like it is today. We walked off the beach and into the realty office to make an offer. Our realtor is a very close friend who guided us in our property hunt out here all our married life. We sat in front of her desk, she sat down and it went like this:
“Are you ready to make an offer?”
We squeak out a quiet “Yes.”
She turns to the typewriter (yes, typewriter) and as she’s typing she says over her shoulder, “How much do you want to put down? Twenty thousand?”
We look at each other and don’t answer.
She says,”Ten?”
We still don’t answer.
She looks at us and says, “Five?”
We say okay and promptly write out a check for five thousand dollars.
She completes the paperwork, shakes our hands and congratulates us on finally obtaining a cape property.
We hug her and leave.
All that’s left to do is figure out where and how we’re going to get the five thousand dollars.
We got it with the help of my husband’s parents, and the rest is history. We have since sold that little house for twice what we paid for it, and bought our present home.
We had a dream that we never said never to, but more than that we had a God and a faith we pledged to on our wedding day. We asked Him to sit with us in that realty office that day and show us what to do. We wrote that check on faith in Him.
Today, Saturday May 12 2012 is once again amazing. An opportunity recently presented itself to me that I am quite excited about. As usual, before attempting anything new, I went on a beach walk to consult with God. I barely got to the end of my road, asking God, “What about this? And what about that? And you know lord I would never do anything without your guidance…”etc. I got to the corner just before the beach, and I swear I heard God chuckle just above my right shoulder. Then I heard Him say, “I’m answering your prayer.”
I stopped at the corner and started laughing. If anyone saw me, they’d just think “She’s the crazy lady down the street with the ‘free tree’.” (I’m always giving away stuff by the tree on the corner of my lawn. The “free” sign is on the tree.)
There was something difficult in my life that I’ve been praying about for a year. God finally answered with this opportunity, and I never saw that it was the answer to what I’d been asking Him for all along. I honestly couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
Saturday May 12 1996, and Saturday May 12 2012. Defining days, defining my faith.
And so, as another day goes by, when you’ve done all you can do, just stand, and….I have written.
May 11th, 2012 Everyday at the end of yoga class, I have a lot of energy and fight to bring myself to lay there after the class is over for the suggested 3-5 minutes. I do know jumping right up and running out into the cold lobby is not a good idea, so I had to devise a way to keep myself still for a few minutes. I decided I’d close my eyes and recite the Lord’s Prayer. Now, I can recite that in less than ten seconds, so clearly I needed some rules to this new ritual. In addition to reciting it slowly and with meaning, I decided I had to visualize each sentence in my mind. That did the trick. It keeps me in place on that mat for just enough time to loose that urge to jump up and run, allowing me to relax for a few minutes.
The best picture I enjoy during the prayer is the part that says “give us this day our daily bread”. Since I was five years old I’ve always had the same picture of a perfect slice of white bread (a huge one) sliding out from an opening in the sky. Of course, at five, the only meaning I could derive from that picture was that God would give me food everyday so I wouldn’t starve to death.
Today that “food” idea is extremely different. In the month or so that I have been using the prayer, I began to see a little pattern where somehow, someway, each day God would drop “food” along my path, usually in the form of a concept or idea that helped me with whatever life situation I was currently wrestling with.
Just looking back over this past week, I began to picture slices of bread with messages written on them. Then I realized I would like to save the “bread slices” so I can use them as affirmations in weak moments. In any learning, growing, self-actualization journey we get excited when we stumble on a helpful concept, it boosts us up for a few days, then we lose it just in time for that weak moment when we find ourselves falling and revisiting our problem.
My remedy is a daily bread journal. Everyone knows I write everything on my phone, but for this I’m going to use actual paper because I want to draw the slices of bread and write on them. Some of the slices for this past week were:
-letting go doesn’t mean giving up
-in spite of your fear, do what you have to do
-after you’ve done all you can, just stand
They came from quotes, cards, and songs dropped in front of me just when I needed them. But now it’s Friday and as I reflect on my week, it would be nice to be able to quickly flip through a book and be reminded of what God had taught me this week. Also, drawing the bread, coloring the brown crust, getting the angle right, and writing on it will reinforce the words deeper because I’ll have to concentrate on them a lot longer than if I just wrote them on my phone.
Using the Lord’s Prayer to keep me on that mat everyday just may result in another very useful book.
And so, as another day goes by, I believe in Jesus, Bikram, and a good bottle of wine – not a bad way to roll, and.. I have written.
May 10th, 2012 Comcast. That’s all I can say, because I don’t believe this. Over the weekend my husband and I decided to join the 21st century and update the TV’s in both our NY apartment and cape house. Both houses still had huge, heavy, tube TV’s that our kids just laugh at. Off we went to Best Buy where we got a deal for two nice flat-screens for the price of one. We were in NY, so the cape TV went in my trunk for me to take back on Monday. We spent the day going to the cable office, where we also got a great deal on HD and wireless Internet. My husband even got the MLB package free. They gave us a nifty wireless router and the Internet in our apartment now runs at lightening speed. Kudos to Time Warner. Notice I said Time Warner. We have Time Warner Cable in NY.
Moving on to New England. On Monday I brought my other new TV home, but didn’t have time to hook it up until today. I decided it’s been years since I had a cable makeover here and I needed a thing called an HDMI cable, so I headed over to my local Comcast office. Notice I said Comcast. On the way, I decided I’d ask them for one of those nifty wireless routers like Time Warner gave us in NY because I’ve been running the first Apple Airport ever made out here in this house. (I wasn’t kidding about the 21st century). At the office I tell the lady I need a cable makeover and an HDMI cable for my new TV. She redoes my cable package and now I have tons of HD and premium channels. Next I ask her for a wireless router. She said, “We don’t have those.”
“What?”
“We don’t have those.”
“I just got one Saturday from Time Warner in NY.”
“We don’t do that. You use the same one you have and go out and buy your own hub and plug it in to that.”
Do you believe this? In this day and age of technology, COMCAST doesn’t have wireless routers.
I’ve come to realize that going to the cable office rates right up there with going to the DMV.
And so, as another day goes by, at least I now have the OWN channel so I can watch Oprah’s Life Lessons to learn how to cope with utility offices, and…I have written.
May 9th, 2012 Are you in control? That is a double-edged question. Being in control of your emotions as you move through your day, especially when you’re blindsided by those unexpected circumstances, is one side of being in control. Controlling the people and circumstances in your life so you have peace of mind that no one can mess up your world is the other side.
Side one, controlling my emotions no matter what hits me, is something I’ve been learning to do through yoga. Having to master the hot room and the changes it brings everyday, transfers to managing the things that sideline me outside the studio. Having to remain still, resisting the drinking and wiping, goes a long way to training my mind and body to not only endure, but to convert fear and frustration into peace and the power of accomplishment. This side of control works for our own good.
Moving to the other side of the question – where we want to control everything and everybody in effort to find security and escape fear, is a different matter. In bible study this morning we were presented with four scenarios and were told to pick the one we’d fear the most and the one we’d fear the least. The scenarios were:
1. Landing in a commercial airline during a heavy storm
2. Undergoing an outpatient surgical procedure
3. Riding in the passenger seat of a car while someone else drives
4. Losing you job because of factors beyond your control
The winners were:
Feared most: # 4 Feared least # 3
Why is that? I’m my opinion, both numbers 1 & 2 we would have absolutely no control over the outcome. We know that before we even get into that situation that we can’t have any part in landing a plane safely or making the surgery come out okay, so we give up all control before we even start, releasing a lot of fear. Number 3 we do so much, that we’re used to it. The more you do something, the less you fear it, and again, give up all desire to control it. But number 4 – that’s a situation all it’s own, because you always feel you can change it somehow. If your brain even sees one little tiny thing that you can still do to change the situation, you will not give up full control. You will persist as long as you can see a possible way, even if your efforts are futile.
The more you feel you can control something, the more you’ll worry and drive yourself crazy trying because you fear losing it. Yesterday I wrote about trying every single thing you possibly can to control an outcome, until there is nothing left to do, but just stand before God and give the outcome totally to him.
How great it would be if we could do that in every situation BEFORE we drive ourselves crazy trying to control everything. We are only in control of the things God entrusts us to watch over and care for. We are never in control of our destiny or the destiny of others. As Andy Stanley said this morning, as soon as you find yourself doing the “if I do this, he/she will do that” thing, you have just proclaimed yourself as someone trying to control things you have absolutely no control over – and no business trying to.
We can go about it two ways: one, fight and try to control everything and force God to grab us by the shirt collar and get our attention, or, two, simply resolve to live our life letting God control the outcomes. Believe me, the first way is no fun, but absolutely necessary if we won’t surrender all control. Just like the hot room, the more you drink, fan, and wipe, the more you’ll feel sick, out of breath, and like fainting. As soon as you stop fighting both God and the hot room, life suddenly becomes peaceful, content and manageable, both in and out of the studio.
And so, as another day goes by, the only real control we have is we can decide how long we want to fight before we “just stand”, and …I have written.
My new phone wallpaper to remind me that:
“We can’t change the wind, but we can adjust our sails.”
May 8th, 2012 Last night I was watching Smash, a new show that I’ve really enjoyed this season. It was nice to see a show not about crime and punishment or housewives. It was nice to see a theater setting instead of a hospital. All in all, it kept my interest to the point that I DVR’d it so as not to miss an episode. That’s highly unusual for me, as I DVR very few shows, and that is the barometer I use to rate my level of enjoyment of yet another network creation.
Smash took a turn last night, one that, somehow I never expected. The one character invited the theater cast to his church for a Sunday service, in which both he and Katherine McPhee (whom I’m glad to see finally being able to showcase her talent), performed. It was the song they performed that got my attention. The song was called “Just Stand”. The line that reverberated in my brain for the last 24 hours is:
“When you’ve done all you possibly can, then just stand.”
What a line of hope. Just stand.
When you’ve said all there is to say, done all there is to do, written all the words there are to write, analyzed all there is to analyze, walked all the roads there are to walk, driven all the miles there were to drive, asked all the questions that could be asked, prayed all the prayers there were to pray, cried all the tears there were to cry…you might think, I’m now at the end of my rope. There is no more to do. You’ve exhausted all the possibilities on this earth, physically, within your reach, and are standing at the edge of helplessness and despair. This song provides the answer. The one thing you didn’t try.
Just stand.
Two words. So simple. Just stand with no expectations or thoughts. Just stand and trust the process. Give your God full, unencumbered reign. Don’t expect Him to “do this or maybe that”. Don’t do, don’t think, don’t say, don’t ask, or don’t even pray anything.
Just stand.
And so, as another day goes by, for the second time in two days a few simple words changed the way I do business in this life, and …I have written.
Photo: Now I know why I had my husband take this photo on Sunday. Taken at the Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake in upstate NY on our MG joyride. I remember this chair from numerous school field trips.
May 7th, 2012 “In spite of your fear, do what you have to do.” Chin-Ning Chu
I love this simple, direct quote. We all have fears. We fear loss, pain, uncertainty, failure, not being accepted, etc. Some of us even fear success. Fear can rule our lives. It can keep us from crossing lines we know we must cross in order to grow and realize our full potential.
Facing fear requires us to do hard things. The key word being “do”. That’s why this quote caught my eye. Thinking and talking about what we need to do to conquer our fears is all well and good, but unless we actually get down to doing it, we will remain behind that line, scared, and held prisoner by our fear forever.
What is it that you have known you needed to do for sometime now? What is holding you back? Identify your fear, then:
“In spite of your fear, do what you have to do.”
And so, as another day goes by, I’m always amazed at how one simple statement can impact how I live my life, and…I have written.
May 6th, 2012 This morning a friend posted the most beautiful picture of the super moon on Facebook. It was taken in Greece at the Temple of Poseidon. Though I appreciated the beauty and majesty of the super moon in the photo, it was her comment that got my attention. She said:
“Didn’t get to see the super moon myself last night, but this view in Greece at the Temple of Poseidon is rather nice.”
How many times does a view of something through someone else’s eyes bring us joy, pleasure, and, even clarity? Many times we walk in the dark, confused, bumping into walls, hands out, feeling our way. We can’t see what is right in front of us. Then someone else comes along and shares their view and perspective. All of a sudden the darkness clears and you realize you possessed the power to see all along. The eyes of someone else opened the window to your world.
Just as my friend experienced the super moon through someone else’s eyes, sometimes, we too, must stop struggling so on our own and let another show us the way.
And so, as another day goes by, the finish line is not given, it is earned, and…I have written.
Thanks, Nina, for sharing and inspiring…
May 6th, 2012 There was a really wonderful post here about self-love just a few minutes ago. As I was editing the photo for the piece, my phone decided to reset itself. When I went back to the draft, just the title was left. It’s 12:31 am and too late to rewrite it.
How about if we say it wasn’t meant to be said – today anyway. Tonight I truly feel it’s better to just let it go and sleep on it. I hope you all had a wonderful Saturday. I did, and can sleep well tonight.
And so, as another day goes by, let’s just let it go by, and…I have written.
May 4th, 2012 It has been over a year now since I began Julia Cameron’s Artist Way training. I’ve often mentioned the two most important things she suggests to ignite and foster creativity. One was morning pages. That I have down pat. Today was number 415. The other suggestion was artist dates. This involved taking days alone, at least once a week, and going on an artist date. An artist date is a day spent walking, shopping, observing, eating alone, going to a movie alone, etc. This point of this exercise was to connect to the inner artist child that lives inside of us. I have gone on a lot of artist dates and wrote about many of them. They were fun. Freeing in the sort of way they were meant to be, only I never really felt the connection with that inner artist child. I felt it was sort of embarrassing to behave like a child and participate in childlike wonder. I never felt that part of the date.
Then, today, I was getting ready to leave to drive to NY. I was planning to cut up fresh fruit and chicken for nice healthy snack. Then all of a sudden I remembered the small bag of Lay’s baked chips I bought on my last trip. I actually got excited. I said to myself, “I’m going to get those chips on my ride today.” I had to laugh out loud at how giddy I was over a bag of chips. I pictured myself, in my chucks and jeans, happily skipping out of the rest stop store holding my chips.
Then it dawned on me. I saw her. I met my inner artist child. That’s how it feels to reconnect with your past self. That was fun. That was freeing and uplifting. My ride today will be an artist date, and this time it will be with the inner artist child I’ve been searching for.
Sometimes we really do take our adult selves too seriously. So busy trying to make a go of our jobs, and families, and responsibilities. We only allow “fun” in in an adult way – dinner and movies, concerts, ball games, wine by fire, etc. What about the simple joy of an anticipated bag of chips? What about skipping down the curb when you’ve finally got them? Maybe this mindfulness stuff is taking hold after all.
And so, as another day goes by, this day contains chips, and …I have written.
(I didn’t quite skip back to the car, but I definitely had a spring in my step! Lol!)
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