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October 17th, 2011 Recently I received a gift from a little boy, Owen, I had in my Young Authors’ Workshop this summer. It’s a book called “The Seaglass Hunter’s Handbook”. Owen and I shared a love of beach glass. We both are collector’s and he even taped two pieces of his collection to the inside cover.
Inside the book, one chapter gives definitions of terms tossed about by beach glass enthusiasts. The last word in the lexicon was “zen”. I didn’t expect to find that word there among stippling, stoneware, and transferware. Before I read the definition, I’d already assumed in my mind that it would mean the tranquility gained from the beautiful shades of the glass. Instead it said:
“Zen: Philosophy for collectors. If you look for it, you will not find it.”
I’m learning a new lesson from my passion for beach glass. It was so simply stated not only in this book, but in “Gifts From the Sea” by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a tiny book I picked up for $5 in the Books by Sea bookstore the day I met Gloria in Osterville. I had set both books by my chair and just happened to pick them both up to read today, ironically gleaning the same message from both authors. Lindbergh writes:
“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith.
Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. “
I have spent a life digging. Digging people, things, careers, and even God. I wanted, I wanted, I wanted. Patience was always hard. Trusting anything solely to God was always hard. Doing “nothing” in situations where I knew nothing was the right thing to do, was nearly impossible for me. MY head and hands always knew the best way. Until now. Now…in the early afternoon of my life, as a result of this journey, the digging is done. Again, so simply stated by Lindbergh, “One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea.”
And more of her words express the direction I am turning toward now:
“I want first of all….to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out ….obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact – to borrow from the language of the saints – to live “in grace” as much of the time as possible. By grace I mean inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony.”
Amazing how my love for finding beach glass, a little boy I shared a special time with, and a few books came together to set my GPS in a new direction. The time for digging, trying to find, trying to achieve, and wanting are done. Time to rest and let treasures and blessings cross my path as God wills. I will always have Owen’s gift to consult on all things related to the hunting of beach glass. Today I will grab a light windbreaker, my sunglasses, and head out seeking without expectation. Without digging and foraging.
And so, as another day goes by, peace, tranquility, and new directions arrive in the innocence of a child’s hand, and….I have written.
October 16th, 2011 Today Sunday Morning (morning news show on CBS) was doing a piece on Coldplay. They were talking about the popular panda movies and the message of inner strength sent by the panda learning to catch the bombs and fling them back twice as hard. The concept naturally caught my mind and sent it spinning.
I concluded that over the years I learned that lesson quite well. I remember the few times the bombs completely obliterated me, but never killed me. Those times taught me how to dodge them. I spent many years doing that, until, I, like the panda, accidentally caught one, and in an effort to fling it off my hand, learned how to throw it back.
I only had one problem. I would feel the heat and fling it out into the universe haphazardly. Many times this caused more bombs to come my way, because, of course, innocent people would be hit. So now I had to figure out a way to stop the haphazardness. This year I finally, once and for all, learned how to do that.
I learned how to catch the bomb, but hold it gently – like any member of a bomb squad would – then take one slow step forward and with a careful underhand pitch, throw it right to God. After all, who else would know just where that bomb should end up? Only Him. He knows if it’s supposed to obliterate someone else’s heart or it’s just supposed to simply be diffused. This way my target is always sure and I only have to remember to pitch it one direction.
I listen often to a wonderful song called No Matter What by Kerrie Roberts. There’s one line in it that keeps it on my playlist:
“I’m running back to your promises, lord that’s all I can hold onto. I gotta say this is taken me by surprise, but nothing surprises you. Before a heartache can ever touch my life, it has to go through your hands….”
Knowing that God first handled the bomb before I get it, is the source of my inner strength. I now know how to live with complete faith and trust that I can catch the bombs, handle them with gentle control, and pitch them back to God without worry. It’s called spring training, and I learn to throw strikes every time.
And so, as another day goes by, today I’m not up for a game of catch – I just want to mow my lawn, rake some leaves, and enjoy some good food and football later on with my husband – ok God? …and I have written.
October 15th, 2011 Two weeks ago, when I was obsessed with moving my 14 pounds, I bought a small mini-stepper to help me burn extra calories. (I never used a stepper of any kind before). For 5 days straight I jumped on that thing and stepped frantically for 30 minutes each day. Until Saturday came. Saturday was “put the yard away for winter day”, a day I usually enjoy spending with my husband, hoisting lawn furniture and returning the garage back to a garage from the summer room it’d been for 6 months. My calf muscles and behind my knees hurt so bad with every step I took. When I bent down, I felt like my knees were swollen, and for the first time in my life I had to grab onto something to get back up. I groaned and grimaced my way through the day, taking more ibuprofen than I did all year.
And, after all that, do you know I actually had to think all day Sunday whether or not I should get back on that stepper on Monday? Do you believe it? I actually had to DECIDE not to, even though I was too crippled to hardly walk. I did decide not to do any extra exercise all week, and just go to yoga everyday to heal the damage I did by jumping into something new so fast and almost really hurting myself. Point is, I actually contemplated repeating the same action the second week expecting a different result. Insanity.
Today, Sunday two weeks later, my legs are all better and I made a new plan. I’m going to start all over by doing it for 15 minutes every other day and build up to it. I have to take smaller steps and change my action in order to get different results.
Sooooo…..this week’s study is Power in Action. Changing the things I can change. Taking smaller steps and being more patient.
“Inertia is powerful force. So is compulsive behavior. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, writes Earnie Larson. Putting values into action takes courage and hard work.”
And so, as another day goes by, I ask God to help me change the things I can and realize sometimes it’s the smaller steps that make the biggest difference, and ….I have written.
October 14th, 2011 Today’s inventory lesson started off with:
“If we don’t take our inventory, sooner or later someone will take it for us.”
For me, that’s not just a premise, that’s a fact. For many years I moved through life thinking and doing as I saw fit. Every so often, I’d get blindsided by trouble. Trouble that pointed out flaws in my character. Places where I ran over people and made them feel bad with my behavior. “I never meant to” was always my answer. And I really didn’t. I never set out to hurt anyone or gain anything at another’s expense, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen.
I learned that when someone “slaps me upside the head” saying, “Hey, look what you’re doing!”, not meaning to do it isn’t an excuse. It doesn’t absolve me. I need to stop and pay attention. It’s a wake up call. Changes in myself and/or my life need to be made. Of course, I apologize, but apologies without going off and doing some real work on myself to correct the behavior, would be insincere.
Sometimes the changes I have to make are painful and embarrassing to admit. I am tempted to make more excuses to hide behind, so I don’t have to face what’s ugly in me and cut it out of there. Admitting and cutting out ugliness that I never knew I possessed, is one of the hardest things life asks of me.
God is always behind these situations. He sometimes uses people to smack me upside the head and make me realize I am not acting in ways consistent with what He would have me act like. I have one dear, dear, friend that I can always count on to be honest with me, grab me by the shirt collar and say, “Hey! That’s not nice!” It usually blindsides me, but there’s always something that really does need my attention. Everyone should have a friend like her, not only honest, but caring, too. I appreciate the people in my life, such as my husband and my friend, who do not let me go on unknowingly behaving in a manner that is just not right.
It’s like them not letting you leave the house with one earring or a curler in the back of your hair. Strangers, and some friends, won’t tell you. They just whisper about you. I value the people in my life who will not let me display my emotional curlers in public. This is called trusting another with your raw innards. They see all the good in you on your good days, but they call you out on the things you do that are just not right, and you can love them for doing that. Why? Because you really know, I mean really know, deep down, they mean you no harm. You are safe with them.
To take inventory of all my “bad stuff” and find the people who love me and appreciate me in spite of it, for all the good I do possess, is the real treasure of inventory.
And so, as another day goes by, to be able to bring your flaws to the table and be given the chance to learn and grow from them, is, perhaps, the best part of any true, real, relationship, and ….I have written.
October 13th, 2011 Inventory week is plugging right along, bringing up things new and old everyday.
Today’s lesson:
“What did you do today? What did you like about what you did? What didn’t you like that tomorrow you’d like to do better? SEE! Answering those questions wasn’t that hard. The way we need to inventory ourselves is fearlessly, not brutally.
Inventory Focus:
Are you willing to be as honest
with yourself as you can?”
For me, the words “fearlessly, not brutally” jumped out and hit home. Almost ten months later I was still afraid to state to myself what happened. Then I found myself voicing it to a friend. After I did, I sat up, took notice and accepted that’s exactly what happened. Sort of like AA. “Hi, my name is Linda. I repressed grieving for the loss of my mom. I had a breakdown 6 months later, and plunged into shock and depression. This blog is the story of my fight out of the darkness.”
I didn’t like admitting I had a break down. To me, it meant weakness, loss of control over myself I should’ve had. Also, facing the fact that the woman I talked to everyday for 57 years was gone, and this mattered to me, was deathly scary. Easier to pretend it didn’t matter and I was fine. Again I hear Dr. Phil ringing in my ears, “Soooo…how’s that workin’ for ya?” Obviously, not very well.
Finally admitting that took courage, but brought peace. It happened. I couldn’t prevent it. Other people got hurt in the process of my thrashing around. I beat myself up for that for a long time. Time for the brutality to stop. It’s done. It’s over. Getting up the courage to admit it, spending time in the silence absorbing it and healing from it, brings the peace this journey was seeking for months.
More than a year ago, a friend made me three rocks. Over the past year I placed them here and there all over my serenity room. Once I even used one in this blog. Today, as I walked past the shelf they are on, the arrangement spoke a truth pictured in the photo below.
And so, as another day goes by, such is life on the downside of the beach path – progress with every step by careful step, and…I have written.
This picture contains a thousand words…
October 12th, 2011 Silence has been a gift to me this past year. Back in March I blogged about one of my favorite authors, Ann LeClair and her latest book “Listening Below the Noise”. I read it in one day and her experience with silence over nineteen years helped me immensely straighten out the craziness going on in my head for three months.
Since then I have taken a writing workshop with her, and gone to listen to her speak. She is an amazing woman. So you can imagine my surprise and excitement when I got the email I am sharing with you below. I’ll let it speak for itself.
I sent it to my husband saying “Xmas gift?”. And guess what? He read it and knows how much her work means to me. He came to me and said he wanted me to go. Yes, I know I’m married to a prince who treats me like a queen. Not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for him. Thanks to him and God, I am here, healthy, and able to go to this.
I can’t think of a more wonderful way to wind up this journey. This certainly will be an amazing way to reflect about the 12 month trek and give it the respect it deserves.
And so, as another day goes by, December in the Berkshires will be beautiful in many ways, and…I have written.
October 11th, 2011 “……something happens and things change… Once you experience something like that, you arrive at a new level and you can never go back. Have you ever felt that? What was it like? ” ~Paul Taubman
Ironically, I found this quote in my inbox when I got out of yoga this morning. During class I experienced another “throwback challenge” from last spring. Last spring our teacher challenged us to a one minute camel. This was back when camel, (normally 20 sec), still caused fear and panic for me. I did it and I was excited that I pushed through it. Yes, I pushed through it, but my heart was beating, I felt I had no air, I just kept thinking I’d quit any minute and, afterwards, fell back on the mat like I’d just run a marathon.
Today was a different story. My yoga class was a different story than it’s ever been. Today when I stood in place to begin breathing and looked into my eyes, I saw someone new. My back stood straighter. My legs and hips were fully engaged. When I began the breathing exercise, I experienced a strength I never felt before. There was a confident, not beaten, person looking back at me in the mirror. I felt a shift in my soul. Something had changed within me. Deep within me. It was a feeling something that held me prisoner for all these months was suddenly gone. I don’t know what. It was spiritual, not thoughtful. I took note, then went on and had an amazing class, working with strength and confidence in poses that had been giving me difficulty for months.
Then came the one minute camel challenge. Well, I thought, if there was ever a day to offer this challenge, today was the day. I was a rockstar. I went into it confidently. Set my gaze on my familiar knot in the paneling on the wall behind me, and very purposefully, knowing I wanted to do the minute, refrained from pushing my hips toward the mirror too soon, paced myself, and when the air began to disappear, instead of the panic and fear of the spring time, I remained calm and finished the minute easily. Laying back down on my mat afterward, I felt nothing but a new calmness. Another “October Gauntlet” thrown before me, and conquered, using all I’ve learned on this journey.
Now, in this tenth month, I feel the turning of another corner. A new confidence is growing out of the old challenges from the winter and spring cropping back up again, but now being dealt with swiftly and surely, with new skills at my fingertips. God speaks, I listen. He says “do it”. I do it. He says “sit quiet, I’m working”, I sit quiet and let God work. No more “me and what I want to do” or “me and the way I want things”. No more me, period.
And so, as another day goes by, even with gauntlets appearing out of nowhere, life is extremely peaceful, and…I have written.
October 10th, 2011 Week one of October Gauntlets was about physical challenges. Week two is about taking inventory. The tenth month of a year long journey is a good place to focus on this.
“Sometimes we need to take our own inventory to get out of an uncomfortable stuck place, to look at patterns and see what’s going on. Other times, looking at our own behaviors gives us the freedom to finally have, and live, our own lives.” ~Melody Beattie
Well, I certainly have had my share of stuck, uncomfortable places, and now, looking back at my behaviors a year ago, yuck – I don’t ever want to be that person again and if it takes one million yoga classes, massive amounts of art and writing projects, crazy exercise, hours of mediation and intense prayer – I don’t care – I don’t want to go back THERE – therein lies the freedom.
“There” is a time when I was eating people like food. Gobbling up whoever was important to me to insure I didn’t lose them, until the food source was eventually depleted. Then I was left starving and alone with myself. There was only one thing to do to survive. Begin eating away at myself. That was an uncomfortable place to be stuck for months, until one day I suddenly realized if I ate all of myself, where would I live?
That led to months of self-care. Step one to that was to stop fighting. Stop caring. Just plain stop. Stop and surrender it to God. Let Him fight. Let Him care. I stood silent. Standing alone in that silence, while God handled my world, quieted the eating. God understood my need to not even talk to Him. It was the one time it was okay for God to leave me alone. He was busy managing all my affairs and I knew that, and was not scared, not even for a minute. I learned to value being entirely alone with myself during that time.
After six months I turned the corner and began connecting with the world again. Slowly. Carefully. Warily. Now, in this tenth month, I have listened carefully to things that came in that silent time. I get it now. All of it. I was crumpled and weak for awhile, but the best thing is that today I feel twice as strong and more sure-footed than I was before all of it happened. I have not even returned to who I was before it all fell apart. I have truly become someone I never was.
Tried and true. It’s life. We need to be broken to be changed. We hate it. We fear the damn unknown. We yell at God for putting us through it. We almost lose our minds. We almost eat and lose ourselves. But lose we must. Nothing changes without loss. Loss makes room for the new to enter and change us.
This morning, with 2.5 months to go, I sit here on the patio and watch the brown leaves fall just beyond my toes. Even the leaves understand loss. How could I have missed the obvious?
And so, as another day goes by, I let God empty me, bend me, change me, and prepare me for whatever He has planned for me in 2012, and …I have written.
(Damn! Even after ALL this – my glass is still half-full!)
October 9th, 2011 Having a wonderful day at Pats/Jets game! Finishing up tailgate party and heading into stadium. Whether the Pats win or lose, it’s been a great day with friends and gorgeous New England weather. Wishing all of you a wonderful holiday weekend. Put all thoughts and musings aside and just enjoy the one you’re with.
And so, as another day goes by, I pause to appreciate the moment, and….I have written.
October 8th, 2011 In my mind I replaced the word gauntlets with challenges. I opened my back door this morning to welcome back the warm air for probably one last time before the cold takes over to sit out here with my tea, in the warm sun, and reflect back on how my first week of “challenge study” went.
It seemed this first week centered around the physical challenge of losing my 14 pounds. As always, the physical acts as a gateway to the spiritual. As I fought against wine, white flour, and sugar, I also fought against the way God wants things and my dreams (the way I want things). And then I read something today in The Artist’s Way Everyday by Julia Cameron that will maybe change the way I perceive “challenge” in this week ahead of me:
“We can ask for and receive divine help and guidance. We do not need to feel that our dreams and God’s will for us are at opposite ends of the table. We can consider that our dreams come from God and God has a plan for their proper unfolding.”
I love the Julia’a word choice – “proper unfolding” – as opposed to “coming true”. Dreams “coming true” somehow has a “magical” ring to it and if it’s one thing I learned through this journey, is that there is no “magic” where God is concerned. “Proper unfolding” suggests a well thought out, perfectly timed plan. THAT sounds more like the God I have come to know these past nine months.
The challenge for week two has just emerged in the form of the word “patience”. My body is going to require patience as it changes and drops pounds and inches over the next three weeks. But it is also going to require careful custodianship on my part for it to do it’s thing. People and projects in my life, likewise, will require patience and careful custodianship to bring about spiritual creations and connections consistent with God’s will for me.
Patience is a virtue of God. He and I are sitting on the same end of the table. My dreams, both physical and spiritual, come from Him. The “challenge” goal for this week: work toward what I see in my future for the rest of this month, but move slower, be deliberate in my thinking, and, as always, listen to the whispers that fly by in what we would call “inklings” and heed them. Pray about them. Feel the hand of God at work in my next seven days – when I am deciding about food as well as when I am deciding about action.
And so, as another day goes by, I learn to approach my days realizing God always wants what’s best for me and my dreams radiate from Him, and….I have written.
Wow. Been a cognitive exercise on the patio this morning…..
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