I love God, sunsets, and the night sky. I desire the expression one feels when viewing such things to be spilled out onto paper… flowing like a river of tears… taking the reader deeper and deeper inside of themselves… to the place that hurts… the place no one touches… the place we don’t allow others… or even perhaps ourselves to touch… the place of a small space kept hidden… but feels safe enough to be felt when conveyed through the words, images and sounds of the creative artists God has gifted us with… over and over again… throughout Time and Space.
I really just want the whole world to have a good cry and get better again. It begins with me… writing this… feeling… crying… tears streaming with every word of expression… touching the space within me. This is what the space said to me…
I felt you. It’s okay. I’ve got you. I’m sorry. I love you. I thank you. I forgive you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
My mother told me I was a very happy child until I turned 5 years old. She didn’t know what happened but she observed something in me changed. I was to learn what happened when I was in my late 30s undergoing intense EMDR therapy to recover from the traumatic event of childhood rape. All future trauma events including the rape, were re-touching this earlier place and engraining patterns of fear-based thinking I had adopted about myself. When I unraveled almost all darkness holding me hostage, I found it all led back to this ONE Moment in Time.
I lived in an apartment complex in Brockton arranged as lots of 4 buildings in square formations with a courtyard in the middle of each square where kids could play in a grassy area. A paved path encircled the grassland where you could walk and ride bikes. I learned to ride my first bike on that path at age 3. My mother’s rule was I allowed to play outside so long as I remained in the confines of the courtyard.
There was an older girl named Louise who lived in my square who I looked up to very much. She wanted to go to another courtyard where my friend Heather I met at kindergarten lived. I asked my mother if I could go. She liked Louise too and knew I admired her. She agreed to entrust me to her care and off we went.
We played for a while in Heather’s courtyard and then Louise wanted to venture into the woods behind Heather’s building. I remember peering into the woods and getting a very bad feeling inside of myself. It was called Intuition. I did not want to go. It looked scary to me and I remembered my mother’s rule not to ever venture outside the courtyards. I didn’t have many rules as a child but I remember that one.
Heather seemed excited and curious about the woods and wanted to go. The second bad feeling then happened inside of me. I was ashamed that I was afraid. I did not want to let the girls know how I felt so I mentioned my mother said I was never to go outside the courtyard. The girls did not seem to hear me or didn’t care. They started venturing down the embankment into the woods. I was left standing all by myself.
The third bad feeling suddenly washed over me. I had a choice and I had to make it NOW. Pressure. The choice was to follow the girls into the woods or be left behind all by myself, which frightened me even more than being with the girls in the woods. I ran down the embankment to catch up to them. This would be a future pattern appearing in my life… not listening to my intuition… being more afraid of being left out or alone than putting myself in bad situations.
We traveled for a while through the woods and I began to relax. Nothing seemed very scary. We eventually got to a break in the woods and came out into this big open field. I was grateful to be in this place of expansion and light and open air flowing. It was so much better than the dark, cramped, wetland woods.
There was a warn looking building off in the distance. Louise knew all about it. She was happy to go visit the hens that lived inside of it. When we got to the hen house, Louise opened the door and the smell was horrific coming out of it. The girls ventured inside and the fourth bad feeling came over me. I comprehended we were going into someone else’s property and I did not like that. I knew I would not want someone in my house bothering my hens. I was suddenly conscious that I was left standing outside where I could be seen by people driving by on the road in the distance and became gripped with fear of being caught. I went inside feeling like I was safe if I was unseen, a belief that can still hold me hostage today.
I thought I could breathe and relax when I got inside but instead I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I held my breath because the smell was so bad. I could feel this intense pressure building inside of me as each second passed waiting for the girls to tire of their little adventure playing with the hens, which I had no desire to do. There was so many of them and they were clacking away and running towards me and I wasn’t sure if they would hurt me or not. They did not seem happy to see us.
I thought for sure I would feel a sense of relief as soon as we got outside. How wrong I was! The minute we stepped outside a long, black car was parked at the side of the road. A man got out of the driver side. He was dressed in a black suit and he had an orange head but I did not see his face. A woman then got out of the passenger side. She was wearing a long white flowing gown with long white blond hair and she looked like a ghost. They started running towards us and were yelling in anger. The girls started to run back into the woods from where we came. I was so much smaller than both of them and I could not keep up. I looked back as I ran and the man’s orange hair and large facial features caused me to believe that a screaming, scary jack-o-lantern and a real ghost lady were coming after us. I was terrified!
I watched the distance between me and the girls growing and growing as I ran. I looked back and the Halloween people were still chasing us. I began to cry and scream to the girls believing I would be captured. The girls looked back and realized I was not going to make it on my own. They circled back and each grabbed one of my arms and began sprinting for the woods at their pace. My legs were bouncing off the ground with a foot hitting the ground occasionally between bounces. I bounced so hard at once point, my shoe came off. We did not stop to retrieve it.
On top of the emotional trauma, I suffered injuries running without a shoe through wooded land that was rocky, filled with fallen trees and branches, and uneven marshy wetness causing my ankles to buckle when stepping on soft spots covered by leaves. I was a mess by the time we made it back to Heather’s courtyard.
The terror did not leave me just because we were now safe. I still had to face my mother in this condition, all because “I” broke her rule. An unforgiveable offense to my soul, one I had paid dearly for repeatedly with each new intensified fear-filled feeling. I now knew why it was a rule. Here is where I learned to be unforgivably hard on myself.
When Louise and I got back to my apartment, I could not even talk. The feelings of guilt inside of me for not listening to my mother and the traumatic outcome brought me such unspeakable sadness. I loved her so very much. I did not want her to be mad at me or worry about me. My mother was a worry wart and when she was in that state, I was in that state feeling intense emotions of fear in my chest. Thankfully, Louise did all the talking. After all, she had been the one in charge of my care.
I was so traumatized, I can remember I could not speak for days without my throat hurting in deep sadness. In fact, I got very sick and I missed school. For years, I tried to make sense that perhaps it was Halloween and those people were dressed in costumes, but it just did not compute with the fact that Louise brought me home my Valentine’s Day cards since I missed school. I now believe my state of trauma caused me to see things that were more scarier than they were. One too many fear based emotions and I overloaded.
I remember Louise trying to make me happy with the Valentine’s Day cards. I can still remember her look of shame of responsibility on her face when she saw me in such a bad physical state. I owned her shame too. I did not like to feel her pain and I felt it deeply as she was trying to encourage me to talk with her. I perceived that if I felt better, it would make her feel better and she would not have as much guilt. I remember trying to push my deep sadness deeper down inside myself, so I could be what she needed me to be…
Happier and Healthier
The only thing that made me feel better was the loving touch of my mother when she cared for my sickness. Somehow I knew she still loved me because of her tenderness but I thought I had lost it and deserved to. I spent many, many years of my life trying to prove my own self worth and lovability. I learned through my EMDR rape recovery that I was loveable and forgivable and even became aware of trusting my Intuition.
As I was undergoing this intensive EMDR treatment, I dumped on my mom emotionally about my remembrance of this story and how much it had bothered me internally. She said she knew exactly what I was talking about with the long black car that used to drive around. She said the reason it was the rule not to leave the courtyard was because a girl had gotten raped in the neighborhood. How ironic I should learn this as I was recovering from my own rape.
The silver lining to this story is… I did the work and EMDR was worth it! I can allow myself to enjoy physical touch with another human being today and not cringe inside and hold my breath. I was formerly known as the family member who it was painful to give a hug to. They could feel it in me… Don’t touch me.
I am still striving for Happier and Healthier at the age of 52. Today, I trust my Intuition. I also have LOTS of Moments in Time to be grateful for that make my soul happy. My goal is to keep creating more of them and continue to work towards Healthier so I can be around to do so!
This message has been forming for a while but I felt I was missing a necessary piece of the puzzle. Today, the piece was delivered. It came as I was listening to this lovely soul Lorie Ladd on YouTube talk about an experience she had watching a mask-wearing woman taking time to meticulously wipe and clean her environment all around her. Lorie spoke of a love she had in heart for this stranger and I could tell that Lorie’s love was coming from a place of compassion for the fear the woman must have to take such time to detail clean. In short, Lorie’s talk today was about taking time during this month to clean our own sides of the street and not worry about trying to clean and change the whole world. I am here to echo her message and to add yet another perspective that came to me today.
I recently had what I would call a 3-day Dark night of the soul that was beyond what I’ve ever experienced before. My prior experiences have been about lacking feeling and connection… a sense of living in a vortex of emptiness… spiritual blindness… despite searching for a way out… a deafening silence from the Creator even though your whole heart screams for answers in desperation.
I guess you could say this experience was of the opposite extreme. The vortex was swirling but I could see everything in it despite how fast it was churning. Answers were streaming at me with lightening speed and I could comprehend them all without question. In fact, before I could even think of the next question to ask, the answer was provided. I didn’t even know it was the answer because I hadn’t thought of the question yet. Ultimately a question would come and the answer had already been given. I simply had to utter it.
It was as if I was in some weird dimension of time and space where everything was happening in reverse. At first I was in doubt it was happening, then it became obvious it was happening and I accepted it with some inner resistance, and then I let go and embraced the experience fully. Every time I began to doubt I had the right answer or that the experience was happening, it was conveyed to me with an inner loud knowing voice in confidence stating…
“There are NO wrong questions” (We learned this in school. The obvious one.) “There are NO wrong answers” (What is true for me might not be true for you. Perception.) “There are NO wrong moves”… ME: Huh? Really???
I wasn’t buying that last one fully. I was to be tested and shown just how Right that last one is. It was one of the most difficult experiences of my spiritual life if I am honest. I survived. Today… God cemented the message into my soul. I get it!!! Let me explain…
Consider this… What if ALL of us are doing Exactly what we are supposed to be doing in this pandemic? Some of us are choosing to be what I am going to call the Truth-Tellers… opposing the virus and vaccinations with the goal of waking up sleepers and helping to cleanse and correct people’s thinking. Then there are others believing the virus is real and taking that meticulous time to sanitize, wear masks and show the virus and others some respect. Those people are what I’m going to call the Cleaners.
And Consider this… EGO is one of The hardest spiritual downfalls a person can experience. In fact, in the Holy Bible, we are told “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” (Matthew 6:3). So here is Today’s Revelation…
Words have Energy. Thoughts have Energy. Actions have Energy. All 3 manifest our reality. The great spiritual sages of history have all known this and quantum physics is now proving it to be true. I think we can ALL agree 2020 has given us the 20/20 vision we needed to see just how big of a mess humanity has gotten itself into. We are fed up with Fakeness and Lies. We are done with the utter charade that is our political and capitalist systems that show a complete lack of respect and value for for humanity and we wonder why we have a youth that show little to no respect to their elders.
What if we are ALL following our inner voices doing Exactly what we are supposed to be Doing to help clean up the mess for humanity with our hearts desires for Truth and Cleanliness?
If the Truth-Tellers suddenly saw evidence of the changes they were able to make with their voices, would their EGO cause them and us downfall? Would that cause more Darkness then the Light of their Truth-Telling? Their voices are SO necessary. We must have faith the Energy of their Words WILL create a better tomorrow. Let them Talk. Love them for it.
The Cleaners… they are not asleep. They are doing Exactly what they are supposed to be Doing. Again, if they were able to clean the World up and see it all shiny and clean, would their EGO make them feel pompous? The Action of their Cleaning is Energy. It is helping to clean up the mess we ALL so badly want. We must have faith they are working to create a better tomorrow. Let them Clean. Love them for it.
I now see clearly that EACH of us are necessary pieces of the puzzle helping in the SAME end game to create a better world. I am here to remind you that we ALL matter!!! We are ALL doing the right thing in this regard. We are all just walking bases and There are NO wrong moves. We are all doing Exactly what we have been designed to do.
Nobody is more right or more important. We are ALL Making a Difference with our Words and Deeds and we are doing it safely… We are not letting the right hand know what the left hand is doing. We are all on the SAME playing field and in the SAME game. We all WIN because we are all playing our own positions. Try to shift your thinking that someone else is not playing their position right and not working hard enough. Focus on your position.
For the rest of December, I encourage you… go into your quiet place. I would imagine for most people that is the Washroom / Bathroom…. the one place you can get a few moments alone. While you are there… Remember Who You ARE!!! You are a Divine Child of God and you are doing the Right Thing. Honor yourself… Cleanse yourself. You’ve done a GREAT job!
With all the wind this weekend, I felt the need to go back and read a blog I wrote almost 10 years ago called When the Wind of Change Calls. At the time, I had been struggling with making my own personal change. After reading the story and reflecting on the global discontentment, I ponder if…
🌬 We are fully awake in the realization we’ve not been living as we are intended to.
🌬 We have exceeded the limitations for what we will accept for our life and humanity.
🌬 We have been engaging in long windy discussions for far too long on social media.
🌬 We have had enough of the insanity known as Step 2 in recovery.
🌬 We are finally ready to surrender known as Step 3 in recovery.
Wind is energy. Like all other elements… Like seeks Like. Water droplets find each other to form rivers and humans find others with their same vibe to form tribes. The wind seems to rage like a reflection of what I see on social media. Clouds are now scarier than I have ever seen them in my lifetime. Have we had enough or are we going to keep going this way destroying hearts, humanity and planet Earth?
I think about the stillness back in early March when COVID hit and all was initially shut down. There was barely any movement in the world and it was like we were all holding our breath on the edge of our seat wondering where it was all going. The winds were silent. It was sunny and still and the skies did not cry rain. There was a Peace but unfortunately it was not a lasting peace.
Perhaps for lasting peace to occur, we need to sit down, get still, be quiet, hit our knees in our hearts and surrender trying to control it by talking about it. Perhaps it is time for each of us to go within and feel and heal our own trauma that adds Energy to the global Winds of unrest.
If you haven’t experienced trauma before 2020, my guess is you have now. It can be debilitating. It hurts physically and emotionally. Hurt people, hurt people. We’ve never had this many walking weapons aimed at each other and we don’t even realize WE are the weapons. Any time we are not feeling in accordance with Peace, we are perpetuating Pain.
Insanity is not just some idea of being wrapped up in a mental institution in a padded room. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again excepting different results. It cannot be fixed with an election or a person unless the person is You being willing. I AM.
I want Mind, Body & Soul Health for All!!! ❤️ I want Real Inner Childlike Happiness for All!!! 👧 I have Hope for Humanity… Still!!! 🌈
Despite the intense winds, our silver lining is the Sun has been shining and providing lots of warmth to get out and enjoy nature. Nature is healing naturally.
“The time you take in between the recognition that you need to make a change and when you actually make it, is really nothing other than you… trying to control it.” ~Debra
I know I am not the best listener, but when God calls upon my heart, I do listen.
For some time, I have been feeling an urgent call within to develop a platform to share creative expressions of my writing, photography, art and videos. Images would suddenly stream through my mind of my voice being shared in the world in ways I would not picture since I am an introvert by nature. I felt dread in my heart of putting myself out there again after avoiding social media for many years since it had delivered the ugliness of evil to my family back in 2012. Despite how I felt, I was willing to listen to my intuition and jump back in anyway. I know I am not the best listener, but when God calls upon my heart, I do listen.
For as long as I can remember there has been an inner knowing that one day, I would serve others during a challenging time for humanity. I did not know exactly when or what my role would be, but I was given visions of landmarks I should be watchful for indicating the time was near.
In 2017 on my birthday, I was not prepared to experience one of those landmarks. I knew it was time for a call to action and I knew great difficulties were ahead, but I was still willing… so very willing to serve my God and there was an underlying sense of excitement coupled with the emotions of fear within me. I was with my friend Cindy at the time, who also uses her voice in writing, and I could not even speak at all. All I could do was cry.
Initially, there was a calm before the storm. I had no idea the service part would come later because, following the calm, I was thrust into boot-camp training of a proportion I would not have dreamed. I literally existed in a state of duress and trauma for the next several years beginning with the impacts of climate change to my home after an extremely “rare” bomb cyclone hit New England in January of 2018. Only two months later, this “rare” phenomenon would hit us again.
From there, I experienced the ineptitude of the insurance industry to morally serve the consumers who feed their bottom lines… our government’s inability to resolve their own flood insurance funding issues… a private internet flood insurance fiasco… and the longest government shutdown in history during a period when I needed them most to resolve these issues. The government served to be of no assistance when it finally reopened in February of 2019. I decided I had enough and put my house on the market in March of 2019.
As if this was not enough, the mess that is our health insurance industry completely and utterly failed my family during a time of need and I almost lost my child in July of 2019. I was a single homeowner with 3 lives dependent upon me without income the entire month of August acting as decision maker for every medical procedure my comatose daughter needed while she suffered with seizures in her brain for weeks. Amid all this, I quickly pulled my house off the market and pushed through an immediate cash-out refinance to prevent myself from financial ruin. Thankfully, due to the prayers of many… the medical staff who cared for her… and the strong inner spirit of my daughter… she miraculous survived with no brain damage and is healthy 1 year later.
So here I am in 2020, almost 3 years later, finally ready to use my voice in a period where our Country has been in a state of perpetual trauma for some time now. I’m calling it my FREE Forever Initial Public Offering. You see strangely… I am not in a state of trauma or fear during these times. In fact, from day 1 of COVID and quarantine I’ve had a innate sense of quiet peace and confidence that all is well underlying all of this madness and sadness. Don’t get me wrong… I have my moments of anger and distrust at all going on but I attempt to do something positive and constructive with those feelings when they arise.
I do believe our country is hitting a bottom of sorts and it may get worse before it gets better. My experience is God can turn shit into gold, but for God to transform and heal, he must first destroy and remove that which does not serve the highest good. Light must illuminate the darkness, and for that to happen… you have to look directly into the darkness and it starts with your own.
Our ugliness has had front and center stage for long enough now, wouldn’t you say? Have we not hurt each other and ourselves long enough? I think it is time to begin the path of recovery and my heart longs to get busy. To be a healthy America, we must be healthy, loving, compassionate, morally upright citizens. I am no saint, but I have done much inner healing and transformation work and feel I have something to offer in this regard. You can visit some of my experiences in the Art section.
I am nearing the end of my 50th year here on planet earth and when I grow up, I want to be a writer / photographer sharing real life stories of the healing of America. I don’t want to just take pictures and tell stories. My heart is calling me to be the hands reaching those who are suffering, sad, fearful and angry and help heal and uplift in whatever way I can. Even if that means the only thing I can do is keep my peace and not add to the fear and suffering in the world. This is what I have been trying my best to do since the virus began. I really have been enjoying the peace but it is time to get busy now. I’ve spent the past several months working with my counselor to remove trauma of last year so I could be more effective in my role. I’ve also been spending time creating this website, which is a huge upgrade from the simple blog I created back in 2012.
My vision is to be a modern day Mrs. Rogers Neighborhood type communicator of sorts, connecting people to their own inner wholesome and goodness. That is what we liked about him isn’t it? He was kind, patient, calm and good and he taught us things. He brought us on inner journeys of our imagination with Lady Elaine in the Neighborhood of Make Believe. I have no idea how it is all going to come together yet, I am just willing to be a vessel through which God can heal and transform. He will provide content as he sees fit.
My dream is to help Re-Create America and I want America to about our Recreation. With God all things are possible and with AI such things are possible. Truth, Values and Community need to matter again, starting with valuing humanity and forgiving humanness, including our own. It is time to bring forth the best of who we are individually and collectively.
I have many Visions. I Dream Big! May it be so!
My intention is that whoever visits here, leaves here fractionally shifted towards the ideals of healing, truth, compassion, purity, and love. The World could use more of these things. It is going to take a lot of hard work to get there. Are you ready?
Not too long ago I had what I call a major breakthrough. It was the beginning of a falling away of many thoughts, beliefs and patterns of living that were holding me hostage; too many to cover in just one blog. Not coincidentally, it was Fall when this happened. So I’m calling this The Great Fall.
You see… for years, I had been living my life with a HUGE sense of responsibility to help rouse the sleeping souls. What I mean by sleeping souls are those people who exist day in and day out… caught in traps of soul suffering and discontentment… missing out on All That Is present right here, right now….
Perfect Perpetual Peace
Ultimate Reverberating Joy
Abundant Love Beyond All Love
Complete Oneness in Essence with All Living Beings
Experiencing the Fullness of Your Being
Feeling Intensely Alive!!!
Truly Knowing The “All That Is”… GOD Within.
I’ve felt this. I’ve experienced this. I KNOW this. From the moment I experienced this in all its mystical and magnificent glory, my life has never been the same. The reaction that followed shortly thereafter was a sense of sorrow for all the people who don’t know this experience. After all, I didn’t know it… until I KNEW it.
I began to feel the weight of people’s suffering in this world on a very deep level. I’ve always had a compassionate heart but this was empathy in a way I had not experienced before. I carried it silently within me and there was an imperious urge to help the lost and suffering; to do anything and everything I can to help unblock people from their soul pain; to help them see and feel and KNOW the truth of what exists. For those who are near and dear to me such as my children, my goal was to minimize their pain; to do everything I could to prevent them from becoming blocked from the Light of their own Spirits. I was on a Mission.
Unfortunately and fortunately, I don’t live in this ecstatic state 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Otherwise, I might not even know suffering exists and wouldn’t have the heart to help. The truth is, I still experience my own periods of soul suffering. However, when I’m not lost in my own stuff or giving everything I have to work through it, I’ve been doing my best to give my all to help in the healing of others; or to share a glimpse of peace, joy, or love to people whom I cross paths with and pain I feel, even if our lives intersect for only a moment.
Although I believed I was making a difference all these years, it never quieted the urge within me. It only made it stronger. My heart ached deeper for the pain of other people… for their separation from the “All That Is”… from themselves.
What began as a Mission eventually grew into a dire desperation. It was as if I was hanging from a rope for dear life and the rope was tearing through the flesh of my palms. No matter how painful it got, I had to keep grasping and trying to help people, even at the expense of my own skin. I didn’t think anything was wrong with it. I believed I was following in the footsteps of a soul that walked this earth over 2000 years ago who gave his life to save others.
I finally reached a breaking point and at the same time, things were breaking loose within me to lead me into a healthier way of living and of treating myself more kindly. In the midst of all this breakage, I had a visual image of me and the life I had been living.
I saw myself swimming across the ocean with very long, very hard, very determined strokes trying to keep myself afloat and survive, and at the same time, reaching into the depths of the sea pulling up as many souls as I could along the way.
I didn’t like what I saw. I felt overwhelming self-compassion and sadness for my own soul’s pain of desperation. The rope I’d been grasping onto tore straight through to my heart and I felt so much despair and confusion.
As usual when I’m overcome with emotional pain, I turned to music that expressed how I felt. I searched for the video of a song I’ve always loved called “I’d love to change the world” by Ten Years After. As I listened to the words which sang…”I’d love to change the world, but I don’t know what to do” my heart was calling out to God with everything I had in me. I didn’t want to stop helping but something didn’t feel right, didn’t look right about that image of me in that ocean. I placed my burdens before God and then had a major breakthrough in my thought process.
I realized I wasn’t just trying to change the world; I was trying to hold the weight of the world on my shoulders. I was trying to play God. God conveyed to me very clearly it was not my job and he doesn’t want me to feel that way, and as a matter of fact, he doesn’t even need my help. I was humbled. The world is not mine, it is God’s. He is in control not me. If he has done what he has done for me… then God’s grace is available to everyone else as well. I realized the sad truth that I just didn’t Trust God to do it. Wow… what a revelation! No wonder I had so many issues with Trust.
After listening to that song, the breakthrough was sealed. I meditated and let God guide it as always. He took me on a visual journey in my mind which sometimes happens to me in meditation. I saw myself swimming with all my might in that ocean again but then suddenly I stopped. I exhaled in surrender and slowly flipped over and moved into a back float. I saw myself being supported by the water…. by God’s love… holding me. The sun was beating down on me from the sky… the warmth of God’s love shining down on me. There were little ripples of waves glistening from the reflection of the sun all around me. Light, Love and Peace was all around me… above, below, everywhere… and I rested in him… with Trust.
So what’s changed? The intentions of my life are exactly the same, but I no longer feel the intensity of having a MIND that is constantly thinking about how to help at each and every moment yet feeling helpless on some level. I no longer have an unquenchable WILL determined to contribute in the healing of souls and feeling like that will isn’t truly making enough of a difference. Instead I have a HEART for all of this that is supported by my mind, my will, and my growing Trust in God… in Life… in Myself.
I still feel the pain of the lost, but what comes from my heart is love, compassion, and willingness to give what I have from a place of Peace and Trust in God, not out of sense of duty or of fear for the people I am trying to help. It’s a totally different experience. You can’t understand it, until you understand it. And no, I’m not always perfect at it, but I’m doing much better at it all the time and, as usual, God has been giving me many lessons on surrendering and trusting to further seal the deal.
Fear is like plaque that clogs the arteries of the heart. The flow just cannot come through to feed the rest of the body with blood if it exists. We must relax, trust, and have a completely open heart system to let God’s energy flow through us with peace and ease to help in the healing of the rest of God’s body. We can be much more effective in helping others in this way…. for this is how God’s energy flows to us… willingly… with no fear… no sense of obligation… no exertion and straining… just with Love.
You may have heard the statement “God doesn’t open a door for us until we allow a door behind us to close”. I am not sure I agree with this concept. If God is truly in the present moment… AND HE IS… then he isn’t look back at the door behind us… nor is he waiting for us to close it.
Furthermore, NO God who is loving and merciful… AND HE IS… and no good father… in heaven or on earth… would purposely keep a door shut on his OWN child and prevent them from going forward… simply because they left a door open behind them. Yeah no… I gave up believing in that kind of punishing God a long time ago.
So to me… life is all about open doors. They’re all just there waiting for us to walk through. None of them are closed. The only thing closed is our eyes…. our minds… or our hearts. If we would only open our eyes… we would feel the energy of the endless possibilities through all of the doorways before us and we wouldn’t see a blocked path at all.
Therefore, life isn’t about doors… life is about walking. We simply need to take the next right step…. the next leap of faith. We will then come to discover life is just an endless array of open doorways…. more resembling a passageway… a hallway of sorts… arched openings with no closed doors.
I truly believe there is NOTHING stopping us from walking through them. The only thing stopping us IS us. So if doors exist at all… WE are the doors.
I am a very “quiet” person. I bet alot of people would not know that about me because I have “quite” the voice on Facebook. However, in the real world (whatever that is lol) I am reserved and spend alot of time in an inner life of the spirit, mind and heart.
I used to hate this about me. I used to wish to be more outgoing and a natural with social situations. I envied people who were free spirits who could be the life of the party… humorous and making everybody laugh. Meanwhile I was awkwardly uncomfortable with myself and very serious. I hated my heart and that it was so vulnerable. I felt like anyone could just shatter me with a word or a look… and often times it felt like they did. My heart was so openly vulnerable that it would cause me to say sorry to you if YOU bumped into me so that my heart would not be wounded should you be offended for any reason by our bodies touching. All of this caused me to isolate myself from the world even more. However, in isolating myself… I went deeper inside… and I found myself in a way I never would have imagined.
Today… I love that I am introspective and I thoroughly enjoy exploring my inner life. I am just fine being by myself and quiet. I’ve come to value me as I am. I appreciate how God fashioned my personality to be. I realize that my seriousness has alot to do with my depth and my quest for the things of meaning and value in life… and it does not mean that I don’t know how to have a good time, laugh or be humorous because I CAN be all those things too… especially now that I am comfortable in my own skin and don’t really care what people think of me and whether or they like me or not.
In reflecting about the nature of my being a quiet person… I also realize it’s not that I don’t have anything to say… because I have a wealth of thoughts, ideas and emotions to express. Sometimes it’s just that there isn’t anyone around in my life who is on a level that I feel like I can share my thoughts, ideas and emotions with. That’s why I love Facebook so much. Because there is almost always another being on here that I can connect with at any time of the night or day who is somewhat on a level of consciousness of where I am… who is magically sharing on some topic that I had just been contemplating deeply upon.
And then there are those times when a person WILL come into my life that is a real body… who I feel completely at ease with for no apparent reason. It’s as if my soul recognizes their soul… my consciousness just seems to understand who they are without words… and I am able to completely open up with them freely… and I discover a voice I did not know I had… or had forgotten about through lack of use. There is no thought of vulnerability. It’s the ultimate trust and connection of a soulmate… and it has nothing to do with “mating” on a physical level. It’s entirely spiritual, mental, and emotional.
There is just nothing like being able to share my thoughts, ideas and emotions with such a someone… To listen to them share their thoughts, ideas and emotions in return… To receive the wisdom of their inner being… and to exchange my inner wisdom with them. It inspires a level of accountability within myself to reach higher, go deeper within, grow more expansively. It’s a type of spiritual partnership that naturally enables me to move into the being God designed me to be… who I already am… but just haven’t quite fully discovered yet. It’s a “communication” of the most valuable kind. I consider it a gift from God and I don’t take even a moment of such interactions for granted.
As I write all this… I realize I miss someone who was a connection of this type… but that’s ok with me too. My feeling this just shows me the value I place on such relationships of the spirit. It’s the way my heart is conveying a sense of gratitude for those moments in time that I shared this type of a connection with that person… and those moments will remain forever timeless for me.
And so I recognize that ultimately… it’s not about quantity when it comes to sharing my voice… my thoughts… my heart… my soul… It’s about quality. It’s about knowing when it’s worth breaking the beauty of silence. Its about knowing… that when there is no other soul around to share myself with… that “I” am the most quality I can offer myself… for I know who I am today… and I love who I am.
~Inspired by the Thought of the Day written by Allan Beveridge of Twin Powers.
Our household was like a war zone last night. My kids were treating each other absolutely atrociously. They were screaming at each other at the top of their lungs and calling each other vile names. It was so upsetting. In an attempt to regain order and peace in the house, I stepped in. Much to my regret, I added only more anger to an already chaotic situation.
When all was said and done, I grounded them and told them if they could not communicate with each other properly, they could not communicate with others. I removed all cell phones, laptops, xbox live, ipods, etc. they use to text and talk with the outside world. Of course, this was not received well at all. All kinds of remarks were hurled at me… making me feel like as a parent… I have completely lost control (as if we ever really have any right?).
As I went to bed, I pondered the whole situation realizing that some of those remarks hurled at me were in fact true. How could I expect my children to treat each other with love when they’ve witnessed very little of that between their own parents lately? How could I expect them not to lose their temper and display anger towards each other when I was capable of doing the very same thing in my attempt to regain order?
Then other questions came to my mind…
How could I expect them to improve their communication by taking away all their means of communication?
Am I asking too much of an 11 and 12 year old to have a healthier relationship when they are siblings and probably need to be able to vent their anger somewhere?
How healthy is it really to ask your kids not to display such anger for each other if that is truly what they are feeling?
How unhealthy is it for them to repress these emotions for fear of losing their stuff or to fake happiness with each other in order to earn it back?
Don’t we already have enough problems in this household with people being unable to express their feelings and those feelings not being heard?
How effective am I really being here by diminishing such opportunities because the feelings are simply ugly?
And finally… God, how do I make this better… what can I do differently?
After my meditation this morning, an idea came to me which I’m hoping was a gift from God… an answer to prayer. I decided that in order for my kids to earn their stuff back, I was going to have them do an exercise. I wanted it to be a journaling exercise that would allow them to get in touch with their feelings and to really feel them and express them… to discover what was behind their anger…. to challenge them to look at themselves… and to put an intention in black in white about how they could do things differently.
So I asked them to each get a notebook and a pen. While they were doing that, I asked God to PLEASE direct me on the questions I should ask them. I then asked them these questions one by one…
What are all the things that bother you about the other person?
Why do these things bother you?
How does it make you feel that the other person does this?
How does it make you feel when you express your anger towards them in return?
What good things do you see in the other person? (they both said nothing and refused to write)
So I asked… what would you miss if the other one was gone?
What can you do differently to express your anger in a healthier way?
How are you going to treat each other better in the future?
When we were done, I asked them to exchange notebooks and read what the other one wrote. Neither could decipher each other’s writing so I volunteered to read their answers to each other one question at a time (another blessing by God I think).
Well let me tell you… it was an experience for all three of us!!! While both children had done the writing with total attitudes, a hesitation to be open to the other in any way, and a conviction they were still in a place of justified anger for the other… it all began to melt as I read their answers and added my own insight to what I was reading on the paper… to what I saw they were really both saying… since they are much too young to understand that behind their anger is pain and hurt.
It was just so sad to read it and I tried to keep myself composed emotionally as I read and conveyed what I saw. Rebecca was angry with Frankie because he stares at her and he is loud playing his video games and will never let her play with him. Frankie was angry with Rebecca because she makes fun of him when he looks at her and she threatens to humiliate him and tell people about his Tourette’s if she doesn’t get her way.
So I explained first to Frankie that what I see is that Rebecca cares about you and just wants to spend time with you and alligator tears began to form in his eyes. Then I explained to Rebecca that Frankie cares about you and wants to look at you and Frankie’s began to cry harder. Then I said… what I see is they both have a desire for connection with each other and love each other and Rebecca began to cry. All of this was too much for me and broke my heart as I realized that I am living in a household full of people who just want love and connection to others and cannot seem to have it with each other and it broke my heart and I began crying too.
After I was done explaining the rest of their answers, I told them they had one final exercise to complete in order to get their stuff back…. that they had to do the 30-second hug therapy which we had all seen posted on Facebook. It was a video of two young kids whose father had made them hug for 30 seconds as therapy, which seemed like an eternity to me watching it, and was so touching.
I had asked my kids to do this the last time they had a brawl and they flatly refused but this time, it was a condition of getting their stuff back so they were willing. I told them I would only do 10 seconds (my thought was eventually to work up to 30 seconds if we needed to do this again). As the seconds clicked away, I couldn’t get enough of seeing them hugging. Since they couldn’t see the timer and are too young to be really aware of time, I let the timer go… and go… and they got their 30 second hug therapy without even knowing it.
So long and short, my kids have their stuff back. I have no idea if any of what I did will change their behavior. But for me… the miracles that happened were that both my kids were crying… in touch with their feelings… expressing them not repressing them… and the feelings were sadness not anger… a longing for love and connection… not hatred… and they each got the opportunity to be heard, even if it was through the voice of their mother…. and finally… watching them have a piece of that loving connection in that 30 second hug.
May God please guide, bless and direct my family every day… as he did today.
I was just in the most beautiful place with Elaine, one of my most beloved friends, who went to be with God and her mother a little more than a year ago.
I was sitting on a very narrow beach. The color and texture of the sand was so perfect. I was sitting contentedly enjoying its soothing, soft, claylike feel against my skin… digging my bare feet below the surface. The ocean was vast and wide stretching before me. It was the most beautiful shade of crystal clear turqoise blue. The sky was cloudless and bright blue and full of a lightness that lifted and expanded my heart… filling me with a sense of freedom and limitless possibilities… and then there was Elaine.
She stepped out behind a sea wall to my right. She didn’t acknowledge me. She was too taken with the beauty of the ocean herself to notice anyone sitting on the shoreline. She stepped out into the water and I looked on in amazement not believing my eyes. Was this a dream? Was she an apparition? I watched as Elaine walked far out in the water but it was so shallow she never seemed to go below the height of her ankles in the water. That didn’t seem to bother her. She was dancing around in the water everywhere with the childlike delight she always had. She was so happy to be there and I sensed she hadn’t enjoyed this kind of thing in a long time.
I wanted to go out and join her but I was hesitant. I didn’t want to break the moment of just watching her… of seeing her again. It seemed more important to just enjoy watching her than to be part of the experience with her. I had a sense that if I broke the air with my voice to call out to her, the whole scene might disappear. So I just sat and watched… smiling in my heart for the joy that is Elaine… for the joy that she was experiencing.
Then the water turned to ice and Elaine was wearing ice skates. She was gliding around the ice everywhere still dressed in shorts and a tank top and the air was still warm. I got curious and the desire of my heart to be with her was stronger than my hesitancy to just sit and watch. I rose from my spot on the shore and noticed two other people sitting on the other side of the wall from where Elaine had come. I sensed they were with her and had also come from the other side. They didn’t speak to me but their eyes encouraged me to go be with her.
I stepped out into the ice and skates magically appeared on my feet. I pushed off and glided out to be with Elaine. When I got near her, she glided past me with one leg extended out behind her and she smiled the biggest smile at me. She didn’t seem amazed to see me at all. She was just enjoying trying to skate like a professional and she was thrilled that I was her audience watching her do it. I just stood there on the ice watching her glide past me multiple times in that fancy one-footed glide with her arms stretched out in perfect poses. Then she said to me in that cocky, pushy yet joyful all at the same time way she had about her “What are you just standing there for girl? Come on! Try it!!!”
So I began to skate… slowly at first and she kept doing her fancy little poses skating all around me, smiling big smiles, enjoying herself immensely. I let go of my insecurity on the skates, pushed off with force, and did a big one footed glide myself. The two of us were out there on the ice doing fancy one-footed glides in big circles all around each other for what seemed like forever.
Then we met in the middle of one of the big circles. Our hands clasped and we twirled around each other laughing up at the bright blue sky and exchanging laughter and glances with each other. Eventually our speed slowed down. We embraced each other and said how glad we were to see each other again. The hug with Elaine was the longest, intimate, most soul connected hugs I’ve ever had in my entire life. Just writing about it now is bringing tears to my eyes.
Although I was sleeping off my migraine and it was only a dream… in that brief moment of space and time in my mind… I was with my girl… my chickie… my beloved friend Elaine. I was in Heaven.
The Calling 