I figured that we could all use some holiday cheer:
My daughter asked me how to begin her letter to Santa Claus so I suggested she start with, “Hear me out …” (@Dad_At_Law Twitter)
credit: Rex Masters, Twitter
Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish readers!!!
****I know that a lot of you are worried about me and my family, but we are doing okay. A good night’s sleep does wonders. One Day at a Time. It’s the only way to live. You savor and experience your life more that way. Don’t worry. Be happy.****
When you raise a big family (we have four kids), you do a lot of dishes and laundry and driving and PTA forms. You do a lot of juggling of schedules and cars in the driveway. There is a steady hum of noise in the house, always. You are constantly cleaning up messes.
When your big family grows up and moves out, you honestly sometimes forget what raising the big family was like. And then they come home for the holidays, and you are swiftly reminded. As you are doing yet another load of laundry and the dishwasher is running yet again and your husband is vacuuming for the third time in one day, and you have to yell out over all of the noise for someone to move their car so that another car can get out of the garage, and you are trying to remember where everyone is and where everyone is supposed to be, you take a pause and you smile to yourself. You are reminded that you made it through 12 years of high schoolers, relatively unscathed. You are reminded that you helped to give a good, solid start to four wonderful people who are already making a difference in this world. You pat yourself on the back with sheepish pride. And although you realize that you certainly don’t have the energy to do it all again, you are incredibly happy that at one time in your life, you did have the energy to raise a big family. You realize that your big family helped to make your heart grow big, and a big heart is full of love and love is the stuff that sustains you, and that thought is what carries you through the final folding of towels and sheets, from the recent reunion of your big, beautiful brood.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Yesterday morning, right after I published my blog, I took my dogs outside. My phone rang and I saw that it was our middle son calling. I knew what he was going to say before I even said “hello.” He and my youngest son had gone to a local park to play in a pick-up soccer game. My youngest son had an epileptic seizure on the field, in the middle of the game. I am grateful that my middle son was with my youngest son during this time. My middle son is a student in medical school and he, like the rest of our family, has witnessed many of his little brother’s seizures. In fact, my middle son witnessed my youngest son having his first major seizure, when my middle son was driving them both to their high school, many years ago. He attributes that experience as one of the major reasons why he decided to go into medicine. My middle son knows what to do when a seizure happens. He took good care of his brother, as always. The local EMT crew came. They know us by name now. They took good care of my son, as always. Luckily, since they were on the grass, and his brother was with him, my youngest son wasn’t greatly hurt, just some sore muscles and a scratched up face from some pebbles in the grass. He came home to recover from his seizure. He came home to my waiting arms.
My regular readers know that we have been going through hell this fall with my son’s epilepsy. His seizures are currently not being well-controlled by medicine. In September and October, my son suffered at least one major seizure a week, landing him in the hospital three times. He is currently taking five different anti-seizure medications, as doctors scour for a medication combo and a dosage, that works to keep the seizures controlled. We were cautiously optimistic that we had finally found that holy grail of medications, because this November, our son was almost one-month seizure free. Yesterday ended that streak.
I feel horrible today. I felt horrible yesterday. I feel deflated, dejected and scared out of my mind. But, honestly, I felt wonderful throughout our Thanksgiving break with our family. I felt pretty good the week before Thanksgiving break. I even felt pretty good the week before the week before Thanksgiving break. I sometimes cautioned myself that “I was setting myself up for a big fall,” with all of my hopeful optimism, but I didn’t care. It felt so good to feel good again.
During Thanksgiving break, our family, all six of us, had a great time together. We cooked, we shopped, we went to the movies, we even went boating. My youngest son went to the gym with his brothers, and golfing with his buddies who were home for Thanksgiving break. I won’t pretend that I didn’t have nervous moments. I won’t pretend that I stopped being hyper-aware of any strange noises in the house. I won’t pretend that I didn’t keep my son on a strict medication schedule. But I relaxed, I laughed, I savored. I had so much fun. I felt so much joy.
And today I feel so, so sad, but during the rest of November, I mostly felt ease and comfort and relief, because I let myself feel those better feelings. If I had stayed miserable and fearful and depressed and angry, all of November, yesterday’s seizure would have still happened. Despite what we erroneously believe, worry doesn’t stop any negative experiences from happening. Worry doesn’t help anything at all, and we all know this, but I got a very clear example of this fact, taught to me with this lucid life experience. I am thankful that I let myself enjoy a nice, and hopeful month, because I would have still felt so, so sad today, even if I had fretted and worried and been miserable for the whole month of November.
I say to you this: if you are in a budding new relationship that you are enjoying, savor it. Experience this relationship fully and excitedly, without fretting if and when it is going to end. If you have lost a lot of weight, be proud of yourself. Delight in your triumph. Don’t spend time worrying if you are going to gain all of the weight back. If things are going well in your job, with your family, with your friends, with your health, with your bank account, with your life, soak it all in. Enjoy the good! Facts are, upsetting, negative things happen in life sometimes. That’s just the way of life. No one is immune. Save feeling lousy for those times. Save it up, and rightfully feel miserable when you are in the middle of a rough patch. But don’t let those awful feelings seep into your good times. Let your bad times, make your good times feel that much more amazing and glorious and precious. You are strong enough to handle adversity, and wise enough to know that by feeling happiness in the good times, you are giving yourself something to look forward to, when you are in the middle of experiencing your hard times. Give yourself the gift of savoring life in the moment.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
“Everyone’s a poet – no exceptions.” – Jack Hirschman, prolific American poet
Welcome to Soul Sunday. My regular readers know that Sundays are devoted to poetry. And believe it or not, Sundays are quite a popular day on the blog. The secret’s out of the bag. You really like poetry. You really do. Today is the perfect day for you to write a poem. You are a poet. You are an artist. Just do it. Create. Here is my poem for the day:
“The Invested Rescuers”
When you are in a scary, deep, dark pit,
And beautiful angels help to pull you out,
With their lovely golden corded rope,
Because the angels are so loving and concerned,
about you, they forget that they have pulled you out.
And so they continue to call down to you,
desperately looking for you, at the bottom of the ugly pit,
not realizing that you are now standing calmly behind them,
on the firm, solid ground, relieved to feel the hope
of the sun’s brightest rays, and feeling so warm and thankful for
the angels who cared enough to lovingly pull you out of the dark.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
This morning we are all dispersing. My husband and I are taking our eldest son to the airport (sniff, sniff). My middle sons are going to play a soccer game, and my daughter is headed to her job at a local bank. This is the way of families. We each head out in all different directions, and these different directions get more wild and longer and more disseminated, as our kids grow and move on to their own nuclear lives. Which is why the weeks like we just experienced, all cozied up together (including our beloved family dogs), without any real distractions, to just soak up each other’s stories, and energy, and laughter, and inside jokes, are more precious than gold. It’s like our shared familial love just got a little re-charging. We all got the boost we needed. We all got the reminder that each of us is deeply loved and each of us has a cheering squad, along our own individual paths in life. Today, I am feeling a little melancholy, but mostly deeply blessed. If I am honest, I sometimes get irritated when I see people wearing shirts or necklaces that state, “Blessed.” I think to myself, “You’re not special. Don’t be smug. We are all blessed.” But today, in the warmth of my freshly love-bathed heart, I get it. Those shirts and necklaces are meant to be a reminder to each of us, that we are all deeply blessed. Our lives are filled with blessings. And in the times like this morning, when I am most acutely aware of my greatest blessings, I am humbled and I am in awe, at just how good life can feel and it can be. And I know that this hopeful, beautiful feeling will sustain me, even in the times when my life’s blessings are a little more subtle and hiding behind some of life’s great challenges. But for today, I feel like wearing “Blessed” boldy and proudly. Today, my blessings are glowing to me. And it feels really good and I want this same feeling for everyone.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Happy Friday!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!! Happy Black Friday!! Honestly, I have never shopped “in person” on a Black Friday. Usually on Black Friday, I think of things and products that I have been meaning to buy, or that I buy regularly, and then I check on-line to see if there are any steals to be had on these items. I haven’t come across anything amazing so far, but at the age of 50, I already have too much stuff. The incentive to shop a lot (even on-line) on a Black Friday just isn’t there for me anymore. In fact, my favorite thing in the world, is to spend time with my family and my eldest son is flying back to his home tomorrow, so I’m going to keep this post short. No favorites today, I’m sorry! I’m going to savor being with my favorite people today. I hope that are able to do the same. See you tomorrow.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Happy Thanksgiving! I am incredibly grateful for this blog and I am so thankful for each of you, my faithful readers. A blog without readers is just a personal journal, and I already have a few of those. To feel a responsibility and a desire to write this blog every single morning, has been a Godsend for me. This has been particularly evident to me in the last few months, with my son’s epileptic seizures flaring up. They say that the person who saves you, is always you. If that’s the case, then the deepest part of me, who has the inclination to spill out my soul on this blog, is what saved me this fall. Thank you for being there to help me to sort out all of the pieces of my fragile heart during these last few months. Things are definitely looking up. We are making it to the other side of our family’s most frightening experience, and I feel you holding my hand through it all. Thank you for your interest, your kindness, your caring, your attention and your loyalty. I am immensely thankful for you, my readers. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
One of the more popular posts which I have ever written on my blog is trending again. This is the right time for it. Happy Thanksgiving. Here is the post:
I’ve been seeing a lot of funny memes on Twitter, making fun of the “inevitable” annoyances and aggravations that can occur when everyone gets together and groups around the table for holiday meals. We’re having a small Thanksgiving this year, being just the six of us in our immediate family. We are used to each other’s quirks and proclivities, so I don’t anticipate any real upsets. Honestly, since my older two boys haven’t been home in a while, I am still walking around with a silly perma-grin on my face, and a giggle always at the top of my throat.
Still, it’s amazing how the random brouhahas can seem to blow up out of nowhere, whenever two or more “adults” are gathered, in the spirit of hope and good cheer. Ghandi said to “be the change” you want to see in the world. Perhaps, it would be easier to start small. “Be the change” you’d like to see around the Thanksgiving table. What would that look like? If I could pick out my ideal holiday dinner companions, they would be kind. They would be fun and funny. They would share the conversation, not dominate it. They would not use the dining room table as a pulpit or a political lectern or a spotlighted stage. They would not employ veiled passive-aggressive statements and judgments. They would savor the moments, and the food and the drink, instead of gorging and rushing to the end. They would be grateful and gracious and peaceful and helpful and pleasant and polite. They would roll with the punches and keep perspective. (So what if something got burnt or something got spilled or the dog ate a crescent roll?) They would be quick with a laugh and a compliment and a hug. They would be self-deprecating, and quick to offer the benefit of the doubt. Instead of trying to make everything a “Hallmark image”, they would look around their table using only the eyes of their souls, in order to see and toexperience something far greater than any uncomfortable, staged, fake event. These dinner companions would be nothing short of wonderful and lovely.
Now, finally, at this middle-aged staged of my life, I fully understand and accept that the only person’s behavior which I can control, is my own. I suppose that I have created a good formula above, for whom I would like to see at my holiday functions. What I know, is that I have created a good formula above for who I can aim to be at my holiday functions. It looks like I have my work cut out for me, and this work doesn’t have anything to do with cooking or cleaning and setting tables. This work is all about focusing on keeping my expectations about others in check, and yet also, keeping high aspirations for myself and my own attitude and behaviors.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
“Name your feelings to tame your feelings.” – Holiday Mathis
The holidays are upon us and everything gets amplified at this time. Lights are brighter, food is richer, decorations are more ornate than ever, and there is more of everything coming at us at every angle, and loudly. SALES!! BLACK FRIDAY!! ANOTHER HELPING OF STUFFING!! GUESTS!! PARTIES!! JINGLE BELLS!! LIGHTS AND LIGHTS AND FLASHING LIGHTS!!!
With this amplification of our material lives, often comes the amplification of our interior lives. What has been lying low, deep below the surface, often gets jostled awake by the sensory overload happening all around us. In short, the holidays can be A LOT. They can be a lot of fun, a lot of merriment, a lot of celebration, a lot of excess, a lot of planning, a lot of mess, a lot of memories, and a lot, a lot, a lot of feelings coming to the surface.
Feelings are not good or bad. Our feelings are just our natural compasses to remind us to do course corrections when needed, and to soak in, and to bathe ourselves in our moments of our internal peace and happiness. Feelings just are. But we often try to avoid our feelings at all cost, especially the ones that we deem to be “bad” feelings. Ironically, that just makes our feelings more powerful. Avoided, unobserved, repressed, suppressed, denied feelings end up controlling us, and at worst, hurting us by stagnating in our bodies, which can later cause unrest and disease. But the way to control our feelings, is to face them head on, in a detached matter, and to notice ourselves feeling our feelings. (see quote above – “Name your feelings totame your feelings.“) Just like we have the ability to notice our thoughts, we can easily notice our feelings. When a feeling arises and catches our attention, we should take a pause and name the feeling. Anger. What does anger feel like in my body? Where does the sensation of anger happen in my body? Happiness. What does happiness feel like in my body? Where does the sensation of happiness happen in my body?
I read a book recently that said we could take this “notice your feelings” activity even a step further. As we feel the sensations of our feelings, we should then feel love for that particular feeling, and love for the power of that particular feeling in our body. Finally we should feel love for ourselves for feeling that particular feeling and all of our feelings. This activity ends up disciplining us to notice and name our feelings, to feel our feelings, and then to alchemize all of our feelings into love and acceptance for ourselves, and for our natural state of constantly shifting feelings. (Credit: Arnold Patent)
When you take this activity seriously and you make a conscious effort to do it, what has become really obvious to me, is just how quickly the feeling moves on. It’s like the feeling is saying, “Okay, thanks! Thanks for feeling me. That’s all I needed. I just wanted to be noticed and acknowledged! Thank you. I’ll be moving on now!” But if you deny or ignore your feelings, they become like indignant children in the middle of a tantrum. Their intensity grows and sometimes they get out of control. They will plant themselves firmly in place and scream, “Don’t you ignore me! LISTEN TO ME!!! FEEL ME!!! I WILL BE FELT!!!! KA-POW!!”
The next time you hear “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, playing in your local grocery store for the 16th time before Thanksgiving, as someone muscles you out of the way for the last tube of sausage on the shelf, stop. What are you feeling? Where are feeling it? Love the feeling. It’s intense, isn’t it? It’s powerful, isn’t it? Aren’t our bodies amazing messengers? Love your body and yourself, for being so amazing and full of sensation. Now notice how quickly the feeling has passed. (on an aside, if the feeling isn’t passing, you may be ruminating in your thoughts and your judgments. Notice those thoughts and judgments. Are these thoughts and judgments even really true and objective?) At this point, after fully feeling your feeling, you don’t even have the inclination to ram someone with your shopping cart anymore. In fact you may even hum a little bit to “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, or perhaps even sing it out loud, as you are experiencing your new feeling of holiday cheer. What are you feeling now? Where are you feeling it? Love that new feeling. Most importantly, love yourself for the best gift that you are giving to yourself this holiday season. You are giving yourself the presents of presence. And that is a priceless, serene gift that you and all of us, absolutely deserve.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
One of the astrology websites that I like to read (Astrotwins), posed this question yesterday:
“If you could accomplish three things by the end of 2022, what would they be?” A true running marathon will not be on my list. Not in 2022. Not ever. A Netflix marathon is likely to just organically happen, without any intentions involved, especially if a series grabs my attention and my rabid impulsion “to see what happens next” gets to the best of me. Regardless of any kind of marathon, the above question in bold, is a good question to marinate on, at this end time of the year. Our youngest child will be graduating from high school and starting college in 2022. It’s going to be a brand new blank slate for me. I would like to accomplish a healthy, assured beginning, out of the starting gate of The Empty Nest arena. Here’s another good marinater that I read over this weekend:
“To remember who you are, you need to forget who they told you to be.” – Native American
Of course, Mondays aren’t necessarily great deep thought, marination days. The only thing that any of us really need to marinate this week, are our turkeys. Have a magnificent Monday! See you tomorrow.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Before I came to write my post, I was reading about a new docu-series on Hulu that depicts the rise and fall of the edgy fashion company, Von Dutch. The original creator of Von Dutch, who died before the fashion company even had its ride up, had this to say:
“Use any of my stuff you want to,” Howard’s manifesto is quoted in the docuseries. “Nothing is original. Everything is in the subconscious, we just ‘tap’ it sometimes and think we have originated something. Genes make us more or less interested in certain things, but nothing is truly original! Copyright and patents are mostly an ego trip.”
I find this quote really interesting. When we do what each of us does best, we speak of using our “God given talents and gifts.” When we do what we really love to do, we get lost in the moment. Time stands still. We often put our minds and our egos to the side and we let our creations flow out of us. I am not convinced that Howard isn’t on to something here, yet my ego would be bruised if someone took some of “my” own written words, and called them their own. Could it be that we are all just vessels that God/Universe uses to bring about more evolution and creation? I think that this is highly possible, but my big, fat ego keeps telling me to “shut up NOW, and take all of the credit.”
Today, on Sunday, which my regular readers know is devoted to poetry, I’m actually going to share a poem, written by the French poet (or perhaps channelled by the poet), Guillaume Apollinaire, who some consider to be the innovator of French poetry. Here it is:
“Come to the edge,” he said. “We can’t, we’re afraid!” they responded. “Come to the edge,” he said. “We can’t, We will fall!” they responded. “Come to the edge,” he said. And so they came. And he pushed them. And they flew.”
Enjoy a lovely tranquil Sunday. Write, or maybe just be the poetry you would like to see in the world. Be the vessel. Be the channel. Let the light make it through, so that we all can experience it, and deeply know and understand, from where it came.
