inspiration Archives - Page 67 of 79 - Adulting: Second- Half

Broken People

My son and I watched The Guilty with Jake Gyllenhaal the other day. It was a really good movie, underrated in my opinion. I won’t give any spoilers other than one line that really stuck out to me from the movie: “Broken people fix broken people.”

Don’t ever think that you don’t have something to give, because you have problems. Everyone has problems. Showing that you have overcome your problems (or at least, earnestly and honestly working on overcoming your problems) is more helpful to anybody, than pretending that you never had any problems to begin with. (You are only fooling yourself in that regard – people see through “fake” and “social media filtering” quite easily. People aren’t dumb.)

Some of the best friends whom I have ever made in my life, I met in a support group. We spent a lot of time crying together in a circle, passing around the Kleenex, before we made it to the part where we go out to eat and laugh our heads off together, on a frequent basis. These people help me like no others, because they “get it.” All masks are off. We have helped each other on a path of growing and healing and expanding, because the level of empathy and authenticity and our ability to sit with the truth is unmatched. These relationships have made me somewhat intolerant to “superficial.” I don’t have the patience anymore for “pretend.” Real is where it’s at, and the only way I want to be for the rest of my life.

Notice that when people go through the unimaginable, such as what Gabby Petito’s family is going through with the murder of their daughter, they do things such as immediately set up a foundation to help other families to find their missing loved ones. Helping others through what you have been through is cathartic for all parties involved. No one wants to think that the pain that they endure, is in vain. Pain can always be alchemized for some good.

Instead of avoiding your pain and pretending that it doesn’t exist, work through it. Even when you do this, don’t pretend that you have all of the answers. You don’t. Every time when I smugly think that I am now in the phase of my life in which I fully “get it”, as if I am some kind of saint or yogi or something, I’m whammied and humbled. Hard. But with the help of others who have walked a similar path before me, I get back up on my feet, and I try again, and I hope that it is this “getting back up on my feet”, which is what truly helps people, not just myself. I hope that others who are experiencing some of the upsets which I experience, can be inspired and feel hopeful by my path of trying. I hope that however shaky and raw my hands are at times, they are always available to help lift someone else up on this path which we call Life. We are all in this together. You and I are never alone. Broken can be healed.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday – Funday

“Be the change you want to find in the cupholder.” – Ozzy (Twitter)

I read recently that it’s fun to leave a dollar on a grocery shelf or in a library book, every once in a while. Whoever finds it will feel lucky, and you can reflect on your anonymous good deed and get a smile out of it, any time you think of it. I recently left a dollar on the jello shelf in my local grocery store. I’m not sure that was the best, thought-out placement for the dollar bill. I don’t know how many people make and eat jello anymore. Maybe the dusty dollar bill is still sitting there, waiting for someone to find it. I hope that whoever finds it, sees it as a sign which they have been waiting for, a sign that means something like, “Things are looking up. Everything is going to be okay. Now go make yourself a nice jello salad.”

“I’m sensitive, not soft. I’ll slap you while I’m crying.” – Madison Ice (Twitter)

I really like this tweet. I think that many sensitive, empathic people are much stronger than anyone ever gives them credit for being. Imagine feeling every sensation and emotion that occurs in life, ten times harder than the average Joe. Imagine noticing every slight nuance and change of energy in every room and every circumstance, like being a human hair trigger. It’s a lot. Sensitive people are actually probably stronger than most people. Remember a silken, spider web is one of the strongest elements on earth. It make look fragile, but it is as strong or stronger than steel. (The tensile strength of steel ranges from 0.2 GPa to 2 GPa, while the tensile strength of some spider silks is about 1 GPa. – reconnectwithnature.org) The next time you are tempted to tell someone whom you perceive to be a sensitive person to “toughen up”, check yourself. “For a highly sensitive person, a drizzle feels like a monsoon.”(anonymous) Sensitive people have survived many, many monsoons in their lives. Have you?

2 Jello Quotes & Sayings with Wallpapers & Posters - Quotes.Pub

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Good morning, friends. Welcome to the most lovely, tranquil, peaceful day of the week – a day to just breathe and let go. On Sundays, I devote this blog to poetry. I either write a poem or I share a poem written by another writer. Today’s poem on the blog, is written by an extremely talented, inspiring person named Nightbirde. Nightbirde is a singer who despite getting a “golden buzzer” (from the finicky Simon Cowell, no less), had to drop out of the America’s Got Talent competition due to her battle with cancer. She recently posted the poem that she wrote (seen below) on her Instagram account. The poem is admittedly sad, yet achingly beautiful. Despite writing the poem, Nightbirde also posted a pretty picture of herself, and assured her fans this: “Not gonna die. Don’t worry. . . . . I know I posted kinda of like a little bit of a sad poem about dying, however, Im not dying, I’m doing great, I’m inching forward slowly.”

That’s all that is needed from any of us in our lives: “inching forward slowly“. It doesn’t matter how fast you are going, just keep up the forward motion. It’s not a race, it’s an adventure. Stay aware. Nightbirde also had this to say:

“What a miracle that the pain I’ve walked through can be reworked into beauty that makes people all over the world open their eyes wider.”

That is what I mean by my daily tagline: Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love. Don’t let the pain which you experience, go to waste, nor add to a bigger pile of stinkin’ pain, lying around this earth. We all have pain in our lives. That’s just part of being human. But our pain can be turned to good, in the forms of compassion, empathy, perspective, hope, inspiration, which all come together to form the highest vibration of Love.

Here is Nightbirde’s poem:

A Hero In Flames

I want to die while my heart is still a greenhouse for hope
All my wild dreams as seedlings in egg cartons
Reaching toward the window

I cannot die yellow and hungry
I will not die in sterile air

But I would like to die
While the fireflies are still glowing
Morse coding their poetry for a cynical earth

I would like to die like Joan of Arc
With dignity and urgency and stubbornness
A watercolor portrait in the night
A sight to behold, a hero in flames

Hidden Gifts

My friend mentioned the “hierarchy of pain” the other day. For instance, if you have a major toothache, your chronic sciatica all of the sudden goes into the background. I think this is true of crises, too. Everything that seemed of utmost importance to me about a month ago, are all things that are easily now on the backburner, as we work to get my son settled on some epilepsy medicines that will keep his seizures at bay. When you are in the middle of focusing on an acute crisis, you realize that all of the stuff that you usually gripe over, really doesn’t matter. Nothing is nearly as important as your health and your sanity, and the health and sanity of those whom you love. Everything else is just a plus, but not a must. When things in life are relatively copacetic, that’s when our pesky human nature starts to look for little issues and gripes and annoyances and dramas to stir us up. But when real emergencies are happening, that’s when we realize just how much we complain and worry about so many meaningless trivialities in our lives. Every experience in life, even our worst experiences, have their hidden gifts. The worst experiences force perspective like no other experience can do for us.

Sad Quotes and Quotations: What is Happiness

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Sh#t on Shingles

Turning 50 brings unexpected gifts. Yesterday, I happily received my first shingles vaccine. Having had family members and friends who have gotten the actual shingles virus, and told me (and texted terrifying pictures) of the horrors of the ordeal that still end up in my nightmares (my uncle, a military veteran, who had gone through more health treatments than almost anyone I know, once emphasized to me, that shingles was by far, the worst experience of his life), I had no hesitancy about pulling up my sleeve for this one. I was one of those sheltered, late bloomers who didn’t get the chickenpox until I was in my early twenties. It was a beyond miserable trauma, and plenty enough for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Since shingles is related to the chickenpox, I’m not taking any chances. When I was 48, I once went into a Walgreens and begged for the vaccine. (I even considered getting a fake ID – ha!) They turned me away. I had to be the magic age of 50.

I like that when you turn 50, you all of the sudden qualify for extra health treatments, like shingles vaccines and colonoscopies. These aren’t spa experiences, of course, but they are a measure of prevention. Telling me to get these procedures done, says to me, “Hey lady, you may becoming a little high-mileage, but you’re a classic. You are worth maintaining. We want you for the long haul.”

So, truthfully my arm hurts a lot, I’m a little achy all over, and I didn’t sleep very well last night, but it was worth it. I feel valued – by myself, and by my community. Sometimes, tender, loving care comes in all sorts of strange forms, but care is care. And care feels good.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Reading and Writing and Rest

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

(credit: Rex Masters Twitter)

This made me giggle and completely resonated with me on my Twitter feed today:

“I’m at the age where the only artists I know on music award shows are the lifetime achievement award winners” – Dr. William, Twitter

And this one is the truth:

“When you are overthinking, WRITE. When you are under-thinking, READ.” – Positive Call, Twitter

I would add: “And when you are exhausted from all kinds of thinking, REST.”

This is my current state of being. I need rest. May this be a restful time for all of us. A little rest never hurt anybody.

The Shoulder

It’s interesting to me, when you are going through one of your darker periods in life, how much you cling to your mundane chores. Your to-do list becomes your savior. Doing laundry becomes your lifeline. Waiting in queue on a customer service call with bad elevator music, can actually be peaceful and lulling. Doing anything is good. Idle time is scary as hell.

Yesterday, getting groceries was cathartic. A month ago, getting groceries was just another one of the routine banalities of my life. I also look at people differently. I understand that there could be a lot of pain underneath the clerk’s pleasantries. I understand that someone’s grumpiness could be caused by medications that otherwise save that person’s life. One of the rare blessings of suffering, is a true, pure empathy for the human condition. I even empathize with people who numb out, and try not to feel anything, ever. Empathy is a heavy, overwhelming load to bear sometimes.

Fear and sadness sucks the energy right out of you. Taking a shower sometimes takes monumental courage and momentum. And then all the “shoulds” start crawling around in your brain: “You should take care of yourself, so that you can take care of your loved ones.” “You should remember that your family and friends deserve attention for the good and bad things going on in their lives, too.” “You should live in faith, and not fear.” “You should divide your attention and focus equally among your four children, not just your child with epilepsy.” “You shouldn’t feel sorry for yourself. Count your blessings.” “You should stop hovering over your man-child with epilepsy, and help him live as normal a life as possible.” “You should keep the romance alive in your marriage, or you’ll lose even more.” “You should keep writing your blog, or maybe you shouldn’t.” “You should find the cure for all that ails your family, and maybe even heal the entire world, while you are at it.” My “Shoulder” in my brain is a total bitch and a strict task-masker. My Shoulder loves to generate anxiety. My Shoulder loves to control me with shame. My Shoulder tells me that I’ll never be enough. Someone very wise once told me to never, ever should on myself. I wish that I could stop my evil Shoulder. I should do a better job with that. Isn’t it ironic that a “shoulder” is something that we are supposed to be able to lean on in tough times?

Recently, I found a prayer in an old wallet of mine that has been one of my favorite prayers for a long, long time. It’s actually the 3rd Step prayer from the 12-Step programs. I have been praying it a lot lately. Not because I should, but because I can, and because it feels good. This prayer resonates with me. Maybe it will help you, too.

“God, I offer myself to Thee – to build with me and do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy will always. Amen.”

Friends, I pray to bear witness of my victory over my difficulties, to anyone whom it will help. I do this, quite honestly, because I desperately want victory over my difficulties, but also, I truly like to help people. It feels good. I think that this is what we are meant to do for each other. Please know that despite being in a trough period, I love life. I see beauty all around me, all of the time, to the point that sometimes it even overwhelms me. Love is the miracle, and it never leaves us. Love can never be destroyed. Love sustains all.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

As you may have guessed, the complications with our youngest son’s epilepsy continues. We spent the last three days at the hospital, thus I have not been writing my daily blog. We are all okay. Our son is back home with us now. (just where a college junior wants to be – back home with Mom and Dad – ha!) This frustrating and mysterious experience of finding just the right drug for stopping epileptic seizures is really beyond a tricky thing. What works for one person, destroys another person. What once worked for years for a person with epilepsy, all of the sudden stops working, with no sensible explanation nor apology.

Thank you for your love and for your prayers. I feel them. I was praying and I was sobbing in the hospital chapel this morning, and then all of the sudden I was washed over with the most calming, beautiful sense of peace. This feeling was lovely and comforting and overwhelmingly awesome, all at the same time. I felt everyone’s presence besides my own, alone in the quiet, solemn chapel. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. As you can imagine, I have prayed since the day that my son was diagnosed with epilepsy, for this disorder in him, to be healed forevermore. I have tried bargaining with God. I have tried doing good and charitable deeds to be “worthy” of his healing, despite my strong belief in God’s non-judgmental grace. Honestly, I have tried Jedi mind tricks. I am embarrassed by some of the avenues which I have desperately explored, to make this nightmare go away for my son, and for our family. My angel box is filled with little pieces of paper with the same prayer, “Please heal my baby.” Some of these papers are now aged and faded. I have been praying for this miracle, for seven years, since we first got my son’s epilepsy diagnosis. Still, for reasons that I don’t comprehend, my son’s stubborn affliction remains. But yet, at the same time, I remind myself that I have never really questioned why I have been remarkably blessed in so many other aspects of my life. I never question why my family has excellent health coverage which pays for emergency drugs that halts our son’s seizures while they are happening. Many people with epilepsy do not have access to these cutting edge drugs and providers. Without insurance, these drugs cost $1300 per single use. I know how privileged I am. When your heart is exposed to such worry and anxiety and fears about your own child’s well-being, you can’t help but realize how many other parents are going through their own personal agony, dealing with their own children’s afflictions, and on top of all of this pain and fear, they have money worries, and lack of resources to provide their children with the best care available. Many people are experiencing this heartache alone. I have a loving husband whose strong arms I rest in, every night, who shares my pain and yet comforts me with his deep, knowing stares. I have family and friends who support us, and lift us up, with their love and their concern. When my heart bleeds for my son and our family, the bleeding continues to pour out, for all of us parents who are hurting for our children, who sadly, we do not have the power to heal by ourselves. That’s not how mothering (parenting) is supposed to work. I am supposed to be able to kiss every boo-boo away, with a sense of power and ease and nonchalance. I hate every single one of our hospital stays, because every door that I pass as I walk on to our room, holds a room full of pain and fear and yet also a desperate hope, for a family that feels helpless, fearful, dejected and pained. I know their pain intimately, and I wish that I could stop it for every one of us. I wish that I could stop the bleed for all of us, but my heart’s tourniquet is overwhelmed.

Trying to catch my breath and to restore my sense of sanity, I was walking on the medical campus of the renowned hospital where I spent my time this weekend, and there, I spied an incredibly beautiful, old, and glorious tree, reaching out and shading the playground provided for hospitalized children – those young ones, who are still well enough to still go outside and play. I looked at her – the wise and stable tree. I touched her beautiful, cragged bark, knowing that I was touching a vital and living being, older and wiser, than I will ever be. I thought to myself, “There is a poem growing here, perfect for a Soul Sunday on the blog.” And I started to search my mind for the poem. And then I suddenly realized that I didn’t need words for the poem. The splendid, formidable, rooted tree was the poem, just in her being. Her fortitude and her vitality shades and protects her precious fragile charges. She does what she can do, and she takes her job seriously. She stays rooted and strong, and she continues to grow, in order to provide for her charges, with what she has to give. She does what she can, and knows that this enough. Other forces, higher than her tallest, reaching branches, will take care of the rest of what needs to be done. And in the meantime, the tree just does what she can, providing some oxygen to breathe, and some shade and some protection, for those who seek comfort under her solid canopy of restless leaves.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Drag

I’m excited for this afternoon because I get to meet with one of my long-time mentees “in person” for the first time in well over a year. Granted, we will be masked and there will be plexiglass between us, but it will be so good to share each other’s energy and expressions in physical form, versus Zoom. We are both pretty animated people. My mentee is a fifth grader, so this year, she is officially one of the “big dawgs” at her elementary school. She and her mom opted for us to meet in person this school year because my mentee decided that this was best. “No offense, but your dogs are kinda loud on Zoom,” she said. I am not offended. I can’t wait to see her. Isn’t it just so crazy about how much we once took for granted, before this pandemic came around and changed the world?

In other news, I downloaded a book recently which I have not yet read, but I think that the title is incredibly intriguing. (I always have several downloaded books on my Kindle, in queue. I like feeling excitement and anticipation for what to read next.) The book is called The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. In reading a little blurb about the book by the author, Dr. Connie Zweig, she mentions that she thinks that people should stop counting age after 55. She suggests that around that age, you shift from all of your “roles” in life, into becoming a wise “Elder” which Zweig describes this way: “to leave behind past roles, shift from work in the outer world to inner work with the soul, and become authentically who you are.”

Reflecting on this thought, most of our adulthood is full of roles, isn’t it?

Wife/Husband/Mother/Father/Writer/Teacher/Doctor/PTA Parent/Committee Person/Banker/Executive/Supervisor/Entertainer/Mentor/Sister/Brother/Best Friend/Lover/Listener/Consumer etc. etc.

Dr. Zweig believes that “This identification with ego and self-image is a key obstacle to overcome in aging from the inside out. The ego’s goals are not the real tasks of late life. Our tasks now require us to move our attention from the exterior world to the interior one, from the ego’s role in society to the soul’s deeper purpose.”

I recently finished reading No Cure for Being Human, which is a heart-wrenching, brutally honest account of a young woman living with Stage 4 colon cancer. The author is Kate Bowler, a 40-year-old religion professor at Duke University, happily married to her high school sweetheart, and a mother of a young son. After her diagnosis, she decided to keep teaching and writing after conferring with one of her colleagues. Bowler was questioning whether continuing these activities, was “good” use of her quite possibly limited time left on Earth. Her colleague said, “I guess that depends if this is a career or a calling.”

That’s one of the blessings which we can find in aging. We can really start to hone in on our callings. We can start to shed everything that isn’t calling us, from our deepest, most intuitive self. We can stop identifying with our “doing selves” and our “roles”, and we can start to become lovingly intimate with our “being” selves. And we can choose to do this at any time in our lives. We don’t have to wait until we are 55. The older we get (not necessarily in age, but in wisdom), it becomes clearer that the only certainty in life is uncertainty. We can choose to stop fighting against that truth and just explore with profound curiosity, what it really is, that calls to each of us.

I once watched an interview with RuPaul, the famous American drag queen. RuPaul said this, “My therapist said to me once, ‘You know Ru, the power you have in drag is available to you out of drag.’ ”

Maybe wisdom is coming to the realization that our power does not come from “our drag” – our roles and our identifications and our achievements and our appearances. Perhaps our real power is the fathomless summons of our souls. And that enduring power, deep inside of us, is timeless and has been with us from the beginning of time. Today, let’s quiet down and take some time to remove all of the heaviness of “our drag” and just sit still and listen. What is calling to us from our hearts? What feels most authentic? How can we shed what no longer resonates? What is true? What is real? What is beautiful to us? What really matters?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Triscuits and Other Business

I’ve had a lot of fun with this Tweet this morning. I personally love Triscuits, but as my husband and eldest son commented almost simultaneously, this tweet is “oddly true.” My daughter said that eating Triscuits, are like eating a basket. My middle son texted, “Wheat Thins > Triscuits.” I don’t agree with that formula. Wheat Thins are razor sharp. If you don’t chew them up properly, Wheat Thins are hazardous. Wheat Thins will cut you. And they’re too sweet. I prefer salty crackers. Salty>Sweet, most of the time.

On a more serious note, I like this quote from Alan Cohen:

“When you do what you are here to do, you help others do what they are here to do.”

Sometimes we ignore our own purposes, when we get over-involved in other people’s lives. (a lot of us “mom-types” have a tendency to do this) We think that we are being “helpful”, but sometimes our “helpfulness” is just used as a distraction from dealing with what we, ourselves, are meant to do, with our own one precious life. Our own life is the only life in which we are truly and fully in charge of living. And when we live our own life’s purposes, and we are fulfilling what we are meant to do, we feel the most alive and connected to the Whole. This is the best thing that we can do for ourselves, and for everyone else.

The writer Anne Lamott posted this good reminder over the weekend on Twitter:

“If you [think] you can rescue [your nearest and dearest] with your good ideas and your checkbook, or get them to choose a healthy, realistic way of life, that mistake will make both of you much worse than you already are.”

Do what you are here to do. This will inspire others on their journeys. You are not here to control/live/experience other people’s lives. You are here to experience the totally unique and precious life that has been exquisitely and generously entrusted to you. Live your gift. Live your life. Trust the process.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.