There Will Be NO Cooking!

When I turn on the TV there is at least one cooking show on every minute of every day on some channel and it is portrayed as a fun and fulfilling experience that can satisfy your need to be creative and keep the family well fed and healthy.

My response to this latest entertainment trend is BULL $#!+! Where is the cooking program for the “I Hate to Cook” people? Where is the station that promotes the 3 ingredients or less recipes?

This year I am not celebrating Thanksgiving in the traditional way! I will indeed be giving thanks, but not by using every pot & pan in my tiny kitchen, cooking bad food all day, washing, soaking and scraping all night, then stuffing a refrigerator full of leftovers that will probably spoil before they are eaten and eventually be thrown out. And of course the worst part, the incredible guilt I feel because by the end of Thanksgiving Day I have truly hated the entire experience, and am anything but thankful.

This year I will be celebrating Thanksgiving with what ever family (or friends) are interested in spending time together, eating convenience foods and being grateful for all the blessings of this life.

There may be creative conversation, or funny stories, or painting, or parade and football watching.
But....there will be no cooking!

Important Things

Maybe I scare them?
One day...
I suspect they will see
How silly most of this life is and
How simple it really was to focus
on the important things.

Without Permission…

Taking my power back has been the most significant healing thing I have ever done for myself. Taking power back may be a new and difficult concept for some, but once you have it, it is a great thing that you will never let go of!

In the past I felt like I did make up my own mind, but I have learned that realistically I was so afraid of making the wrong choices that I culled opinions, listened to doctors/nurses and pled my case for public consensus before making a decision. I critically weighed all input, (seldom listening to my own heart) before making any major decision. In most cases I went with popular opinion or what the “biggest” expert recommended, and then grieved and doubted my decision. Each little choice kept me questioning myself and my own judgment wondering it I have done the right thing, and what will happen if I didn’t.

Not once did it occur to me that my real power comes only from listening to my own heart and my body.

I trust myself, I am perfectly willing to make mistakes and learn from the consequences associated with my decisions.

I am taking my power back, without permission!

strength...

Self Worth Comes from Within…

Well, that’s what the self help gurus say. What they fail to mention is how to go within and get it! They offer up gratuitous examples of how we lost our self worth, but no lessons or models of how to get it back. I chronically hear their eloquent declarations that it “comes from within” with the typical recommendation to regurgitate painful past experiences along with affirmations then reach up in there and whip out some self worth on command. They make it sound like it is as easy as finding a set of misplaced car keys with an electronic buzzer. Clap your hands, listen for the buzz, and follow the sound to the misplaced keys.
Self worth is not that easy.

In my case, mix some long term self worth issues, a terminal disease with the current bureaucratic red tape of the medical/Medicaid system and it creates the perfect no self worth storm. On the other hand, the only thing that I am absolutely certain of is that compared to what some other’s deal with on a day to day basis, my self worth issues are no more than a spit in the wind.

Self worth is just not important anymore.
I have opted for gratitude.
I am grateful for all that I have, all that I have had and all the wonderful opportunities to come. Gratitude does not require an excruciating walk through past painful experiences or chronic repetition of affirmations. I really do not want to waste anymore of my amazing life in a desperate pursuit of the egotistical concept of self worth when my heart is full of gratitude now?

I prefer, gratitude, simple gratitude.
Gratitude is easy.
Thank you!

augh......

set backs really suck!

Miss You Dearly...

It is a sad evening, and I just cannot seem to hold back tears any more as I feel 2 people that I know and love slip out of my life, one by choice and one loosing a long battle at the end of a wonderful life. As much as I hurt and want to go back in time, I know that cannot happen. I hope they will know how much more wonderful my life has been because they have been in it. I am grateful and wish you well on your next journey. I love you and will miss you dearly.

I want to...

I want to really really live.
I want to laugh til my stomach tightens and my face cheeks ache.
I want to cry from my heart and let the tears wash me to where I need to go.
I want to feel the music and dance wildly.
I want to love so deeply that even my cells quiver.
I want to know that I'm worthy
i want to leave fear way behind me.
I want to fall to my knees in gratitude for this gift of life I have been given.
...I know what a gift it truly is.

If I Could Trust

I have been afraid for so long now,
the idea of trusting myself seems foreign....
if I could trust...
if I can just trust myself and my body-
I just might learn how truly powerful I can be!

See me?

Why can’t I see me?
Why am I still chasing my purpose and asking why am I here?
Why can others see me more clearly than I can see myself?

Recognizing My Strengths!

How many times have I almost crumbled to the ground? It is time to stop, I am looking at how far I have traveled and all it has taken to get here, and recognize my strength. The strengths I have always had inside and the strength I’ve gained along the way. I am standing up, standing tall, facing forward, and gratefully continuing on.

Now

Now.... it is time to let go of fear and embrace my strength!

With My Whole Heart

Golda Meir said “those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either.”

I keep reminding myself that this is a balancing act. Surely the bad scary days will be equalized by great, full, and wonderfully creative days.

I have already cried….

the most authentic thing...

This one was so good I just had to re-post it here!

If I Ignore Fear?

I have an abundance of fear.
It is always hanging around me.

I’m grossly aware of it,
its heaviness,
its constancy.

There’s something in it that forces me, on what may be a spiritual level to consider that maybe, just maybe, it is a gateway to breakthrough, to blinding beauty, to realities yet un-imagined.

If I ignore fear, convince myself that it is irrational, pay no attention to its power, its message, its beckoning, will I miss something important; something true?

Could fear be what grounds me and draws me into the raw truth of life?
Can fear be not only important, but worthwhile?

Unexpectedly Weird

Unexpectedly weird is being blindsided by an emotion I never saw coming. Today I got one of those awesome “parking passes” you know the one? The blue tags that hang from the rear view mirror and let me park close to the grocery store door. Those are the parking spaces I have coveted all of my life, so I thought I would be absolutely ecstatic, finally I get the good spots!

The lady at the tag office pushes the parking pass across the counter, I loose my breath and all I can see is those huge horrible big white letters screaming at me (disabled). No grouping of letters has ever been this unexpectedly offensive to me.

Hoping the primo parking spaces will make up for nasty label I feel like I am now wearing.

I Did It!

Have you ever had a day that you worked, struggled, and grappled all day long, to simply maintain normal?

You know the ones that begin like any other regular day and quickly degrade into total chaos, where problems unfold one after the other with absolutely no warning and no time to catch your breath between them?

A day like yesterday!

And when the incredibly horrible day was finally over…I felt like I should regale each and every catastrophe, whine about the unfairness of it all, and then blame and complain to anyone that would listen. After all, that is how I had always done it before.

But surprisingly I find myself simply wanting to celebrate. I made it through a really crummy day, with all of its challenges, I figured it out, I fixed it, and I did it!

Woo-Hoo me!

What if

What if...

Doctors could see me
instead of my disease or finanacial status,
saw symptoms as a language,
my body’s very intelligent way of communicating,
saw themselves primarily as healing facilitators,
instead of disease managers,
and
understood that I have more power to heal me,
than all of the medicine they posess?

"Your Time is Limited" by Steve Jobs

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” ~ Steve Jobs

Healing

Healing does not mean curing. Healing does not eliminate disease or distress. Healing applies to me as a whole, curing only applies to a disease. If my life becomes identified by a disease it leads others to assume there is something faulty in this situation. Maybe this is why I detest doctors so much and shy away from people that love (feel sorry) for me, they only see me as a disease, incurable and faulty.

Maybe incurable, but definitely not faulty or capable of healing!