Deep Breath and Prayer

Patience is essential to true healing. I wonder if that is a quote somewhere. It should be. It has been a few good days. I am exhausted and it is that "good" exhaustion - the kind that comes because you spent time around positive people and laughed until your belly hurt. These are the days to treasure. These are the moments you get that glimpse of how far you have come. For a brief second you hold the light at the end of the tunnel in your hand before you blink and remember you still have a ways to go to keep it there. Today, I am happy yet I also am realistic. Celebrations of progress are accompanied by the reminder that the "high" is only a moment in the journey. No, not a judgement, but a point of realism. The wins are energizing. To stand again with strength and power from within has been a long time coming. It will continue, there is more learning to go and more wounds to heal. I must also remember that I have many more years to live and must be thoughtful of a...

Thanksgiving is this next week and that means a lot of time for reflection. I see a few of these being written. I truly think if I started listing all that I was thankful for I would still be writing this come Thanksgiving 2014. Be not afraid, the joint pain in my hands lately makes for a challenge to type the long posts I already do, they would never last much longer! There are many things I am truly grateful for this year that in the past I could never bring myself to verbalize. I'm not going to say I was in denial over things as I acknowledged their existence, I would say - from my current learning opportunities - that is was pretty much willfulness over willingness. I can own it - when life sucks you are not jumping up and down to exclaim that you are thankful for it. And this year, for the first time in a very long time (possibly for the first time), I am thankful for life. Sure, there are still days that suck. There are days that I just wish I could crawl back under the cover...

While trolling Pinterest to build my "healing" board a little more (yes, I have a Pinterest account. I like bath beads too. Don't judge.) I came across this neat pin titled "You are allowed to" then it lists below "MAKE a decision you think is the right decision to make. START something that needs to be started. ASK for help whenever you want it. HELP others whenever you can (even if they don't ask for it). TAKE time off to do something that INSPIRES, excites and energizes you." "ASK for help whenever you want it ." What? I can almost buy into whenever you need it, but whenever you want it? There must be something to this as my mind keeps jumping back to it. Are you telling me I can ask for help with something just because I desire to have help versus having no other option ? Total foreign concept. Soon after moving back to Charleston in '98, I returned to school to finish my undergrad. Even though I had gone back to the junior col...

Our homework this past week was to do mindfulness exercises for practice as it is really a base concept for slowing down and centering ones self. Although I understand the principle I do struggle with the practice. This is my "want to run before I walk" shortcoming. The stubborn part of me thinks it has it figured out: Take the pencil What does the pencil feel like Is it round or sided What color is the pencil What shade is that color Is it sharp or blunt What does it smell lime Does it have an eraser Toss me an object, I can do this. Need challenge. The next level as we learned in class is to take the focus from external to internal. Ah, not running but possibly a slow jog. Challenge accepted. In my attempts to practice this week, I found myself pulled off focus several times. The fact of this was not so much I could not do the exercise as I was still struggling with some left over emotions in my mind that I was trying to work out. Although a little quieter, my mind continue...