Why do I love my life so much?

Bend or Break...

2008-02-27T00:57:00.000-08:00

We have been having a lot of storms here in Kentucky of late. Tornadoes that leave great century old trees looking like jagged standing toothpicks... the tops twisted out. It is a sight that tugs at my heartstrings to recall. Some of the cedars trunks simply split with half of the tree laying on the ground.

Not all of the trees respond the same way. I also have bamboo. I know it isn't exactly a tree but palm trees have the same quality as bamboo. It is in its nature to bend, to surrender to the winds, even to kiss the ground in prostration. Then it springs back up.

I have been watching the same variety of stance in a chat line I am on. Someone with a contrary point of view starting posting and the usual calm was disrupted. Some members began defending "our" perspective with vehemence. Their force was met with equal or greater opposing force. And the battle grew. Eventually someone suggested simply letting go of our end of the rope. Let the comments stand as a perspective and move on. It was like the trees that broke under the strain of opposition and those like the bamboo who let the criticism blow through and by.

I have been noticing a similar struggle in myself recently. I have been in resistance to life. I was allowing constriction or apparent rejection to break my spirit. The more I tried to fight back with a positive attitude, the more I withdrew. I thought I knew better but I couldn't do better.

Today I noticed that I felt better when I went to work seeing clients. I was looking outside myself by helping someone else instead of pondering my predicament. Then tonight I read about how the palm trees bend in the hurricane force winds, down to the ground if need be, only to rise up again.

The shift really came when I moved from a belief that the world was against me to wondering about how the world might be conspiring on my behalf. As I protected myself against perceived adversity, I was broken of spirit. When I felt myself flex and bend it was like the sap of life started rising again.

So for now I am being Bamboo. Inspired by its nature, I again feel how much I love my life.

How many plates can you....

2008-02-20T06:43:00.000-08:00

How many plates can you keep spinning in the air at once? Remember the variety acts on the Ed Sullivan Show where someone would get a plate spinning on stick and keep it spinning while spinning more and more. I know I date myself. Younger readers probably don't even know who Ed Sullivan was.

I rise this analogy to illustrate why I haven't been blogging much lately. I seem to have the ability to focus on 2 or maybe 3 projects at a time. When I redirect my attention to learning other methods of reaching out on the internet, I am not inspired to log in at my blog. In fact I didn't even know my password to get into write a post. That's sad.

In the past month I have been taping material for my gourd batik DVD's and my "No Sweat Joint Health DVD. I thought they were "in the can", needing only editing. I finally I saw some of the material we decided to re-tape 2 whole segments. The first was because something happened to the sound. The second was because the backdrop and fake plants used to spice up the setting were so tacky I couldn't even watch the video.

I secretly wanted to redo the exercise video as I thought I could do a better job than I had done. I put a lot of effort into rewriting the script and reviewing it over and over. In the end I presented the material differently but I think better.
I didn't rehearse or prepare the gourd material much as I thought I had that down cold. WRONG! That was awful. And taping 2 segments that were so different on the same day might have been a mistake. I couldn't shift gears. I had the exercise material in the front of my brain but we shot the gourd material first. Oh well. The miracles of editing will fix it, I hope.

The process has taught me a lot about myself and my standards. I first confess that I barely look at myself in the mirror. I take pride in being neat and clean. I'm not into primping and make up. So I was totally surprised to note that I have lazy eyelids. Now that I have seen it, I can look at photographs and see it was there as well, but I didn't note it. I just thought they were unflattering photos. So now I have a new goal. To look at the world with my eyes wide open. It is taking effort to keep the eyelids up without bugging my eyes or opening them too far. I can feel the air on my eyeballs when I am consciously practicing. Strange as it may sound, this practice is giving me a new take on the world. I shift my posture to be a bit more upright. The tilt of my head changes slightly. This shift is fun to watch.

I also learned that I have a curious click when I speak. It happens when I swallow and my tongue is at the roof of my mouth just before speaking. If I am conscious to completely finish my swallow before talking, I can avoid the click. A little thing but it does effect the sound quality.

I also learned about quality. I patted myself on my back for choosing to have my DVDs filmed at a TV station instead of by a friend. This felt upscale to me. They had lights, multiple cameras for different angles, sophisticated sound systems and mixing boards. So it was better than a single camera home video shoot. But this community TV station lacks polish. It is bad when crinkle cloth looks wrinkled or when the fake plants are so dead and frayed that I wouldn't even put them into a yard sale. Some of the staff understood my comments and appeared to be resigned to the standard, like no one listens to them. Some say it is a matter of money. These nuances don't take a lot of money but they do demand attention to detail.

Now I know how to be more discerning when I consider my options. I know my standards of presentation. I know to open my eyes wide in various nuances. I am learning why I love my life so much.

Paying the Price

2008-01-19T10:09:00.000-08:00

I love the way insights are sneaking up on me and whalloping me over my head. The universe is making sure that it gets my attention. Todays ah-ha comes from Christopher Westra at www.lightisreal.com. He has been discussing the 10 laws of goal accomplishment. Here is number 9:

Remember the two laws of goal achievement. The first law is
that you must always pay full price for achieving what you want.

The second law is that you must always pay in advance. Stop
looking for shortcuts and go to work - mentally and physically.

This is not new information. I have written about the concept of "bread of shame" before. There are unfavorable consequences to getting something for nothing.

I know I can have whatever I want if I am willing to pay the price. The price may be learning something new, changing my self concept, or postponing gratification. But I have to admit that I am always looking for shortcuts. I call it working smarter. Yes, there are better ways to do something, sometimes cheaper ways. But it is the underlying attitude I have of seeking to avoid possible rejection and for that matter
possible success that motivates my wanting to be rescued.

The price I don't want to take is that of asking for what I want, of developing human connections. Ironically it has also been the very point of great advance during power month. The greatest shortcut also turns out to be the biggest price for me. You have to love how meticulous the universe is at stacking the cards just right for each individul. It boggles my mind. Under every rock or in every article I find another answer to my question, "Why do I love my life so much".

I stand in awe.

For all the Love

2008-01-19T09:24:00.001-08:00

I couldn't sleep and finally got up and went to the bathroom. I picked up the nearby Reader's Digest and opened it randomly. The article was Steve Martin writing his memoir's concerning his father's death. I skimmed the text, unprepared for the way my heartstings would be tugged.

His dad: “I wish I could cry, I wish I could cry.”

At first, I took this as a comment on his condition but am forever
thankful that I pushed on. “What do you want to cry about?” I finally said.

“For all the love I received and couldn’t return.”

My heart opened. My eyes teared and flowed over. I started sobbing. I don't know if I was relating these feelings to my dad or to myself.

Most of my life I would have projected the sentiment onto my dad. In recent years I realized I didn't interpret his extensions of love and caring as that. Now I think I was closed to receiving. I preferred to feel alone and unloved. In that sense I didn't receive the loved given and therefore I didn't return it either.

This isn't about beating myself up. I am simply noticing how far I have traveled in my personal journey. It is no longer true about me. I do now let the love in. I do return that love. I even initiate the flow of love.

This realization was the result of that flood of tears. I feel cleansed and refreshed. I am grateful to have grown in this way before the end of my life so I have time to feel loved and give love all the more. Yes, why do I love my life so much?

My sleep was deep and peaceful.

I Spy

2008-01-09T15:05:00.000-08:00

While I was stuck in my Internet ventures I began playing a computer game seeking for a lost tomb. It consisted of 21 archaeological sites that contained 80-99 objects hidden in plain sight. In each round I had to find 10 identified objects in as short a time as I could. Asking for a hint resulted in a substantial penalty.

Some of the most difficult items were the most obvious. At a certain level of the game, I could choose to play the whole site. The name of a new item came up as soon as I identified one on the list until all 90+ objects were found.

This was interesting to me as an exercise in manifestation. I get what I focus on.
There are thousands of bits of information coming into my systems at any given moment but I am only aware of handful of data bytes. Similarly, each site had 90 objects competing for my attention but I had to find 10 specific objects. In this instance I was given the items to locate. In daily life, what I see is determined by what I expect to see or what I believe.

It was great fun to encourage my brain to search for things outside my normal patterns. And I had to think. A "Queen" might be a historical queen, the queen from a deck of cards or a chess queen. It was a test of eye-hand coordination, problem solving, figure ground discrimination and memory.

I am now paying greater attention to my environment. More detail is available to my conscious awareness. I can choose to highlight different aspects of my experience by shifting my focus or question. It was a fun way to expand and manipulate my consciousness. If I don't like what I am currently seeing, I can focus on something else. There is always something that reminds me why I love my life so much if I look for it.

Losing the "Tude"

2008-01-09T14:37:00.000-08:00

I admit I have milked the "I don't know what I am doing" attitude for some time now. I am referring specifically to my Internet attempts but as I write I realize it is one of my standby cop outs. "Don't ask me I am a newbie". "I haven't made more progress because I didn't know what to do next".

I have been playing that game with myself concerning my classwork for my blog i360. In fact I believed my own story and developed a dread of trying. Sad but true. Why do you think I have not been posting here? Each new post would simply read, "I'm stuck". Here is my best imitation of a two year old, "I don't CARE to do that".

Today I was on a conference call with someone who took the same class from Bob the teacher on Blog i 360 as I did. In one weeks time his site has climbed from ranking 14,000 something to less than 500. He has moved 13,500 slots up while I have been nursing my attitude.

I was reminded of one our family's heritage stories. My brother turned 1 year old in early December. He was slow to walk and evidently even slow to even want to walk.
Come Christmas eve he was still on all fours. We had a clan gathering Christmas day and he was the only one on the floor. I can only imagine what went on if his little baby brain. But the next day he was......WALKING.

Now that I feel like the infant around all the walkers I too am calling myself on my "'tude." It is time for me to walk. I will report on my progress tomorrow!
Learning that overcoming challenges are one way to love my life.

Learning Curve II

2007-12-30T18:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was greatly distressed in my inability to follow my "blog i 360" class. I actually was in tears more than once. I did attend all sessions and got an overview of what could be done but watched the clock count down the minutes until it was over. Whew!

Today I boldly downloaded an audio tape of one of the early classes onto my mp3 player. It actually worked! I know for many of you downloading something is as easy as turning on a light switch but for me....I did a little dance and song. I listened to it and followed it in real time. I wrote down some terms like wysiwyg and technorati to ask someone about but I was able to follow the directions. What a relief!

My blog now has a title page and you can check out my progress. www.askpatriciaz.com/blog

So here's to the agony of learning and the joy of having a live link to this blog!
Let's see how I progress from here.

What in your life was once hard and now it is so easy you take it for granted?
Besides walking, speaking, dancing, reading, driving.....

The Learning Curve I

2007-12-29T11:17:00.000-08:00

I am learning to use Blog i360 and how to link it to social sites , aweber it, affiliate markets and the like. It was a 3 day class. I signed up to have a systematic approach to working on the internet. I thought the focus would be good for me.

Thursday 3PM: Call 1. Questions, OK, I am on board. I don't understand much of it but assume I will.

Thursday 6PM: Call 2. I realize I can't get into the blog site because I didn't redirect my DNS. I redirect and listen to the call. Dead in the water. I can't even attempt action.

Thursday 8PM: Call 3. More of the same.

Friday calls 4 & 5. The behinder I get the more discouraged I become. There are too many different user names and passwords. I can't get any combination to work and ask for yet another password.

Friday call 6: Writing content. This is something I can finally understand.

Sat 4AM: I still can't get into my new blog site. I recheck the DNS redirection and put in a support ticket. So much for catching up in th early morning. I did register for a-weber and a couple of social bookmarking sites. I sent positive posts to other members of my team.

Sat 8:20AM miracles happened and the site became live. I even got an e-mail telling me which user name and password to use. Eureka!

Sat 8:30AM I have a client for the morning.

Sat 11AM Call time. I have my Dashboard open on my blog and a-weber installed and active. I am ready to go. By the end of the call I am in tears and again thinking of quitting.

Sat 1:40 PM I am figuring what is my best course of action:
A. Listen to each tape and follow along until I get it no matter how many times I have to listen.
B. Listen to all 9 tapes in a row and keep listening until I familiarize myself with the material and I get it.
C. Go back and listen to the pre seminar calls in case I missed something basic.
D. Just quit messing with the internet business idea altogether.
E. Throw another temper tantrum and pick one of the above.

Right now, "E" looks good. Anyone have any ice cream bars to help me numb myself?

This is the behind the scenes look at what happens between the high points of realizing I love my life. Maybe I don't like the training before the event very much.
I hate it that I think quiting is an option.

Learning about myself

2007-12-28T17:45:00.000-08:00

I have a knee jerk withdraw and shut down reaction when I don't feel able to keep up with a project. I joined a 3 day intensive on web 2.0 and blog i360 http://www.blogi360.com/jamaffiliates/id/1917. we are on calls for 90 minute segments 3 times a day for 3 days. I went dead in the water in hydroplane lingo at call number 2. I failed to redirect my DNS to my new blog and had to wait. Since then I have been listening to the calls and observing my reactions.

So far I have been through a blame phase as in "he should have explained more clearly", an anger phase I might call Woman on a Rampage, total despair and self flagellation was close on its heels. Now I am feeling numb and wanting to be rescued. Here I am blogging instead of trying to do something. I am thinking learning about my default reactions is as valuable as learning the blogging material, though it does nothing to assist my cash flow.

In one way it is like language immersion programs where one lives with a foreign speaking family. The difference is there is a built in human community. Someone to sit on the bed with you and babble sympathetically. There is an attempt at a community in terms of a master mind team built into this class as well but what am I going to do, yell at them, cry, act pitiful? The home front thinks I am crazy to be learning in this way already and the home front is getting the frustrated fallout.

I don't yet know what I love about this process. My current gut take on it is, "This sucks". Yet I am not willing to throw in the towel and say I am unable to do it. The infant doesn't stop getting up while learning to walk even tough she falls a thousand times. Of course she probably doesn't yet have that little voice inside calling her names and telling her it is beyond her ability. In fact, everyone around her takes it for granted that one day she will be able to walk without falling. They applaud every little progress.

So for myself, it is time to go make one tiny little step to applaud.

What Do You Get When..

2007-12-22T03:21:00.000-08:00

...You cross a sleepless night with an alka-seltzer moment of: "I can't believe I ate the whole thing"? That little box of fudge was over the top and I was feeling multiple shades of green. I went to bed to sleep it off. It is harder for me to be gentle with myself when I do something so very stupid. I knew while I was scarfing down the fudge that I would regret it late. More than that, I didn't really savor and enjoy the gift. So I lost out on 2 fronts.

This experience is drawing my attention to how my little unconscious choices shape my life. In this case I wasn't so very unconscious as I watched myself do it and didn't stop myself. But in this moment my choices are about how I pick myself up and move along. Can I get my lesson and keep moving into an enjoyable and productive day today or will I indulge my self pity and remorse and use it to make more indigestible choices today?

In the past 10 days I have been developing my exercise program for keeping hands and shoulders nimble, supple, fluid and strong. I pulled together my outline and did an impromptu seminar for a handful of my clients and videoed it. My program was well received and I am studying the video to upgrade my presentation. Today I am reworking the flow of my material. So I am up early with my ginger tea to soothe my tummy and playing with my project.

Loving my life doesn't always mean great things are happening. Sometimes it means falling down and getting back up, even if the pivotal event is dietary indiscretion.
Enjoy the holidays. Learn from my experience. Savoring a taste is more satisfying than eating the whole thing.

Succeeds Never

2007-12-08T14:56:00.000-08:00

In the age of "The Secret" I am about to step off the deep end of contrarian expression.

To explain, there exists the art and science of homeopathy which identifies an aberration within a person's vital force by observing how the reflection of the imbalance plays out in life. Each observed trait is called a rubric. The rubrics are combined and recombined until a remedy is chosen that fits the essential nature the person is exhibiting.

All this is to say that I had a follow up with my homeopath last month and we were discussing the rubric "succeeds never" in relation to my life path. It was from the perspective of not living up to my potential. While it is true I have had many successes in my life I would also be the first to note I am holding back from my potential. That night I spent repeating the phrase "succeeds never" over and over. I repeated "I love succeeds never because..." until I couldn't even make up any more responses. I did anything I could think of to bring that statement into my conscious reality.

This exercise was not based on a negative self image nor feeding negativity. This was my way of taking responsibility for the thoughts, feelings, judgments and criticisms
that also create my experience. I am reflecting back on the statement, " What you resist persists". I swapped resisting with embracing.

What happened? The next day I had 3 home health referrals equaling 20 visits and 3 additional private clients hours. This was like rain following a drought since I had not had any home health referrals in six weeks.

Since then I recall the words "succeeds never" to mind every time I feel discouraged or overwhelmed. It is like my new "baby blanky". I am not sure why it motivates me or how it removes my perceived barriers but for now it does. My actions are those of a person moving forward with passion. My fear is not now running the show but travels at my side.

Without getting into the psychology of it all, positive thinking alone does not move me forward. I seem to need to embrace the shadow part of myself to harvest the power to behave differently. Maybe my homeopathic remedy is working as in it is bringing patterns to my attention for fresh decisions. In any case,this is why I love my life so much.

Glowing

2007-12-04T22:36:00.000-08:00

What does it mean to glow in the sense of choosing to glow at will. I know there are times I associate with glowing like parents at the time of a birth. Maybe it is the flush one gets after a success following long effort. Is it a radiation of love and peace? I wish it for everyone.

In recent days I have read many glowing tributes to a colleague who passed away abruptly. I knew of him and had met him. He and his wife were active in the broader community. He is worthy of the tribute.

This death draws my attention back to the other deaths this year of men close to me. It gets me to thinking about my own death. I recently read Gloria Page's account of some women being given tombstone shaped paper. On the front each wrote her own epitaph according to what other people would say about her. On the other side each wrote what she wished others would say about her. Very interesting.

My mother died when I was 19. That event probably shaped me more than I care to imagine. No one else close to me died until this year,36 years later. I developed a pragmatic and functional view of death in my aloof kind of way. I had little use for funerals. Didn't plan on having one myself. After all, I'm gone.

My involvement with my dad's funeral was transformative for me. Even though I had worked at healing my relationship with him, much healing happened in preparing for and speaking at the funeral. It was important to attend my martial art instructor's funeral. I am thinking my feelings about my own funeral were colored by feeling who would come, how would people know that I had died. My communities are diverse and often distant. Often I lurk instead of participate. It brings me back to the value of communication I spoke of in the last post. What would people say? What do I want them to say? How do I need to let people in in order for people to feel that about me?

Often people don't know how they touch my life. I doubt I realize how I touch the lives of others. What would it be like to really let them know and would they hear that sentiment from me? Somehow I would like to think people's lights would glow a little brighter from having come in contact with me. I now would like people to know that my light glows a little brighter because of who they are and how they touch me now. Why does my life-light glow as much as it does? Because of you.

Rollercoaster Thrills

2007-12-04T20:06:00.000-08:00

For the past month I have been in Sterling Valentine's Power Month. Every member sets a target, works towards it and posts about it every day. In addition we reply and respond to each other's posts so no-one feels that they are tromping through the nether-gloom alone. The process brought me to some genuine self discovery.

I got great feedback on my blog writing, made my first Internet sale, and learned about interacting with others in asking for help, getting help, and giving assistance. I used to have an image of myself as a loner. Even writing this blog is rather insular even though I am sharing my inner questing. I come down from my ivory tower to be present to others in my work but I rarely get "involved".

Early on in the power month I really made it a point to respond to other's posts. I stretched beyond my comfort zone. I even found myself reaching out to others more in my daily life. I was reminded yet again that I am the one who holds back rather than others not "liking" me. My aloofness sends a leave me alone message. Something about that is shifting.

In the second part of the month I hit the wall where I didn't feel like working on my project. Holiday distractions, long client filled work days, and hitting the I don't feel like it wall took its toll. I had to do something because I had agreed to post. So I did. I didn't invest the time to respond to others pasts as I had in the beginning and now, looking back, I think that it was my loss though I still have contact info to follow up on if I choose. It wasn't quite as fun when I became more self-focused.

Holding myself accountable to the group and taking daily action, together with insights from Sterling did create a momentum. I now have 4 prototypes of my gourd work to use in creating my "gourdbatik how to" DVDs. I am setting something up with a production team now. And something more happened. There was 15 hours, 37 minutes of power month remaining when I woke at 4AM with a very clear vision of what I was doing with the project, what steps needed to be done and in what order. That was a rush. I don't think I like adrenalin much but it was a great rush. I got up and made notes.

Later that day, I had a hour between clients and created a flow plan. And another idea revealed itself. I can marry my art and my healing by creating an exercise DVD for artists and crafters. I have the best self treatment techniques to keep fingers nimble and functioning, to relieve carpal tunnel, to get rid of that nagging neck and shoulder tension. Everyone I have spoken to really likes that idea. And those who have seen my gourds want to learn that as well. I am even in discussion to teach a class to a local art guild! (I need to be careful her about choosing my focus and not get scattered. Michael Angier said the next new idea can be the death of my current project.)

All of this in one short month!. There is another Power Month starting next week. You can Google "Power Month" if you are interested. Bring your marbles and get ready to play. The ups and the downs, my roller coaster thrills, are all part of why I love my life so much.

Problem Solved!

2007-11-18T14:13:00.000-08:00

One task I set for myself this summer was to find a way to do my gourd work using a colorfast medium that gave me the same effects as my leather dyes did. And today I am proud to announce, mission accomplished! I have journeyed now through 7 different product lines. All claim to be colorfast or at least resistant to fading. Some have interesting properties, but they didn't run and merge like the dyes. I even tried mixing the various products with different solvents to push them where I wanted to go.

Yesterday, I found the perfect alcohol based ink that is mare for nonporous surfaces. Sounds like it was made for gourds to me though I have not seen it mentioned to date.
And it works well with my existing resist for my batik style of painting. Hurrah!

I am already testing the interactions of this product line with the other products I have tries to keep my palette as colorful, rich and subtle as possible. Besides that, I can affiliate with a company that sells these products. I don't have to sell them myself.

It feels awesome to set a challenge before myself and persist through to completion. I discovered so many interesting techniques and products along the way. Sometimes it was fun to explore the alleys and byways of crafting I will probably never do. But I might find a way to apply the concept to gourds or glass or something else fun on the horizon.

The search has been as much fun as the eureka moment. Now I have the full line of colors on order and can hardly wait for their arrival. Simple joys are at hand.
The more I savor the question, the more I discover "Why do I love my life so much"?

Take III

2007-11-13T22:32:00.000-08:00

I am standing in the way of standing in "my way". Hang in her with me. If you have followed my posts from the beginning you are probably wondering at my participation in Power Month in which I report on progress towards my goals everyday. You know how I resist goals in favor of moving in an inspired direction.

Over the course of time 2 threads did emerge in my life that I decided to add intensity to. One was getting my blog out there and the other was developing my gourd work. They arose organically out of loving my life, sit still and do nothing time, and gamzu, thinking this too is for the best. This is "my way". I have become the obstacle to that way.

I felt inspired to join power month. I didn't need to set steps and report on whether I did them or not. All I needed to do was report my progress in my direction and support others. Where along the line did it become about making money on the Internet? Yes, I do want income streams from my work but that was not the core intention. My core intention was about putting myself out there in the world, risking sharing myself with others and if money came as a result of that then great.

A couple of days ago I got a taste of making money from the Internet from the sale of the graphics program. (Which I still love and you can check it out at http://quickwebcreations.com/?e=lifeofhoney). It was exhilarating. My efforts became about making money instead of sharing my gifts. I started exploring affiliate marketing in the proven way instead of sitting still and nothing nothing in my inspired way. So I came to stand in my way in the obstacle sense to my inspired way of doing things.

As my homeopath Doug told me today, I am the most uniquely individual person he knows. I am charting a course to do it "my way". It won't be the proven way that others have developed and are promoting to be successful on the Internet. I don't think it is re-inventing the wheel either. There are many who have lived a rich life by loving it and acting from inspiration based on silence, knowing that the outcome is always for the best. Maybe this is being in the world but not of it.

From this I am remembering how important it is to tell myself the truth. My private practice is lighter than usual right now. This is not about scarcity. This is about parting the waters of my routine to allow creativity to take point for a time. I don't have trouble supporting myself.

I was inspired to do power month. I still am. But I have to do it "my way". This little detour has been enlightening. Maybe that is what the journey is really all about. I see the door to loving my life so much opening for me again. Thank you. I love you.

Standing in my Own Way, Take 2

2007-11-13T15:22:00.000-08:00

OK, last post I was standing in my own way, running tackle against myself. I just had a conversation with my homeopath and used the sentence "I am standing in my own way". I meant that I was getting in my own way. He heard it as "Standing in My Way", as in the song "I did it my way". It wasn't a value judgment as both can be true at once. As he said, he doesn't know anyone as "individual" as me. I do have my own way. On the other hand, that very "own way" of mine may also be part of a mechanism that avoids success to the degree that I am capable and wanting.

The conversation that prompted the post about running tackle against myself was based on the idea of using proven techniques that work instead of re-inventing the wheel. And could see the wisdom but balked at the proven technique because it was out of phase with my self image or at least out of my comfort zone.

So if I stand in my own way, do it my way, it has value only if it is grounded in firm principles. If doing it my way is a matter of hesitation to leave my comfort zone then I deserve the lackluster results that I get. Maybe this is part of becoming a warrior. A wannabe warrior does have to submit to the training of the master. There is a breaking down process before the building up process. I get to unlearn my habits that now feel "so me" that don't serve me to master the tools and techniques that do serve me.

Short of joining the military or a monastery there are few avenues that break us down and build us up is a systematic way. Maybe life does that in the sense that we move about until we magnetize circumstances that make us uncomfortable enough or excite us enough to seek a different way. I'm not yet in a place to pull my reflections together into a tidy bundle. Letting it unfold may be the way to love my life.

On a lighter note, I have a new Internet "toy" that makes headline graphics way fast, way cool, way colorful. Here is the link: http://quickwebcreations.com/?e=lifeofhoney
Check it out.

Running Tackle Against Myself

2007-11-11T20:31:00.000-08:00

The image I have of myself is standing right smack dab in front of where I think I want to go. The confrontation makes my head swim, my heart race and my palms sweat. Even my eyes don't want to focus. Sigh. Big sigh.

It is a show down between me and myself or maybe between a past me and a potential future me. I am sad to say that I often let the old me win. Sigh and huff. It wins when I choose to adjust my eating habits and then emotional cravings show up and I'm off following those. It wins when I think about expanding my business but don't see myself as a marketer or even a people person and so I don't try. It wins when I stay with the known and comfortable instead of trying something new.

To be fair there are arenas in which I do go for it. There are also arenas in which I pretend to go for it but don't really do those things that would make a real difference. I even fool myself into believing that I am going for it but I am not crossing into the territory of real change. In hind sight I have caught myself playing it safe too many times to be comfortable with that choice any longer.

So now I am in the midst of a stare down. I am trying to figure a way out around myself while the enemy is not only listening to my game plan but sabotaging it as well. I suspect I am thinking about this far too much. Oh sigh. Time to pull out my Ho'oponopono cleaning and keep my brain busy saying, "I love you", "Thank you".

In the morning I will get someone to help walk me forward. Hopefully I'll find the giant I see in front of me tonight is nothing more than a puff of smoke.

All I have to do is take one step and then another. I'll be watching the journey and report. Sigh, breathe, sigh, breathe.

Up to my Elbows

2007-11-10T08:13:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had that sinking feeling that something is amiss. Yesterday I turned on the faucet and the water pressure was severely compromised. I checked the outdoor hose just in case. It was turned off, no problem. I had someone working in my garden to put it to bed for the winter and called out to see if he was running water. No. But he walked over to the faucet and said I had better come look. Sure enough, there was water pooling up around the garden faucet and running off.

I live on a farm. Things get jury rigged here all the time. I was living here when the water was installed from the house to the barn with a side spout to the garden. I remember discussing putting the cut off where we could get at it but no one seems to know where that is. It is certainly buried anyway. We couldn't get the water turned off at the road because it needed a special tool. The water company had an answering machine on. I could hear the water running and the meter was spinning.

I finally called city hall. One benefit of rural living is that I could just call city hall. They sent someone out to turn the water off. And this is all happening on a Friday afternoon. So Travis and I started digging. As we dug, the dirt walls began leaking. Well, not leaking exactly, more like pouring water in through a gopher hole. I plugged it up, smoothed the walls of the hole with clay and bailed and bailed and bailed. The water found more places to seep than I could stop. Travis was digging diversionary holes and channels to lure the water away but it didn't help. None of the neighbors were home to see if they had a sump pump. I was in the mud and water way up past my elbows and no running water in the house.

In the end, we had to let nature take its course and call it a day. I have lived where I had to bring in potable water before so this is no problem. AT least I didn't realize at the momnet how spoiled I have become. I had put water in the bathtub for washing and flushing the toilet. Unfortunately it all seeped down the drain. Sigh.

Times like these can try my philosophical view of life. Is the universe friendly? Am I being thwarted? What lesson am I needing to learn from this event? Actually, once I got the water turned off, I was very calm and didn't consider the meaning of it all. There was little water so conserve and be patient. I tried not to cook so as not to dirty dishes. I had filled a couple of gallon jugs for washing.

By this morning nature had taken its course and the standing water had moved along. We dug the mud out, cut off the broken PVC pipe and my neighbor had an end cap that would work to cap it off. Just a minute ago I left my computer to help turn the water back on very slowly. Our repair held! I have turned the hot water heater back on and scrapped the inch of clay from the bottom of my shoes.

Ahhh, the pleasures of running water. There are so many conveniences of modern life that I take for granted. As I look around me there is nothing that would not have been considered a miracle somewhere in time. Even my paintbrushes, there was a time I would have had to chew just the right twig to get a semblance of a brush. How times have changed. Even saying "What a deal", when I purchase things does not bring to mind the magnitude of miracles we now call conveniences or even necessities that I take for granted everyday.

Soon it will be the miracle of a nice hot shower with soap and towels and clean clothes. Life itself is a miracle. What we have discovered, invented and mass produced to add to our comfort of living is astounding. Every where I look I see answers to the question, "Why do I love my life so much"?

PS Now that is it fixed, I received a phone call from another neighbor up the road.
"Word is all over the county that you are having water problems". That thought freaked me the most. It might have been a good April Fool's joke. As it turns out, his wife was having coffee with Travis' mom. The universe is now only friendly, but laughing. So am I.

The Day of Didn'ts

2007-11-08T09:31:00.000-08:00

Each day is remarkable for something unique. Today is important for what I didn't do instead of what I did do. I had before me a wide open day and a to do list. I was making great progress and then, lurking behind the bushes of my mind, I saw a way to use up the whole day. I saw a way to avoid doing some uncomfortable tasks. The plan was simple. Drive to Nashville to buy a certain kind of permanant watercolor to try on my gourds. Reasonable enough and working towards my plan but not what would really propell me forward.

Want to do is not always best to do. Let's see. Gas is now over $3 a gallon, it will take 5 hours and I won't feel like being productive when I get back. If I calculate the value of my time, that is a very expensive bottle of watercolor. I didn't go to Nashville. I did order it and other inks online to be delivered.

My other big didn't still has me quivering and trembling. I didn't jump at the chance to take on another Occupational Therapy job. I have had financial concerns of late because my PRN, as needed, positions have not been needing much lately. But my consuming habits have not backed off to match my income. The new job would solve my financial concerns and probably kill my dreams. I wouldn't have time to do both.
I said no, not now. I left myself a little hungry and committed to my 30 day PowerMonth Challenge during which I intend to develop my gourd business.

So I did not escape and I did not sell out my dreams. To me it is a sign of growth and evidence of why I love my life so much.

Someone Believes in Me

2007-11-07T18:26:00.001-08:00

There are a few rare occasions when I get it in the moment that someone believes in me. In hindsight I can find many more examples that people did. But what I am speaking of are the times when I allow myself to "Grok" it in the moment. I know I date myself here. read "Stranger in a Strange Land" to grok it.

The first time I remember was my freshman math teacher asking to see my report card. Something in that told me she cared and thought I had potential. It was strong enough to think I might want to major in math which was a good idea until I got to college calculus.

In the second instance I was an high school junior going through the food service line when another student asked me if I wanted to help decorate for a dance. Out of the blue! I was shocked. I did and stayed for a meeting of Junior Statesman and began public speaking of a sort. I also met my first boyfriend in that group. My life changed because someone reached out to me. I came down from my ivory tower and participated.

Fast forward to this week. I signed up for "PowerMonth" with Sterling Valentine. Everyone set goals and made the agreement to work on their project everyday and post what was done every day and to provide feedback to others. I am developing my gourd business and also seeking feedback on ways to reach out with this blog. Some people actually took the time to read my blog and comment on my writing. My insides flipped and jumped. I was back in high school being asked to decorate for a dance.
Someone believes in me! Actually a bunch of someones believe in me. Perhaps the greatest miracle is that I hear them and am letting it in. I am excited and shaking in my boots.

Last night I was so excited I couldn't sleep for all of the ideas sparking in my brain. I made notes. Tonight I am back to facing my demons of self doubt. I will probably get to face them each and everyday of this 30 day challenge. But, somewhere inside, I know people believe in me and I will persist. Why do I love my life so much?

November Watermelon

2007-11-03T13:45:00.000-07:00

Today I am eating the fruit of my watermelon vine. It is November 3. I harvested the last pair of melons just today. Actually I didn't even know that I still had watermelons on the vine until yesterday. I thought I brought in the last one a week ago. Surprise! They were hiding behind the fence and vines. It is a testimony to the hot summer and fall we had and I got my little plant in late. Most people boast of having the first tomatoes, I have the last watermelon and the last tomatoes.

I enjoy taking an active role in providing what I eat. Mostly I now plant only those things that are hard or expensive to get like snow peas, peas and certain winter squash. This year I put in 2 watermelon plants and a couple of tomatoes. One is in the greenhouse attached to the house. I am seeing how long I can get fresh tomatoes. I have more buds than ever right now.

A few days ago I was shelling Lima beans and washing turnips greens. The timing wasn't convenient but they couldn't be put off. I pulled my attention to the task and got into it. I bought them from the farmers market. My local produce farmers had a really hard time this year from the early frost and the hot dry summer. I believe in supporting them, even if turnip greens are not my favorite. It is late in the season and not many customers are showing up anymore. But because of their efforts, I don't need to have a big garden of my own right now.

We are getting the dormant garden ready for winter this year though as I plan to plant gourds again next year for my artwork. I may even plant more garden again.
There is something nourishing about playing in the dirt and growing something myself. A couple of weeks ago I was planting daffodil bulbs. To make the space to plant them I also had to dig up the bulbs that had gotten overcrowded before. I pulled up 5 gallon bucket of bulbs to plant 70 fancier ones. Now I get to replant
the small bulbs in my drive around circle where they will have space to expand and multiply. Finding each bulb was like finding a treasure. LAter that night I was reminded why gardening is such good exercise!

When it is so easy to buy supplies from the store it is not hard to understand the kid who thinks milk comes from cardboard cartons. I have a strange little habit I have cultivated when I shop. When the clerk tells me the total, I respond, "What a deal"! It helps me remember how I would need to be spending my time surviving if all of these products weren't so available.

One of my clients was complaining over the price of propane gas and I said it was easy compared to chopping and stacking wood for 2 weeks to have wood for winter. I know. I did that. And it wasn't so many years ago. Then I was young enough to think of it as an adventure. Now... let's just say I'll happily pay for the heating fuel.

Gratitude is all a matter of perspective. What a deal!

And I have fresh from the vine watermaelon. How cool is that!

Twists and Turns

2007-10-27T22:13:00.000-07:00

I am amused and amazed by the twists and turns my life is taking these days. I am following my curiosity and my inspiration. My private practice is flowing along and the rest of my time is now doing art. Right now that is gourd painting.

It all started when I signed up to submit pieces to the state fair as a way to channel my grief. That reignited my interest in my gourd work. A number of years ago I juried into the Kentucky Crafted Artist program. I had some gourds in a local shop and was always delighted to get an unexpected check. I was discouraged because my medium of choice faded.

Recently I began experimenting with more colorfast medium, trying to get them to behave the way I wanted. Now I am playing with new techniques that capitalize on what the medium likes to do with some delightful (yes, and dreadful) results. I have been reading various "how to" books and adapting them to my technique with the goal of determining a series of gourd projects that I can teach by DVD and in person.

I am currently sidestepping the what to paint problem to try new things using their prototype project. I read about the next technique the night before and if something inspires me I adapt the project. Last night I had the idea to paint a peacock feather. That gourd is stunning in its simplicity. It may become one of my painting themes.

Right now I have my painted gourds piling up like a fruit arrangement on the top of my propane stove behind me. I can see my progress in a glance. Of course, I am delaying turning the heater on for the season. Soon some will go in the trash, and some will move upstairs. I am beginning to gather a new body of work to photograph to enter into juried art shows.

Without giving up my day job, I am living the life of an artist. This turn of events was unimagined last spring. And now I can't imagine not living the artist's way.
Why do I love my life so much?

Is It Working?

2007-10-25T11:03:00.000-07:00

I started using the ho'oponopono cleaning technique of saying to myself "I Love You, Thank You, I'm Sorry, Please Forgive Me", for a few months now. I ordered e-books of seminars, attended a phone seminar, read "Zero Limits" by Joe Vitale and "The Easiest Way" by Mabel Katz. I have even attended a seminar, live with Dr Len. All the behaviors of a fanatic. It is what I do when something captures my fancy. I dive in, swim around and pay attention to what is happening in my life as a result.

The sentences have become my companion. They are at peak consciousness when I am driving, playing "Spider", when I ma with clients and falling asleep. I try to do them without expecting a specific result. I am noticing that I rarely feel helpless anymore, that my intellectual drama is decreasing and I live in the moment better. I have pulled my head out of the sand more and look around with curiosity even if I don't like what I am seeing.

I have been following the fires of California with interest and emotion. In the past, I would have kept the TV off to keep my adrenalin level down or have been rivieted to the TV with adrenalin raging. Now I watch, clean with my sentences and wonder at the good that will come from so much destruction. The stories of resilient spirit, the people who will start over doing something they really like in a place they really love, the new growth that will rise fro the ashes. I watch people come together and connect with those they previously ignored. All the time I am cleaning.

I have been using the cleaning to help me with my grief from the death of my friend. It probably helped me continue doing what needed doing. It didn't take the grief and pain away. Eventually I was led to experiences where I really felt someone heard the depth of my pain and then I could start to let some of it go. It doesn't consume me any longer but sometimes washes over me.

So I have more peace. The direction of my life is shifting to try to fix others less and be more gentle with myself. My artistic and creative expressions are coming front and center. I do not feel so very fragile in the face of awful things in the world.

So ho'oponopono has become a perferred tool in my toolbox. Cleaning is better than fixing. It is not my one, true way but it is an awesome way. I am already exploring Soul Healing as taught be Eric Rolf. I love it when I find someone whose way of thinking and expressing turns my brain upside down and jiggles the connections.

The reasons Why I love my life so much seem to be infinite. I delight in uncovering them one by one.

Is the Universe Friendly?

2007-10-25T10:31:00.000-07:00

I have recently come across the work of Eric Rolf and he asks 4 big questions. The first is, "Is the Universe Friendly"? My answer to this is not as simple as I first thought. If my answer is black/white, no/yes, at least I know what to expect. If I think it depends on the circumstance then the universe would be capricious. I would be victim of its whims. Intolerable.

I did not grow up thinking the universe was friendly. I grew up with guilt and fear as motivators. Yes, there is beauty, order and majesty at every turn but I was always checking my back and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I have since changed my belief. Yes, the universe is friendly. Look at my Gamzu theme. No matter what happens, this too is for the best. I see the emergence of this theme is my appraoch to learning and proving to myself that the universe is infact friendly, even when it doesn't look like it. Clearly i am walking in the direction that holds that the universe is friendly.

The news is now filled with images of California burning. The stock market analysts are decrying the decline of the dollar and the next wave of housing drama. And I ask again, is the universe friendly? This is the crossroads. If the universe is unfriewndly, and my world is in danger of collaspe,I feel justified to behave like chicken little, sleep poorly, and stuff my feelings with food. My reaction to the threat is enough to scar me for life, even if the events never unfold.

If the Universe is friendly, then I know at some deep level that all is well and will work to my best interest despite all appearances. I start looking for the open doors and opportunities to recreate my life in a joyful way. It works for me to believe that the Universe is friendly, no matter what. Gamzu!

I see it in the big things. I don't always feel it in day to day life. When the pup has diahrea in the house for the umpteenth time today but he doesn't poop fast enough when I take him outside. I am in a hurry and know I will have more to clean up when I get home....the universe does not seem so very friendly. I realize the stress of such mundane things are self created. At the same time, I notice how ingrained old beliefs really are and what level of conscious attention and intervention is needed to realloy shift my core reactions.

I am not disparing here. I am noting I am on a journey and the climb to the top of the mountain is punctuated with twists, turns and downgrades. It is a step to realize I am choosing my framework and acting accordingly, patiently (or not)with every aware moment. That I can choose to see the universe as friendly is one way I answer why do I love my life so much.

Do I Want It? Really?

2007-10-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

I learned something about myself following my trip to Pittsburgh. If I really want something, I go after it fast. After the Chihuly exhibit we went to the Pittsburgh Glass Center's open house and hands up day. Someone demonstrated making glass beads and glass blowing. I decorated a glass and had it sand blasted. and everyone had the opportunty to add bits to a double panel glass mosaic.

The mosaic artist, Davieo Devis, was totally embracing and sharing of her art. On the way home Maelanie and I discussed doing some mosaic. Who knew she had a yearning to work with glass but didn't want to work with lead? We discussed places to get glass and where we might be able to get installation contracts.

I was smitten. Melanie checked out the internet. I called a friend whose mate used to work in glass and I hit the jackpot. I bought scrap staned glass for $1 a pound. 110 punds to be exact. But there was also a stained glass lamp project that had been sitting in jigs for 5 years already following the death of its craftor. So I arranged to take all the pieces and to transform it into a mosaic in memory of Brenda.

So after squeaking out bits of time here and there, we have a 24 x 26 inch grape arbor piece ready for grouting and framing. This all happened in the course of a week. No stress. No delay. Just an opportunity seized.

So when I want, really want, I am like a dog with a bone. When I decided to take a class in glass fusing the week my dad died, I followed through. It took time to mesh my schedule with available classes and I had to drive to North Carolina but i was on a mission. I am planning my next class already.

I contrast this with things that sound good to do, things inspired by hypnotic writers, like create a great passive income internet business. I read and study but no action. I may end being one of those people who has to sleep in my car because all of my art has taken up every nook and cranny of my home. Art for art's sake. Ahhhh, the joy of it. I wouldn't mind selling some pieces also. Maybe I will learn to how to set up a web site.

In any case, when something is really for me, I go for it. I am learning about why I love my life so much.

Field Trip in Fantasy Land!

2007-10-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

I Love glass! Art glass that is. I recently took a field trip to the Chihuly glass exhibit at the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh. It was a 10 hour drive each way and so very worth it.

Chihuly, the blown glass master, is know for pushing the limits of size in glass blowing. He does organic shapes in fantastic color and builds them into towering sculptures that are placed into landscapes such that it seems they have always been there. Walking through the conservatory was like traveling in an exotic stage set.
Each turn of the corner brought me face to face with a new vibrantly colored theme.

This is thinking outside of the box at its best. It boosted my own imagination and creative juices. We went twice. First at night with accented lighting and them during the day to catch the play of natural lighting. Sometimes it was hard to think it was the same display. The only change in environment was the lighting but it transported me into two very different realms.

The whole experience was like a treasure hunt in that each new interface of glass and landscape was a delight to my senses. Sometimes the path wound in ways such that I could see the same pieces from different angles. WOW. One piece had a spider adding its special touch. Oh the have the abandon to throw myself out into the world with abandon like a spider, knowing that wherever I landed I would not only be fine.

The trip was also highlighted by meeting up with a member of a mastermind team. It was like Susan and I had known each other since grade school. We stayed at her home, a 200 year old stage coach stop. She took the day off, drove us around Pittsburgh, encouraged me in my gourd work. While she and Melanie played with photos, I took rubbings of the wood paneling in her home.

Our 36 hours in Pittsburgh filled up my senses. What a great life! I'm ready to re-engage with my art big time.

I Love You in North Carolina

2007-10-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

Ho'oponopono is now based on cleaning my relationship with God to get back to my pure state by repeating "I Love You. Thank You. Please forgive me. I'm sorry." over and over and over. It is becoming my mental mantra. I went to NC to attend a weekend seminar with Dr. Len, the current Ho'oponopono spokesperson. I wanted to "grok" ( from Stranger in a Strange Land meaning to understand with all ones senses)the essence of Ho'oponopono. That included checking out the energy of people who had been doing it for longer than I have as well as learning additional cleaning techniques.

I came away with 2 main insights. The first came from the simple repetition of the idea that I am either in that pure state as I was when God created me or I am filled with "pooh". Every question that came up, every example cited turned out to be an illustration of "pooh". Over the course of the weekend I really did begin to see how much of my mental processing was in fact "pooh". I make up stories around the tiniest of circumstances to help me feel out of control, guilty, less than....
I assign meanings to words or events that were not intended. I talk myself into overwhelm. Replacing that with "Thank You, I love you", is curios is a useful way.

The second insight is how slippery it is to take 100% responsibility for my life.
I am not talking about guilt or blame. I am speaking of responsibility as in "if it shows up in my life, I am responsible". I have been in the habit of assigning things in my life an independent reality. So when the puppy ran away and got into trouble and came home with a fractured pelvis and needing a tail amputation it was, "The puppy he..." with no inkling of my responsibility in that. Even as I write this, I see the concept is obtuse in my telling of it. But somehow I am getting a sense of it in my insides.

I have long repeated the statement, "There is no one out there but me", to remind myself that somehow this life is my illusion and how I see it, the stories I tell, I determine, even if most of it is unconscious. I guess it has been my way to claim my power. After all if there is an "out there" I am powerless. If my experience arises from within, I have influence.

One of my great epiphanies that I wrote about some time back was when I asked, "What if I did choose my parents before I came in"? Suddenly I no longer felt victimized by them. I became intrigued with why I would choose them. What was in it for me? It was the turning point of my relationship with them. I ceased resistance on that point. Taking responsibility for my all I experience now releases my resistance to life.

So far, Ho'opponopono has cleaned a lot of mental clutter and reduced my resistance to life. This makes it one of the better tools I have discovered in my life. Ho'oponopono has made me love my life so much more. It is good.

Packing in the Moments

2007-10-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I don't write because I am wallowing in self pity and other times because life is moving at such a pace that I take little time to scribe my reflections. In this case it has been the latter. In the past month I have been to a Ho'oponopono seminar on North Carolina, a homeopathy class in Phoenix, the Chihuly Glass exhibit in Pittsburgh followed by a wedding, and enraptured by a glass project. And all of this was interspersed with seeing clients!

This might be called living life in the fast lane. When I read what I have done, I hardly believe it was only a month. There have been times when this would have been a blur. I'd be moving so fast from one thing to another I'd miss out on the moment. But as I reflect on these times, I am pleased to report I was present in the moment and living each experience fully. I am savoring richly textured memories.

What made me so present in this flurry of activity? Certainly,they were all things I wanted to do. I made conscious choices that also factored in the more tedious aspects of travel time, shifting clients to accommodate my schedule and shortened time for life's more mundane activities like laundry, cooking and trash. My grief accompanied me like a tattered rag doll in a child's hand. I simply brought it along with me.

I am also attributing credit to using Ho'oponopono by saying, "I Love You, Thank You", as much of the time as I could remember. I find this keeps me more in the present moment and I spin fewer dramas in my head about what something means or how I am being thwarted. Without the drag of so much mental process, events unfold much more smoothly. And inspiration pops in. It has been a highly creative month as well.

This past month has been a time of grace. Good people were present for me, interesting learnings, and when the tears came, they did; and when they left, they did. They are not as frequent now as they once were. Life is good. I am loving mine.

The Singing Bus

2007-09-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get external reminders of how wonderful my life is. I was on a long road trip beginning my journey home. A school bus pulled out just in front of me. I sighed at the delay. But....there were 2 left turn lanes at the light. I pulled up next to the bus. To my amazement, the children were singing in full voice.

"If you're happy and you know it, stamp your feet,
If you're happy and you know it stamp your feet,
If you're happy and you know it
then your face will surely show it,
If your happy and you know it stamp your feet."

The bus reverberated with with the stamping of little feet.

They sang verse after verse and I sat in my car smiling.

As I drove down the hill I realized the universe was telling me to notice how happy I was. I had spent much of my driving time sending my 57 warm fuzzies. In between times I had great inspiration about my gourd work and how to develop a viable business around it. I had just had a great session with my client and was on my way to another.

My life! I Love it! Thank you!
If you're happy and you know it
Clap your hands,
Stamp your feet,
Shout Hooray!

57 Warm Fuzzies

2007-09-20T15:34:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday was my birthday. I came upon an e-mail by Brian Vaszily of www.IntenseExperiences.com on how an ""X" written on the back of your hand can equal an act of kindness and improve lives."

It seems he woke in a funk and was determined not to let his mood run his life. He marked a big "X" on the web of his hand to remind him to pay everyone he met a genuine compliment no matter what. I was inspired by his determination not to let his bad mood caused by making poor food choices not ruin his day but to rise above his mood.

I had been experiencing the blahs myself from the same causes of poor food choices and too little sleep. And then the inspiration struck. I would pick 57 people from my life and send them a "What I love about you" message. One for each year of my life! My idea was I would send a message of appreciation, a "Warm Fuzzy" to 57 people on my e-mail list. Best of intentions. Later that day I succumbed to a wave of
M&M's induced fatigue and slept away the afternoon.

At first I was disappointed in myself. Then I decided it wasn't too late to still follow through on my grand idea even if it wasn't still my birthday. So I decided to call the various people up in my mind. I tell them how much I love them and why I appreciate them and thank them for being in my life. I have sent messages to 49 people so far. So people are not getting a letter or e-mail in hard copy but they are getting a burst of love through cosmic channels.

I have noticed that my attention span could use some development. I start this process, work with 2 or 3 people and somehow space out and half an hour later remember I was acknowledging someone. Once I noticed myself doing this and refocused myself, I would my attention wandering again and again. All I can do is be gentle with myself and do a few warm fuzzies at a time.

I felt inspired. This process set the tone for the coming year and I am remembering how loved I am and have been throughout my life. I am learning why I love my life so much.

Creative Juices

2007-09-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

Creating the art pieces for the state fair got my creative juices going as I hoped. My goal for committing myself to the submissions was to use creativity to channel my grief from the death of my friend and to fill the time I had spent doing martial arts with him. It worked. I received 2 Honorable mentions.

So now I am wondering what would it take to win the categories I enter. I made it a point to get to the fair grounds to see the other entries to become inspired. So now I am on a mission to solve the colorfastness problems that I have with my preferred technique and well as to refine and develop my own style.

I work on gourds in the round. I have developed new techniques that are striking. I don't think I can draw or paint well enough to make a contribution in "the fine arts". I would love to take gourd work into the arena of fine arts even as Alfred Stieglitz took photography into the realm of fine arts.

I am playing with adding 3 dimensions but to me so far it looks like a cheap something made in china. I need other opinions and maybe a different technique or medium. I began working with negative space and came up with something stunning. Something I might consider marketing once I developed a handful of designs.

In any case, my creative juices are flowing and I am studying uses of negative space, printmaking, and batik to develop my style. It is fun. When my client load is down I have a direction to channel my efforts and creativity. Who knows what will become of it? At least, I will have some Christmas presents made.

Why do I love my life so much?
The surge of creative juices made manifest...

The Ins and Outs of Suffering

2007-09-09T19:09:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh, Suffering as is undergoing pain or distress. In this case mental/emotional suffering. Easily created but tougher to disperse.

To create suffering all I have to do is see something is not be the way I want it or when I want it and make up stories about how it is sabotaging me. I ordered some art supplies last week that still had not arrived on Saturday so I couldn't play on the weekend the way I wanted. That was enough to start my suffering. Nothing big or dramatic. No one was injured, the weather was glorious rain, all is well. And I was irritable! I was feeling thwarted.

That's one simple way into suffering - disappointed expectations. Another is creating unfavorable meaning to events, when there is often no inherent meaning. Negative self talk about myself or others creates it also. Feeling overwhelmed is one of my most practiced ways to suffer and make others suffer as well.

So how to get out of suffering. It just so happened I had started a list of ways out the day before I jumped into my recent bout of suffering. I was prepared. At least I remembered that I had jotted down some ideas to deal with this possibility.

Bill Harris of Centerpointe suggests that I say to myself, " There I am feeling ___________. I must have resistance." Then just notice what is going on in my body, thoughts and emotions with curiosity. Just notice. Observation often transforms feelings.

Ho'oponopono might say the thoughts and feelings causing my suffering are data or memories clouding my perception of how God would see things. Just clean by repeating over and over, "Thank you, I love you, I'm sorry, Please forgive me".

My roommate listens to music or meditates. I decided to be creative and do something else artistic. These might fall into the category of diversion.

Sometimes it is enough for me to notice that I am resisting what is. There is nothing to be done about it so move on. Cleaning Ho'oponopono style keeps my brain busy so I can't make up bigger and worser stories. Being creative or trying to draw or craft something sometimes lifts me up and sometimes discourages me. I now have yet another way to draw a chrysanthemum that doesn't look like one. Maybe the next one will be better. On the other hand a tried a new technique on a gourd I really like.

Perhaps tomorrow my art supplies will arrive. I am eager to see what I can do with them, and I am no longer suffering.

Knowing I can worsen and lighten my suffering all by myself is one way I love my life so much.

A Breath of Rain

2007-08-30T19:47:00.000-07:00

I have been wondering if trees and plants suffer. There are now so many trees dropping their leaves and turning brown. I don't know if they will leaf out again next year or not. Following the great freeze earlier this year, I mourned the loss of trees but to my delight, they rallied and sent out another set of leaves. The fruit was gone but they set out even more leaves than they had before. How resilient. Perhaps they are resilient during droughts and high temperatures as well. I hope so but I am trying not to jump to conclusions.

But last night came a little rain. Our first in 6 weeks. I was a sigh a relief in my soul. Was it also a sigh a relief for the plants and trees. Or do they just take it all in stride without comment or feeling?

I know that I relate to trees and plants as if they have feelings when I am directly influencing their lives. If I am pulling weeds or harvesting I apologize and thank them. I chat with the plants I put in. I have been generally commizerating with their thirstty plight. I felt dried out and shriveled up myself. If love could help them feel better, I did my part.

What I could observe with my senses was the grasses were brown when I went to bed and green when I went out this morning. I could see where the rain had been generoous and where it had skipped just by the color. I hope those that did not get last night benefit vicariously from those that did, like through some great underground root-net.

I just know it sounded like my team had won the championship around here when we heard the first drops of rain. A breath of rain... is why I love my life so much.

Don't Lie for One Day

2007-08-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

Don't lie for one day was one of the points on George Copsey's (www.selfimprovementsite.com) list of 10 tips for self improvement. He was talking about the little white lies we tell so as not to hurt other's feelings or to avoid being reprimanded ourselves. He has a point there. All too often we pretend we don't have a preference when we do or we try to cover over some little thing.

But when I read his point I thought how about if I didn't lie for 10 minutes. I was thinking about how I lie to myself feeling alone when I am actually connected with everyone and everything. How about acting as if I have no power or as if I am all powerful. Or how I think something doesn't exist because I. can't see it with my physical senses. Or thinking this illusion is real.

I am thinking it would be an awesome experience not to lie to myself about anything for even a moment, let alone a minute. That would probably be a timeless moment of illumination. If only I could.

I am smiling at myself even as I write this. It was only 14 months ago when someone was challenging me on lies I tell to myself and to him. Nothing in particular, just that I do lie to myself and therefore to others. I was SOOOO incensed. After all I consider myself to have great integrity. And in a way I do. In another way, I have finally realized that I lie to myself most all of the time. I am writing this blog to expose my lies to myself and to find something true, something that rings true from the core of my being.

So the irony of this point of self improvement is not lost on me. I look forward to the day or even the moment when I totally get the truth. In the meantime I will peel off the layers of lies like the layers of and onion. What, then, will I know?
Probably the biggest reason ever to love my life so much.

Life Could Be So Easy If....

2007-08-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

My client said, "I just don't know why my son won't settle down and what he knows to do. His life would be so much easier". I replied, "I just don't know why you don't do what you know to do". It caught her by surprize. She started to respond two or three times and then was quiet. I felt just a little smug.

Today I heard a little voice in my head say, "I just don't know why you don't settle down and do what you know to do". Touche. Actually, "Ouch". It only took 48 hours for my words to come back and glare at me in vibrant neon color. Just illustrates that knowing better does not mean doing better.

All the drama of the past week had settled down. The new frig is in place. Food is cooked up or tossed out. Our road is now freshly reblacktopped. The runaway puppy had returned injured but was now finally out from under the shed and to the vet getting his tail amputated and the temperature fell from the 100's to the mid ninties. Everything is in resolving motion. So why do I persist is feeling irritable and overwhelmed? Why am I eating in a way that intensifies my irritibility?

I know what to do. Drink more water. Exercise. Drink green drink and lay off the sugars. I know the price of not doing these things. I am more irritible, my feet ache more, the athlete's foot gets worse. I woke up with a good plan. And then proceeded to have ice cream for breakfast and on it went. It was like I put the wrong operating program in my brain. And altough I was aware of what I was doing, I didn't alter my behavior. If anything I was difiant. My roomate did a double take at my breakfast and I said, "Yep, it's ice cream".

Well, now I have told on myself and tomorrow is another day. Besides, the ice cream is now all gone. I will keep an eye on that smugness and rejoice in the movement of life.

Raindrops on Roses

2007-08-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

"Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens....these are a few of my favorite things". I am now clinging to the lyrics from the Sound of Music to help me stay focused and balanced.

I am tempted to instead list my peeves of this day starting with the refrigerator going out yesterday. At 1AM I was out buying ice to keep things cool and shortly thereafter I was stuffing newspaper into the freezer to keep things frozen. The Internet is a wealth of ideas. Now I am waiting for a loaner frig to be delivered since there is no repair person available for a few days. Who knew I could get a loaner frig. That would have to go on my list of favorite things.

All of this goes to illustrate a point. Creating my life requires moment to moment choices or I fall back into some soap opera routine of unpleasant drama. I have learned that repeating the Ho'oponopono cleaning phrases of "I love you, I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you" don't work so well to balance me if they are said through clenched teeth. I can feel benefit from such a practice when I relax. Just lower my shoulders and take a deep breath.

Actually, there is nothing I can control. The frig will come when it does. The runaway pup will come back or it won't. The temperatures will drop and rain will come when it does. Would any of these things coming to pass make me happier than I can choose to be at this moment already? They could all happen and if I am in a fussing mood, I would miss the pleasure of each one. Look alive and happy, Patricia.

So there! Happiness is an inside job and a choice. If I can't shit my mood by asking why I love my life so much or saying Gamzu then it is time to sit still and do nothing. Maybe I'll stage a little Julie Andrews song and dance around the living room before I begin.

Re-evaluating Assumptions

2007-08-19T15:47:00.000-07:00

My early assumption was that the suffering in the world meant something was wrong, be it the result of sin or something else, and I was here to help change it. This set some unfortunate behaviors into motion. If I am to help the world or people then someone has to know what is right or at least better. I'm guessing that I thought that was me. I wanted to alleviate suffering. Now I am wondering how self righteous I came across.

I was not a happy camper and projected that out onto others. I am thinking I wore two masks back then; one of the saintly helper and the other one of blame. I have already shared my journey from blame to responsibility. Now I am looking at my need to fix situations was based on my Catholic guilt and salvation ethic.

An alternative assumption is that everyone is already born perfect. In this case they do not need fixing regardless of their apparent circumstances. There are a couple of different theories about this and I hope my brief summaries do them justice but you can do a search and learn more if they interest you.

Mike Dooley suggests that God is playing hide and seek with himself in this material illusion and is playing so well, God forgot it was a game. So we are all part of God and the drama we see are the roles we are playing. We have to remember who we are as creators.

Abraham Hicks might say is there is no evil but individuals refuse to step into the stream of well being. The vengeful God is created from human despair in a sea of contrast. Our mission is to step into the stream of well being.

Mabel Catz, in The Easiest Way, relates the creation story that says we were created perfect and given free will in the form of thinking, which was necessary for life in paradise but could be chosen. Adam chose to respond to God saying "She made me do it", and from then til now we have suffered under an ever growing illusion that separated us from God. In this scenario, everyone is perfect but we see them through a veil of illusion written by our individual and collective memories. In order to see clearly, we must apologise to the Divine for our error of perception in order to clear the way for Divine Inspiration. Here, the error that I see in others is in me and my job is to clean it away. By clearing it away from me, I also clear it from mass consciousness.

What is at issue here is the basic assumption about whether humans are born in sin or born perfect. Radically different assumptions. I had lived from the perspective of sin with the resultant self deprecation. If I choose to see everyone as fundamentally perfect, including myself, All sorts of inner building blocks have to change. I would have to accept the "God doesn't create no junk". That includes me and everyone else. I can't explain the depth of shift this would require.

I like the Ho'oponopono view in that it accounts for the apparent sufferings through my perception of others through a distorted view of memory. It also gives me a way to shift things in that I can take total responsibility and clean my illusion that I see around me and open to inspiration. My focus of change shifts from fixing those around me (which they never responded the way I hoped) to a shift within myself. Validation comes from within, not without.

Who knew that loving my life so much would begin a healing process like this. This too is for the best. Gamzu.

My winding spiritual journey

2007-08-19T11:20:00.000-07:00

I am facing the possibility of making a couple of u-turns in my spiritual/philosophical life assumptions. That I have not made them already is a reflection of my early religious training/indoctrination. I have probably been dancing around these assumptions for some time but am only now being able to articulate them clearly enough to myself to choose anew, or at least review anew.

Actually I am waffling on my u-turns and have stalled out in the writing about this. So here are my mental meanderings.

I am about personal growth and change, taking personal responsibility. I am about doing this from the most encompassing spiritual perspective I can find that resonates with me.

Initially, I was born and raised catholic. You might call a child who went to mass and communion everyday for 4 years, walking more than a mile to do so, pious if not religiously affected. From this period of time I was a "good girl" with a lot of learned guilt who didn't understand sin because I made the best choices I could at the time So I made up my sins when I went to confession. Somehow I emerged with a recognition of suffering in the world and a need to change it. Oh, if only a woman could be pope!

Searching for me began early on. Might have been the nun who told me and another convert to stop asking questions because we were destroying the faith of others in the class. I think we were the two probing our faith and she didn't have answers.
So I read at the Theosophical Society, read "Be Here Now" by Ram Das, the Rampa books, whatever was available in the mid to late 60's. I studied astrology. About then I had my most formative spiritual experience. I was standing near to my little bookshelf and heard a clear voice in my "heart" that said, "Study anything you want but do not seek psychic experiences. Grow you character and all will come in time."
"Growing my character" became my yardstick of choice. If all else was equal, which option would grow my character the most?

I have to say though, that growing my character was balanced by my need to change the world. That meant my trying to rescue the downtrodden and resulted in my being attracted to guys that needed fixing. They were needy, addicted, self absorbed. So I became a Moonie. I could save the world, live in a celibate community, have a matched marriage eventually,(good, since my men choices were pitiful and unchangeable)
and grow my character. Here, God was a suffering God whose tears I sought to ease.

From there I moved into Feminism and Native American teaching which both embraced the indwelling Spirit of God in all life. I did vision quest in the Apache tradition, studied with a Native American orientated shaman who evolved into Buddhism. All the time growing my character. My current studies lean heavily into Jewish mysticism based on the Kabalah.

My questions are always about good and evil, the origin of evil, the true nature of being human and what is life all about, and what God wants from us. I'll muse further on the next blog.

I Used To Ask Why

2007-08-12T19:28:00.000-07:00

I have journeyed from feeling like a victim to taking personal responsibility. Victim hood was probably a step up from where I started in that I suffered quietly and alone. When I looked outside myself and compared myself to others, blame came in and with it victim status. Then my question might have been, "Why did this happen to me"?

Along the way I made choices and took responsibility for them and saw projects through to completion. But I still blamed Dad for our poor relationship and Mom for dying when I was a teenager. That perspective took a radical turn when I went to a lecture at a Science of Mind Church that presented the idea that I chose my parents. While that idea did not make me happy, I did see the potential in it. If I did make that choice then there was a reason I knew in some space and time. So I extended my sense of responsibility beyond my conscious choices to include other things that directly impacted me.

My next awareness along the personal responsibility continuum would be illustrated by the question, "Why me, why this, why now"? This reflected that I was drawing people and experiences into my life on some level. Everything was feedback for my spiritual consciousness. The answers reflected some theorizing like, "Did I break my toe because there is something going on I can't stand", or "Is there some way I am not wanting to stand on my own two feet", or even, "Is there someplace I should be standing up for myself more"? I didn't usually know the answers to my questions but I asked them and moved on without feeling the victim of circumstance.

And until recently, I would explain things to myself by saying, "There is no one out there but me". Somehow this meant to me the reaction I was getting back from others and circumstances is somehow a mirror of what I am projecting. So if I didn't understand or agree with what was happening, I would call it "Curious Karma" knowing, or at least believing, somehow it was connected to me. I encouraged others to take responsibility for what was happening in their lives. I helped other people solve their problems. I could be insightful and incisive.

All this leads me to my recent encounter with Ho'oponopono as presented by Joe Vitale and Ihaleakale Hew Len, PhD. in "Zero Limits". I thought I was pretty far out there on the personal responsibility scale, but Joe and Dr Len were much further out than I had ever even entertained. They are saying that I am responsible for creating even the problem situations that everyone are experiencing through erroneous thoughts within myself. This is more radical than "there is no one out there but me" and also a logical extension of that idea.

There is an power to this idea. If I am 100% responsible for actualizing the problem, then I can be 100% responsible for resolving it using love, forgiveness and gratitude. The system is elegant in it's simplicity of using the mantra, "I love, you, I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you", to address the Divinity within me to transmute the erroneous thoughts resulting in whatever shows up in my life.

I have been experimenting with this approach whole heartedly now for 3 weeks. The outcome is that I no longer ask why. Not "Why me, why this, why now". I don't expect to know. I am simply cleaning my and my ancestors' erroneous thoughts. The result is a great decrease in stress since I don't need to figure out the solution. I repeat the mantra until I come to a place of peace or get an inspiration of what action to take next. I am not trying to explain Ho'oponopono as you can read the book. I am noting personal movement even further out along the personal responsibility scale.

It is yet another way I love my life so much and definitely falls into the Gamzu department. This too is for the best!

My Cornerstones

2007-07-24T19:44:00.000-07:00

I started this blog as a record of my experiment in personal growth shortly before Christmas. I committed to 2 months and have continued on because of my results. Over time I am noticing certain themes that appear to be central to my success in more fully embracing my life. I am calling these themes my cornerstones.

My founding cornerstone was formulating the question, "Why do I Love My Life So Much?" It has enabled me to enjoy my life more than I did previously and given me a beacon with which to guide my life. I am now thinking that is because it cultivates a sense of wonder. It is a simple way to cultivate the eyes of a child who is seeing things new.

The second cornerstone, and hardest for me to be consistent with, is the practice of "Sitting Still and Doing Nothing". Meditation per se has never been my strong suit. I have an inquiring and often controlling mind. Sitting still and doing nothing, thinking nothing is tough. I started with 3 minutes a day and worked up one minute a day til I got to 20 minutes. I didn't do nothing exactly. I counted my breaths starting at a random number and counting backwards so my mind wouldn't wonder off into planning or worry. When I do this, I get more inspirations that are easy for me to act on.

I figured out I cannot substitute sitting still and listening to a piece of music, hypnotic tape or brain wave altering program. It is not the same. When I get overwhelmed or out of sorts it is most often because I have not been doing this.

Last month I identified my third cornerstone which I called "Gamzu". Gamzu is Hebrew for "this also" the initial words to the phrase, "This also is for the best".
I suppose I could frame it as a question like "How is this also for the best"? but I just now thought of that so I don't know if that works better for me. Gamzu works best when I embrace the idea that whatever is happening is for the best rather than giving it lip service. Gamzu is about acceptance as opposed to resistance. Gamzu is about accepting the unacceptable. Over time, I have seen what I considered to be miracles happen when I took this stance wholeheartedly.

So at the 7 month report I have 3 cornerstones to my personal growth:
Why do I love my life so much?: Wonder
Sit still and do nothing time: Silence for Inspiration
Gamzu, this also is for the best: Acceptance

I am continuing my experiment. I invite you to experiment with these cornerstones and let me know how they work for you.

Warm Glass

2007-07-24T18:11:00.000-07:00

I took a vacation! I even called it a vacation. You have to know me to know how revolutionary that is. It is not unusual for me to go to a seminar or training but it usually is devoted to developing my professional skills. This was a vacation to do learn something just because I wanted to.

Warm glass is is the art of fusing and slumping glass. Glass is melted together and shaped. I wasn't blowing glass or making stained glass. In many ways it is like doing ceramics or pottery. I learned a variety of ways to work with glass which was then placed in a kiln and fired. Heating glass to 1400-1800 degrees changes it just like pottery looks different after glazing and firing.

My great works of art did not come out of the kiln looking like I imagined they would when I put them in. Sometimes I liked them better, sometimes I just had to say it was an interesting experiment. Some were totally ruined. Always it is an adventure into the mysterious.

When I put brass between glass layers it bubbled up because brass boils at a lower temperature than glass and the bubbles were frozen in the glass. Copper leaf turns a delicious blue with little regularly spaced air bubbles. We even did "pot melts" where we placed shards of glass into small terra cotta plant pots which were heated in the kiln to 1800 degrees until the melted glass dripped out into a puddle that we could then use in other projects. Mine was especially cool looking.

I brought home a bunch of 3x3 inch square tiles of my experimentation with various techniques. We each did a larger shaped piece. We got to where we could almost predict which piece belonged to someone because of the colors and themes individuals gravitated towards.

Now, I can look at glass art and have a sense of how they did it and be able to evaluate the quality of the piece. I have developed my sense of glass appreciation. I see all glass in my life differently now. I know how it is made, what stresses it, how things interact with it.

I am planning on taking another class, probably in glass print making. I am not now planning on purchasing a kiln and launching a new business or hobby. I am seeking out exhibits and galleries featuring glass. In Oct Melanie and I are planning to visit the Chihuly blown glass installation showing at the conservatory in Pittsburgh.

Loving my life comes from exploring whatever interests me. Warm glass came to my attention at the Pike Street Market when I was last in Seattle for dad's funeral. I bought a fused piece and chatted with the artist at length. This was the first class I could fit into my schedule. Art fed my soul when I was suffering after my friends death.

If life is about savoring sensory input, I have upped my appreciation quotient which helps me answer anew, Why do I love my life so much?

My Heart Jumped

2007-07-24T17:05:00.000-07:00

Some things simply change the course of a day, or of a life. That just happened to me. I clicked on a link to Charles Burke's website (http://www.bullseye-living.com/) and there in the upper right hand corner was a box with links to his friends and there was my name which linked to this blog. My heart did jump. My mood totally shifted. I didn't feel so very alone.

Until that moment, I had been in a curl up in the corner and lick my grieving wounds for some time. I could pull myself up to see clients or go to a glass class and then I would sink back down into my quick sand of thinking I had nothing to enthuse me. I had insights into my Why do I Love My Life So Much project but since I felt disconnected from others, I didn't feel inspired to develop them. But seeing the link to my blog shifted my being in a way I couldn't shift by myself.

This is a testimony to the connectedness of life and how little inclusions or acts of kindness make a greater difference than I could imagine. I am increasingly convinced that the things that make life worth living are in between the lines of the script I write for myself. Loving my life depends on the delivery of the lines, the smile in my heart, and the smile in someone Else's heart towards me.

Thanks Charles!

Chipmunk Cheeks!

2007-07-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

I look like a chipmunk who found a cash of nuts! I'm guessing the death of my friend hit a raw nerve as I manifested an abscessed tooth. I naively hoped it was a loose crown. It took lots of repetitions of "Why do I love my life so much?" and "Gamzu" to get through the past week.

One thing I can say is a wrinkle on my never looked so good! My left cheek was so swollen and taut. Smiling was next to impossible. And then I could finally manage one, well, sort of a smile. Yesterday, I could smile and see a wrinkle or two appearing. That was a cause for celebration. Right now my cheek is neither swelling or shrinking but I am not in pain.

This episode of pain has made me grateful for all the non pain I enjoy in my life. Overall, I am very healthy. It is easy to take feeling good for granted.

Our pup who couldn't stand to be touched has had a turn about. He has become loving and confident, observant beyond imaging, and determined to keep my spirits up. He did not think I should be spending so much time in bed. I bought him a squeaky chew toy. It worked to keep him occupied but not to sooth my nerves. I was glad when he chewed the squeaker out so I could take it away from him for his own safety.

I also noticed that I had slipped away from my "sit still do nothing" meditation. I thought listening to brain wave tapes or hypnosis was as good but I am finding I did myself a great dis-service ceasing that practice. So I am beginning it again today. I need the time to listen to the promptings of my soul instead of telling my insides what to do. I am thinking to resume this practice outside in nature.

So in the midst of emotional and physical pain I am again back to my "basics".

Why do I love my life so much?
Gamzu (shorthand for this too is for the best)
Sit still and do nothing meditation

Gamzu

2007-07-03T13:49:00.000-07:00

My studies of homeopathy with Master Homeopath Vega Rosenberg are spiritually based. We study the spiritual principles that influence health and well-being. Class includes spiritual lessons drawing on the wisdom of the ages. Last week we studied the deeper meaning of the Hebrew letter tes which relates to the concept of goodness. Part of the reading spoke of a simple man whose nickname included the word Gamzu because this man always said "This too is for the best". Gamzu means "this too".

I have personally come to the idea that incorporating the theme "This too is for the best" which I have shortened to "Gamzu" is a very high spiritual practice. It relates very well to my existing spiritual practice of asking why I love my life so much on which this blog is based. So over the past days I have been pondering the possible benefits of such an attitude and have developed quite a list. The ideas overlap but I think the nuances are valuable.

1. I acknowledge that God is in charge,
2. There is a natual order of things I may not understand
3. That calls me to humility.
4. It decreases my resistance to what is
5. Which decreases stress
6. And helps me to accept the apparently unacceptable.
7. I automatically expect and look for a good outcome
8. Which optimizes contigent opportunities.
9. I cultivate faith
10. Which emantes a feeling of well being to others.
11. I can keep my heart open and not focus on protecting myself.
12. I accept that I am going through things for a purpose even if it is not evident
13. And thus relax.
14. There is no competition,
15. No pushing the river,
16. And my chi (energy) flow increases.
17. I shift from brain thinking to soul perception,
18. So I make up fewer stories based on illlusion.
19. I take clean action based on clear intention.
20. I see ever more clearly why I love my life so much.

Gamzu!

My Dancing Washing Machine

2007-07-03T13:35:00.000-07:00

There are many ways to learn patience. Even my washing machine is encougaging patience. We got it way back when from someone who was unhappy with it. The price was right. It has served us well. Of late it has taken to dancing. If you can imagine, when it gets to the spin cycle, it vibrates mightily and scoots itself across the floor. My response is to lean up against it as it vibrates me like one of those olde timey belt vibrators until the cycle is finished. It probably takes 5 minutes and feels like an hour. I can't delay attending to it either. When it shakes, I must cease every other activity and tend to it with undivided attention.

I have taken to smiling and laughing at these times. What else is there to do? Replacing the machine is on our short list of upcoming investments but in the meantime, why fight it?

Oh, The Pain of It!

2007-07-03T12:36:00.000-07:00

You might think I am speaking of the pain of grief. It is reasonable. Afterall, Dad died, my sister's father-in-law was taken off the respirator, my martial arts instructor/teacher died in the car accident and today I sat with one of our cats until he passed away. All of these losses do hurt. I have been crying and crying. But the pain I am speaking of is the pain of jumping to conclusions. It is the mental torment I endured for no good reason other than I created the turmoil by jumping to conclusions and making up stories. Then I played in my pain and probably made others suffer also by retelling my fantasies.

In fact I belabored the stories of my martial art instructions' abrupt ending a few posts back. Today I took a letter to his girlfriend. We passed each other on his back country road and stopped to hug and cry and share. When we did talk about what had happened to my lessons, I learned John was going through something with his girlfriend and withdrew from the world by pushing everyone else out. It had nothing to do with me.

My fear of abandonment kicked into storytelling until I made it mean something about me or about him. I withdrew. I can't second guess how things might have gone if I had done otherwise. I am relieved I didn't cause the rift. I am sad I didn't hang in there with another phone call or two, and that I didn't keep my heartstrings open a bit more. I am allowing myself to open again.

My lesson continues to be to treat the people I love as precious. Death lurks around any corner. He just went out with a friend to Wal-Mart to get supplies for canning. There is no evident reason why his car left the road. He wasn't speeding, he was wearing a seatbelt. The car slid on wet grass to a ditch and flipped. He hit his head, broke his neck and collarbone and died instantly. My choice now is to learn not to jump to conclusions, don't take on pain when none is intended and fulfill his belief in me. Loving my life demands that I take change of my mind least it run me into the ground yet again.

Comfort Foods 101

2007-07-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

I don't understand why comfort foods are things like ice cream bars instead of the zucchini I just harvested from my garden. Ever since I heard of my friends death, I cry and want to eat comfort foods. I even went to the store to get ice cram bars, all I could eat and then some. And tonight I am planning on goulash. Not that that is sooooo bad but I have barely been eating wheat for some time now. So the noodles open a dangerous door called white flour.

Experience tells me white flour and ice cream bars do in fact make me feel bad. It is like I am trying to make my body feel as bad as my feelings do. I also know eating this kind of comfort food will make me feel irritable and depressed on Wednesday. Not today. Today the sugar will give me a rush and keep me going for a time. Tomorrow I will crave more and Wednesday, I might as well join the roller derby as I will be like a bitch on wheels.

Knowing better is not enough to make better choices. I have taken the dogs for a walk around the pond, called a couple of friends, and written condolence letters.
I am not under the illusion that ice cream and wheat can fill the hole inside from my loss. I have been telling myself that "this too is for the best" but I don't believe it yet. Actually I have been out of touch with my friends for a month now. I don't know what was happening in his life; I only know he wasn't working out with me.

My sister wrote about participating in some swimming competitions with ladies older than herself. One is 80 and just learning to swim. I have been thinking about getting back to the pool. That should serve as an inspiration. I also signed up to submit some artwork and my turkey jerky to the state fair. I will dedicate one of the art projects to John.

I still feel sad to my bone marrow but please, don't offer me another ice ceam bar. I have had enough for now. Creating will be a better salve than food oblivion.

Passing On Changes

2007-07-02T08:02:00.000-07:00

My fiancee and I broke up after my mom died "because I had changed", he said.

From then til recently, death touched my life very little in terms of people dear to me. Dad died 2.5 months ago. I have been watching my changes. A couple of days ago I asked Melanie if/how I changed since then. She said I have become more considerate. I, of course, asked for an example. I guess I used to be more self involved. If she asked me to do something I would respond I didn't have time then, so she stopped asking. Now, I offer to do, and go out of my way to do for her.

I was sad to hear that snippet of information about myself but I can see her point. It is a change I value. Looking at myself I feel more gracious, with people and circumstances than I did in the past. I used to feel thwarted and now it feels like part of the flow of life. I am more patient.

This conversation was prompted by an interaction Melanie had with the phamacist at the grocery store. She dropped by to see him when we were in town. Tim lost his wife, Elaine, 2 years ago to a fast moving cancer. He remarried. He reported changing his entire values with his wife's death. I understood he had been pre-occupied with work and his own projects, leaving little time for his wife. Elanine had told Melanie the happiest times with Tim were recently while they were remodeling their house. Now, Tim says if Elaine were looking down from heaven she would be asking, "Tim, is that you"? Because having lost his wife he realized he lost his life. Now he has become a family man first, a real interacting person. Why does it take death to wake us up to what we have?

Early yesterday morning,my good friend and martial arts instructor died on the scene from a car accident. This is the same friend whose loss I have been mourning for the past month because my martial arts lessons stopped abruptly. Now I will never know what prompted the cessation of lessons and communication. My dad's passing was expected and I had made effort to clean up the energy and communication bectween us. Things with John were still hanging though I have been grieving his loss already for some time. I don't know if that makes it easier or harder.

Martial Arts lessons were a time of learning about my body, how to push it, make it more flexible, agile and flowing. I enjoyed our philosphical discussions as much. We often bantered about theories of the universe, life after death, and what it all means. He was fond of drawing a distinction between stategy and tactics; the big picture as opposed to the means. And he was an example of someone who loved another with his whole being. He never felt complete if he was apart from his love. I, myself, operate from a homebase with lots of freedom. John found freedom in being joined at the hip with someone. That made me look at how I value my relationship as well.

From Tim who regretted not being there with his wife to John who was seldom away from his love, I am learning that the people in my life are more important than the accomplishments. Tim has a do over with a new wife; John is gone. I have choices. May I learn from the examples of others.

How has death changed your life? Are there changes beckoning you that needn't wait til someone close to you dies?

Creamed Potatoes and Peas

2007-06-20T05:58:00.000-07:00

Small spontaneous acts of kindness often seem to mean the most. All it takes is quick action on an outrageous idea.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to my stepmother on the phone about my great crop of sugar snap peas. She told me her favorite spring food was creamed potatoes and peas. New red potatoes and freshly shelled garden peas. I'd never had it. I also remembered her often told story of traveling back to the farm in North Dakota, 2 little ones in hand and returning her her truck padded by carefully wrapped new red potatoes. The trunk was so heavy the luggage handler would make comment about the weight asking what was in there. Rocks? She grin back saying "No, potatoes" as the handler went off to get help.

New red potatoes recently started appearing in our local farmers markets. Peas also.
So I had this bright idea to get a flat rate priority mailing box from the post office and fill it with new red potatoes and garden peas. It was kind of risky due to the spoilage factor. I thought about having my sister find the peas locally in Seattle but that would have been hard on her. So I did it. Last week I bought potatoes and the last baggie of garden peas, packed them up and off they went. I enclosed the mother's day card that didn't get sent on time and reminded her of the potatoes in the trunk story she likes to tell.

Monday night my roommate took a very excited call from my step mother who had just eaten creamed potatoes and peas. She was so happy! Saturday night she called again to say she had fried new potatoes. Since she hadn't spoken with my directly earlier in the week, she was calling again. Following a small impulse on my part gave her such joy. And yes, I again heard about the potatoes in the trunk.

After speaking with her I realized I had never had creamed potaotes and peas. So I called back and left a message asking for her recipe. This gave her something to share with me and will give us something meaningful to talk about the next time I call her. I finished up the creamed potatoes and peas last night. I am thinking I have never seen them on a resturant menu. It is one of those delicacies falling by the wayside. But for me, it will become part of my spingtime traditions, in memory of my stepmom. Already, I see paying attention to the little things in life, help my love my life so much.

Testing my Patience

2007-06-18T08:04:00.000-07:00

Laying laminate flooring is a test to anyone's patience and ability to cooperate with others. Others who have laid it agree. But laying laminate in my living room is different story entirely. I live in a 110 year old farm house. When we got here we raised the house and had a foundation put around the outside edge and beam supports under the center, (we think). The goal was to level the house. And it did sort of level it. It was no longer a world class skate board arena, nor was it level like an ice arena. With time, the center has sagged and well, we use shims under everything to level things out.

The directions say to start with a clean, level floor. No slopes greater than 1/4 inch per 5 feet. Hah! Where is the challenge in that? I did buy a couple boxes of laminate and put them together in a sloping area to see that they would sage into conformity and it appeared they would. So we went for it. At first, my roommate and I worked alone. The room is 15 x 15. We found we had to piece together 4 planks to snap into the previous row all at once. We started where the floor was reasonably level. After laying 5 rows in 4 hours we decided we really needed a third person to manage the 15' expanse.

Saturday was the day. Travis the strong joined us. We should have taken a video.
We ran a string from one side to the other to see how great the slope was. And then built up the sloping areas with cardboard and foam mats to level it enough to snap the boards together. It is an exercise in absolute coordination and infinite patience. Everyone had to get their section to click into place and stay there. If the planks began to separate or if the seam was gapping in the least you had to wait or start over. Let me say we had 3 rows that went down easily! And 5 rows that took more than 10 tries. We had to work again on Sunday to finish.

When all was said and done, there were only 2 places where cardboard had gotten left under the floor. One I was was able to get out with a 4' mantal yardstick and lots of maneuvering. The other piece is still there causing a mushy spot but a chair sits over the area. Maybe that cardboard will flatten out with time? It looks great now. The laminate did sag to match the floor. We lived to tell the tale.

Did I say we had 4 dogs helping? Did I mention that they perferred to be in the middle of the action? You might wondoer at our sanity about that but one we are dog sitting so she had to be in. Then the others were jealous and aggravated us so asking to be let in that that seemed easier than keeping them out. The new puppy, Rooti, (that doesn't like to be touched) wanted to help. His idea was to peel the duct tape off the floor for us. We used it to help keep the planks aligned when we were snapping them in place. Rooti was so determined at this task that I had to remove all tape Saturday night before going to bed so he wouldn't eat it. We never gave him a chance to eat it but he did chew on it after pulling it up. He's teething. I wasn't taking any chances.

Like I said, the process was an American Home Video moment. We did look around for a camera more than once. Now we have a new floor. It looks great! We did it ourselves. It is another great why for loving my life so much!

Rain, Glorious Rain

2007-06-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

I was outside when the first sprinkles began to fall. It has been long since the last rain. The corn was standing with leaves spiked. Even the leaves of my bamboo were curling to conserve moisture. I sat there in the dirt and continued digging weeds for a time while singing little tunes of gratitude to and for the rain. So far this is a gentle rain, just right for softening the soil to receive more. Already everything appears greener and taller as it telescopes skyward to get its share of moiture.

All of creation, including me, seems to be breathng a sigh of opening and gentling. I know I anthropomorphizing here. Nature has its way of simply coping with whatever comes. There are many reports of nature preparing for or fleeing coming diasters but it doesn't seem to ascribe meaning to the comings and goings of weather. A tree doesn't second guess whether it should have called in so much of its reserves to resprout leaves after the frost that killed the initial tender growth. I worry about how the tree will survive with too little water after already being stressed but I have no evidence that it worries about that. I doubt my concern for it is even welcomed.

Nature seems to operate by stimulus and response. No rain? Ok, conserve water, slow growth, reduce surface area to reduce evaporation. It skips the interpretive step of ascribing meaning or determining blame or guilt. Much of my own discomfort comes from the stories I create about what something means or what I may have done to create the current circumstance. Mostly my mental masturbation just delays action and makes me feel worse still.

My friend suggested that the mind is best used for doing math and such pragmatic activities instead of processing feelings. Feelings are dependent on the story. As the story changes, so do my feelings. There is nothing objective about them. I am sure feelings have a place in determining danger or opportunity as in having a gut feeling. They do provide feedback about the nature of the story I am telling myself. I just don't need to play in them like I am in a sandbox building castles unless I am conscious that that is what I am doing so I can quit that activity when I am done and cleanly move onto something else. My suffering comes in when I carry over one story into another completely unrelated activity.

The rain has slowed again. I am headed out to play in the mud, digging crab grass, amending the soil and planting geraniums. Just that, leaving other stories behind. Having that choice is why I love my life so much!

Harvesting my Breakfast

2007-06-13T07:24:00.000-07:00

This morning I was out picking dew drenched sugar snap peas. From the vine into my mouth! How yum is that! Well it is a matter of taste I guess. One day I was walking my client past the peas and stopped to pick her a few. Her grandchildren were with her and I offered them each one. They each tried a bite but made a face and spit it out. What a waste of 2 good peas!

Anyway, I have stories about what I didn't used to enjoy. One was beets. Ohhh, yuck!
Every so often mom would clean out and re-organize the canned goods. She would see the beets and exclaim over them and move them to the front of the lineup. Then, when the rest of the family was gone and I was left home alone, I would get down on my hands and knees and move the beets way to the back of the shelf. Out of sight out of mind. It actually worked. I don't know that mom ever caught on. Or she didn't let on to me that she caught on. Now I adore beets, fresh beets that is. Well maybe most all beets. I get them a lot at the farmer's market. I always remember that game mom and I played and smile.

When I first moved to the country I had a great big garden and put up lots of things. With time, it has become easier to buy from the Mennonites down the road and the farmers market. I plant things that I usually can't get like certain varieties of summer and winter squash and yes, sugar snap peas.

My first gladiolus is also coming into bloom today. It will be white in the center with ruffled pink edges. The heat will cause them to bolt so I will pick those and bringthem into the cooler house where I get to enjoy them all the more.

Right now, everything is green and lush. The trees replaced their frost bitten leaves with double or triple the number of leaves. The weather and news people are squalling about the lack of rain. We are 10 inches down from average right now. So people are being redirected into worry about something which we have no control away from the beauty of the moment. Can the "law of expectation" of no rain cause the drought to extend?

Today it is beautiful. I treasure each drop of rain that comes our way. The sun of today, the rain, they all nourish my soul in season. And I love my life all the more for it.

When TV is more compelling than reality

2007-06-09T18:37:00.001-07:00

I don't know that this post will ever be posted. It feels private. It feels crazy. I have been watching Startrek: The Next Generation series from the beginning. In the episode I watched tonight, Wesley Crusher the young ensign I watched grow up was visiting from Starfleet academy and he was sullen and irritable. Someone from the tribe of Indians the Enterprise was sent to evacuate bought him to a place to have a Vision Quest of sorts. He had a vision in which his long dead father came to him and told Wesley not to follow him but to set out on his own course. Wesley resigned his commission and became an apprentice to The Traveler, an entity who travels the universe freely.

The people I admire are like the Renaissance people like De Vinci, Tesla, Walter Russel (The Man Who Knew the Secrets of the Universe). People who were masters at many things and could really see outside the box. To that end I am drawn to explore art, music, science. Wesley was trying to live up to what he perceived to be the expectation of others including his mother and captain. His destiny if you will was so much beyond their imaginations. Unfortunately, I do not have the imagination to take me where I want to go.

I look at recent events. My dad's death, the discontinuation of my martial arts training, my inner restlessness. I just had 3 weeks of living alone time I did not make great use of. Well, I guess that depends on my perspective. I rather feel I got caught in an undertow yet again with goals relating to fitness and weight. I replaced my sit still and do nothing time with listening to weight related hypnosis tapes. How I feel about myself and my day depends on what I ate and if I exercised. I am looking to control the longings of my soul by regimenting my physical well being. I am reporting the quantifiable to my master mind team and again lost track of the qualitative.

To be sure, I have stretched myself. I have taken the myofascial release class with horses and learned a lot. To stand next to a great big horse and work with him was a stretch. I have registered for a course in working with fusing and slumping glass. Had my first ever Bamboo sale and will soon be laying a new floor. From some perspectives I am going for it, from others I am barely venturing beyond the 50 yad line when the universe can be my playing field.

Maybe it is a crises of identity or maybe of faith. Maybe I am hitting my head on a self imposed ceiling. It is said that if you take a flea and cover it's container with a transparent barrier, it will learn how high it can jump. When the barrier is removed it will never jump higher. Or the elephant that is chained when it is young and then is bound by a restraint all of its life. Even when it would no longer hold him.

There is some boldness called for now. At the very least to get back to my study of why I love my life so much and sitting still doing nothing. What I thought was structure I needed to support going for it fell short in my execution of it. The means became the ends. Maybe the boldness is going back inside yet again until it bubbles up from within. Clearly I don't "know" the answer. Maybe I don't even know the question.

Choose Ecstasy

2007-06-06T07:22:00.000-07:00

My feelings were stirred up by my last post so as I went to bed I played one one my favorite games. I ask a question and ask to gain insight by picking a passage in a book at random. Last night I asked for perspective on my turmoil with my martial arts teacher. My book was Recieving God by Jason Shulman.

The answer was "ecstasy is chosen". Sigh. His explanation is that "ecstacy is the condition that arises when both happiness and unhappiness are seen to have a common origin". He is nudging me away from seeking only light or good times into holding both light and darkness close to my bosom. In that way I add depth to my experience and if the light and dark are integrated, my bubble can't pop. I can't fall into pollyanna-ish thinking. I was willing to entertain this experience through that lens and fell asleep.

Today is the day we usually worked out. Since I did not have an appointment to keep, I did not make an effort to get up and get going. I had used those workouts as the cornerstone of my fitness program. Meeting someone to workout allowed me to assign my responsibility to do for myself to someone else. I just needed to show up. Without that structure.... well... sigh.... responsibility for my fitness falls fully back on me. Quite possibly I am as upset at having to make conscious choices about exercise as I am upset at the lack of communication that I chose to make me feel like a fool and betrayed. This is like holding up a mirror and seeing a massive pimple on the face of my soul. Sigh.

So I am back to the basics. One soul inhabiting one spacesuit body. I choose to keep this spacesuit in optimum fuctioning condition. So here I go into some routine as I keep my eyes open for another growth expanding, physical conditioning structure. Maybe I want to get in shape enough to hike a(short)portion of the Appalacian trail.
Hmmmm, what would be the funnest way to move forward now? Into Ecstacy! Into fitness!Into loving my life, pain and all!

Pain to my Bone Marrow

2007-06-05T19:37:00.000-07:00

Grief is a funny thing. Sometimes it strikes clear to my bone marrow. You might thnk I am grieving the loss of my dad, but not this time. I don't even know what to call what I am grieving.

I take private martial arts classes. Our schedule is free flowing and changeable but we keep in touch by phone. A week ago Sunday I was stood up. There was no call to reschedule or explain. This was uncharacteristic of our relationship. I left a couple of messages and got no reply. My assumption was that something awful had happened. I left messages offering assistance or support. I left my phone number in case someone else picked up the call and needed to respond to me. No contact. I even offfered to check in on his animals. No contact.

Finally on Friday I saw a familar vehicle. I went to in see what was going on. I could see he and his partner were fine and commented on such. She looked confused. He muttered something about scheduling difficulties. I wasn't availble to work out that weekend and left saying give me a call.

Somehow I felt betrayed. I felt a fool for worrying and caring. I felt like what I had thought to be a friendship really wasn't. The more I thought on these things, the more I hurt all the way to my bone marrow. I still don't know what happened here. There is no enough information for closure. There has not been another call. What is going on? Why me? Why this? Why now? Resistance is not only futile but painful.

I know enough to know that my response to an event is more important than the event itself. There are various lessons I can take from this but I want to take from this in a way that allows me to keep my heart open and to keep caring. I have grown a lot studying with this person and had many good times. I went way beyond my comfort zone and benefitted. There are other experiences I can persue to continue my growing. He is not my source but an avenue that may or may not open up again. I won't call again. I would go to work out again if he calls me. It is difficult to suspend judgement pending finding more information. It is hard to keep my heart open when it hurts so much.

I am at choice here. Maybe this is an ultimate lesson of flowing. That has been one of my weak points. The only thing that now comes to mind is the children's song:
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

Time to float along to another great adventure.

Help Keeping my Word to Myself...

2007-06-05T18:46:00.000-07:00

I am part of a mastermind team. There are 4 of us who meet by telephone for an hour every week to support each other in attaining goals. I got permission from my team to have a theme, "Why do I love my life so much"? instead of a measurable goal. We take turns reporting what is working for us, what is not, and where we are headed next. The intent is to support, provide a forum for accountability and give feedback.

Yes, it is strange to belong to such a linear group. I joined before I had the flash to focus on a theme. Since I am marching to a different drummer than they are, I cleared my intention. Even with my loose format, I feel pressure of what to report to the team. I have identified activites I want to develop into consistent habits like "sitting still and doing nothing", blogging and living in a way food and exercise wise that maximizes my aliveness. Still, it is tough knowing what to say when I don't feel I did so good.

Knowing I will be speaking with them makes me follow though on my word to myself when keeping my word to myself isn't a strong enough motivation. I'd rather think I keep my word to myself as sacred but I admit I am still more consistent keeping my word to others. If I say I will meet you at a certain time, I will be there. If I say I will exercise at a certain time, I may slither out of my commitment. It is not one of my favorite traits but having observed this in action, I use my word to others to help me keep my word to myself.

Today one of the members didn't really want to share. He ended up going last as if he hadn't done enough. I know the feeling. Every week I have to think about what I have or haven't done or what I have or haven't paid attention to. Sometimes it feels like confession, like what I have done is not enough. He shared his story and had taken significant steps towards his goal and had pushed his personal growth by stretching into unfamiliar territory. But he keeps asking, "Am I really making progress towards my goal"? His goals are business and financial related. He took leaps but they are not yet showing up on his bottom line and so felt bad instead of good.

This is the very reason I wanted a theme instead of a goal. I was using goals to beat myself up instead of feeling good. I am about having experiences that demonstrate why I love my life so much. This last weekend I took a class on using Myofascial Release(MFR) on horses. MFR is my speciality for pain relief and I an excellent at it. I thought this class would further refine my touch with my clients, stretch my comfort zone in relating to animals and open additional avenues for treatment. It did all of these. But most of all it was an experience; me reaching up and working on a GIANT horse named Samson and watching his eyes close halfway, and his mouth drool as he leaned into what I was doing with him. Awesome. What goal does that fulfill? I had an experience! That is enough. even if I do nothing with it, it is enough. I stepped beyond my comfort zone and the horse leaned into me. We blended. It is enough.

In this instance I got immediate and awesome feedback. My colleague who felt he didn't have such a good week may have totally changed another persons life and never even know it. Even if someone came up and told him how moved they were by his sharing and life, he seemed to discount it. His goal does not seem to give him the joy of noticing the feedback along the way that can't be measured. He doesn't see how the bamboo roots are growing along underground and one day they will shoot up with force and majesty. It is part of the mastermind process to help him see that, to cheer his success and encourage him to persist when the results are not evident, yet.

Tonight I was speaking with a different mastermid group that is more loosely structured. They cheer me on. Some members read and enjoy my blog and tell me so! We were speaking about having experiences in search of delight pure and simple. That about sums it up. In the process I find why I love my life so much.

What's Going On Here?

2007-05-30T19:22:00.000-07:00

When I was little I knew the words "What's going on here"? usually meant trouble. I was pushing the envelope in a way that would have consequences. Surely what I am looking at now also has consequences. I am still watching myself discover what it means.

I have been observing how I use my unscheduled time. I am not proud to say that my best gobbler of time is Spider Solitaire. I like to think I can influence the cards by my attitude, that it cultivates single point focus, and helps me to unwind. These may all be true on occasion but the value gained is not commensurate to the time spent. I have known this for some time but Spider seems to be my default setting when I am bored.

Usually I like to write when I have an insight into some small behavior. I have no insight yet about this. Maybe it is enough to "fess up". I have lots of interests that I am exploring but not with enough determination and passion to become how I choose to spend my unscheduled time. How many things could I have gotten quite good at by now if I had channeled my Spider time into their pursuit.

This is not about beating myself up. Rather it is about becoming conscious. I hope it leads to different choices. Maybe. I often suggest that if people want to smoke, they totally enjoy every single puff and when it becomes habitual to put it out until they are loving it again. I think I will follow my own advice here and play Spider with my whole being and attention until I am drawn to something else or bored.
Perhaps then I will see how it fits into why I love my life so much.

Don't Touch Me!

2007-05-30T14:20:00.000-07:00

We inherited a litter of puppies to find homes for this spring again. The itinerant workers who "own" the mom are never here when the puppies arrive so mom and brood end up down here. 2 got good homes, 2 disappeared and we are left with one. He is 3/4 Siberian Husky or Malamut. He does NOT want to be petted or touched. We call him Rootie since he loves digging.

Rootie is incredibly alert. He watches everything. He follows along at a distance and settles in a few feet away when I work outside. He licks my fingers and enjoys my food. He likes to come in but doesn't like to go back outside. He wants to be where the action is as long as he is on the sidelines out of reach. I presume he doesn't feel safe but I have no idea why.

Of course I am anthropomorphizing here, but he reminds me of myself. I mostly kept myself at arms length away from others, both physically and emotionally. For my part I was keeping myself safe but I also removed myself from the love and affection of others. I even found an acceptable way to do it. I took pictures. I can't play because of the camera and taking photos. I never did anything with them. I didn't even take many. It was safe. I could be there without getting too close.

I keep telling Rootie that I would love to pet him, that it would feel good. And besides it is the puppy's job is to give comfort by allowing such contact. He is not impressed. He is laying here 6 feet away, watching. How much of my life did I stay arm's length away while complaining no-one loved me? Far too much. Now I am recognizing that I was the one who shunned the contact. I was keeping myself safe. Safe and separate.

From where I sit now, I see no danger. That obviously wasn't how I felt growing up. It's curious that I waited until dad died to pull much of this together. We had gotten 90% of the way there but even then, in the last weeks, there was a part of me saying, "Don't touch me. I don't want to hurt so much when you die." I used the excuse that he wasn't as mentally available as I would be needed. I guess I trained him not to try to touch me. I didn't know how to touch him at those deep places then either.

I hope he knows how much more highly I have come to regard him. I hope he helps me sort out the couple areas of my life I know I still have in a tangle because of beliefs I built keeping myself safe. finally I feel myself becoming softer. Maybe touch is a good thing. Rootie, are you listening? You can train me not to touch you but we both will miss out on something special.

Lusher than Ever.

2007-05-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

I learn a lot from nature. My spirit is impacted by nature. I was bee-bopping along with the early greening of trees this year. Most of my plants were 2-3 weeks ahead of schedule because of the unseasonably warm March weather. The new shoots were out and displayed a tender green. It was awesome. Then the Easter freeze of 2007 hit.

I knew the bad weather was coming. I protected what I could. I was not prepared for the devastation, especially to the shrubs and trees. I drove down the backroads thinking everything had been torched. The fresh shoots were hanging limp and brown or black. This included all the Oak trees, various nut and fruit trees. The Bradford pear were black on the north side and green on the south. I wished I had taken photos but then again it was so awful. I despaired of much green to soothe my eyes this year and worried that many trees would not make it.

The specialists said don't prune anything. Give it all a month or two. I shook my head and wept inside. Little happened that first month. Then some trees started putting out new shoots, not just leaves but entirely new branches. I looked up into my Butternut tree and saw 4-5 green bunches of leaves and wondered if they could do enough photosynthesis to sustain that great tree. Turns out those clusters were the pioneers.

Now the trees are more lush than ever I have seen them. And drooping from among the leaves are the blackened vestiges of life frozen to death. Even the trees that stayed barren longest have now begun regreening. The Katalpa tree even produced new blossoms. I am already thinking that the autumn colors will be spectacular. I know everything is still fragile in the sense that a drought could really stress the trees that have now put out so much energy to restore their foilage. I am thinking about what the wildlife will do this winter without the fruit and nut crops.

I am left knowing nature appears to be more resilient than I think I am. I don't know that I have been tested to the point where I have had to call upon my reserves so deeply in order to survive. Sometimes I dote on my self pity when things seem not to go my perferred way. I find myself thinking that life is too hard and I don't want to do this. But sooner or later, this too passes.

I take strength in watching this miracle of regenertion and hope I follow suit when I feel burnt to the core. In the meantime, things are greener than green. My eyes are bathed in spring greens. My heart is calm. The tears have dried. Life is good.

My Exotic Life

2007-05-21T14:27:00.000-07:00

I wrote a friend about having a bamboo sale. She wanted to know where I got it and what inspired me to do such a thing. She didn't know I had been growing it for the past 9 years and have sizable groves of 5 types. The timber bamboo is getting to be 2 inches in diameter which is great for this far north. I realizied I do lots of fun and unusual things. I summarized some of it to her:

"Actually I live a pretty exotic life. I live on a farm with llamas and bamboo. Work in a dome I helped build, study homeopathy, do arts and crafts of all varieties and started martial arts training when I was 55. I have a thirst for learning and personal growth and write a great blog reflecting on my life learnings. I make it a priority to walk my talk. How cool is that!"

Sometimes I find myself thinking I am bored. Who am I kidding? The more I pay attention to this moment, and take in as much sensory input as I can, the more I see I am creating a very cool life. And it has generally been on a low budget.

There are times I get swept up in thinking I ought to make lots of money, become famous, or travel first class. I think I would welcome such experiences but they are not my target anymore. I created that photo collage of my life after my dad's death and I am realizing I have always been loved, even when I thought I was alone. And I have participated in experiences others would never consider. I did an Apache style vision quest with 72 hours alone, fasting on a mountain after 6 months prep. I took a seminar in blowing glass. I wondered in the wilderness of unloved and found my way back to my truth of being totally loved.

Why do I love my life so much? I am waking up and living it these days. All I can say is YES! I going to go see how much my timber bamboo has shot up in the last 24 hours. I can almost hear and see it grow. Yesterday it was up 10 more inches. Sometimes I think my growth has been as fast of late.

Actually, there is something interesting about bamboo growth: 80% of it is underground. The visible canes emerge and shoot every spring and grow like crazy for 2 months time. Those canes will never get taller or fatter than they do during that time. They will get stronger and they provide food to the roots which will strengthen and send up new shoots next year that are fatter and taller. My growth is probably a lot like that. Tons of it happens in the invisible arena, fed by my sensory input and actions, and periodically it becomes visible to myself and others around me. Down the road I will harvest the energy that is now going into my roots. I can hardly wait to see the size of my next shoots! WaaahhhWhoooo!

Boo Hoo Hoo

2007-05-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

Boo Hoo Hoo, or WAAAAAAH, is my sound of of resisting what is. It is the sound of self pity. I get to play with wearing the happiness hat or not wearing it. I wasn't wearing it yesterday or the eveniing before that.

Things weren't going as I had planned or wanted. I felt overwhelmed and alone. But life happens at the intersection of events. I scheduled a sale of bamboo plants for this weekend. I didn't think through the timing or what was involved. I thought I had help I didn't have on Thursday, nice strong help to dig bamboo plants. I didn't. Watching me try to dig bamboo is truly laughable even though I was feeling sorry for myself.

Picture this. A 9 year old established grove of bamboo, climate zone 5. The cames are .75 - 1.5 inches in diameter. I pick my clump, place my shovel, climb upon the shovel top with all the force I can muster. The shovel goes in 1 inch. I hold onto the shovel with one hand and another bamboo cane with the other and begin rocking side to side to get the shovel down another inch or two. After a dozen wholehearted attempts I have loosened around the edge maybe 5 inches deep. It has been 45 minutes. I go looking for a crow bar to try and pry it up. Yes, and the sale is tomorrow. I have no bamboo dug and not much hope of getting any dug. I tried another clump I thought might be easier. Huh! I can't cancel the sale. The ads are in the papers. My roommate has gone to England for her grandson's graduation. That is when I sat on the ground whining. Besides that, I am too exhausted to get up.

Worse than going through it is watching myself go through it and knowing full well it is my own creation. It was my bright idea and I set the dates and placed the ads. Well, I got to the computer, finished writing the sheet of bamboo facts and care. Made indentifying labels and went to bed. This morning I didn't know if I wanted customers or not. I didn't know what I would do but dreaded no one showing up. I had one couple today. They helped me dig. And then my strong man showed up. Yeah!!

Did you ever see the old cult classic movie "Harold and Maude"? There was a scene where they were driving over a bridge with a tree standing bolt upright in the pick up truck. I remembered it as bamboo but it probably wasn't. 4 clumps went riding down the country road, off to start a new grove. My strong man and I dug Bamboo for the next few hours. I am ready for tomorrow and have a brand new bent, really bent, shovel to show for my efforts. Actually my strong man has that as his trophy.

Would it be so very hard to simply trust that everything will work out from the beginning? I was aware enough to observe my wimpering and whining but not enough to put my happy hat on, except when I saw the gyrations of my trying to dig bamboo.
That would be one for funniest home videos.

Learning to stay present and make conscious choices is great fun as long as I remember I fell down many times while learning to walk. I need only to keep getting up and affirming this is why I love my life so much.

Flirting with Fly Paper!

2007-05-16T08:53:00.000-07:00

Fly paper and sticky traps attact with a lure and hold one fast until the life force is sucked out. Pet peeves are one of those fly papers. Some things hold such a charge to my righteous mind that I won't let it go, even if it is sucking my energy.
Just last night I listened to someone wrestle with such a theme. It was clear to me she was stuck onto the fly paper and not able to listen right then.

Ha! Less than 24 hours later, I find myself buzzing around my own fly paper. My righteous indignation gets riled up over what I call bait and switch marketing techniques. The offender is my car dealership. We have an ongoing battle. Every quarter I get reminders and coupons to get my car serviced. Oil change about $22. OK. In the small print it says it may be different on various models. My model is $36-40 for a oil change. Almost twise the advertised price. I figure they know my name, my service timing, my mileage. So why don't they know I have a hybrid and send me an appropriate coupon? I get riled up everytime I get a reminder and everytime I even think about getting my car serviced. I am running around on the same hamster wheel I was watching someone else run last night.

I am right! I have gone round and round with them. Doesn't seem they are able to delete my name from the mailing list longer than 6 months. They say that service is farmed out and they don't have control. I beg to differ. The engager always has control or should have. Today I had a letter written in my mind to send to Honda, the dealership owner, the service manager and even to God. I am already unlikely to to buy the same brand because of this but I love my car, just paid it off, and want to keep her healthy. I don't want bad vibes around or about her.

So what are my choices? Get off it. Yes, but I'm right! Take her to be serviced somewhere else. I will look into getting the expensive rarely used oil in bulk and taking it to my local service man. I did call to find out the value of that coupon if I had a regular car. We are talking $2-3 here. That put it in perspective. All of this energy drain over $3 bucks. Who is the crazy one here? I'm the one with my hand still in the air. So today I will request a proportionate coupon reduction, and go in knowing what it will cost.

I am still right but not happy. Happiness is a choice. Would I rather be right or would I rather be happy? I choose happy. The fly paper will have to change its lure and I get to be more vigilant at noticing when I am flirting with leaking my energy through righteousness. In the meantime, I love my life so much when I see a trap and avert it, at least this time.

The Bamboo is Shooting!

2007-05-15T20:37:00.000-07:00

I grow bamboo, 5 varieties of bamboo. Bamboo is awesome. It has different growth patterns than most plants in that each shoot does all of its growing in only 60 days. The height and diameter is determined prior to its emergence. The cane gets stronger from one year to the next but not thicker or taller. The source of vitality is in the roots. The stronger and more established the roots, the greater the diameter of the cane and the greater height. I can see the diameter of each cane from the moment it breaks through the earth. It grows fast, sometimes 1-3 feet a day!

Kentucky is a little far north to get really fat timber sized bamboo. But every year so far, the canes get a little broader and taller. So I wait and watch for the shooting to begin to see how fat they will be this year. I then prune out the smaller canes of previous years. The last variety, my timber bamboo, started shooting today!

Bamboo is a case of so below as above. I always know where the roots are heading because of the trail of canes that appear on the surface. I can see the vitality of the root reflected in the size of the shoot. It is a lot like life. The vitality and driving force are invisible. The fruit of the invisble always show up in life. If I want my bamboo to grow in a straight row type hedge I have to "encourage" the roots to grow in certain ways and thwart roots that want to go different way. I have to do the same thing with the stories I tell myself about how thigs are and what they mean.

I have been listenig to an audio program called "Holosync" for some months now. It uses technology to support a variety of brainwave patterns. I have now completed the first level. In proceeding to the next level, I have the option of choosing and recording 5 minutes of affirmations to be imbedded into my next holosync program. I am choosing how to shape and prune the root system of my mind, which will produce the shoots of reality in my life.

Of course I started with my umbrella question, "Why do I love my life so much"? I decided to use all questions instead of statements. I have been writing down ideas for these core questions for months now. I arrived at 22 finalists and submitted the recording yesterday. I am eager to see how I will respond to the next level soundtrack and to my questions approach. Let the bamboo shoot! What will this input shift in my life? I am eager for the shoots to appear!

Spinning Burnout

2007-05-15T20:05:00.000-07:00

I am on a chatline on which someone is asking all the typical burnout questions. Why am I doing this? Do I really want to help people? Are the financial rewards sufficient reason to do something I don't love anymore? Did I ever love it? The questions go on and on. Bottom line was she didn't find joy in her work and she couldn't be a real therapist until she found that. Until then she was just working.

I have been somewhere like that recently when I was struggling to accomplish specific goals. Turned out that they weren't really my goals but rather ones that great copywriters lured me into seeking. In my reflection process I re-membered that joy is what I bring to something not what I get from something. Happiness is a choice. Happiness is not based on reasons. Someting does not make me happy or unhappy. Happy is the color of my glasses, the color of my world view point.

Back when I went to school, Occupational Therapy talked about "therapeutic use of self". It meant that who I was and how I related to a patient was as much a part of treatment as the exercises or activities we were doing. Maybe it was the real treatment. So the quality of me that I bring to my clients or to my job is the joy not the job. I have had sales clerks or even strangers change the course of my day. I am remembering the crosswalk guard whose smile and wave made my day and caused me to alter my day just to drive by that location at that time.

The more I am realizing that I am part of the great human family and participating in that family, the more I perceive just how much my being effects others.
This lone wolf has found herself in a pack. There are different assumptions and certainly a different spin. Burnout has little to do with job or resposibilities and lots to do with trying to run solo in a team sport called life. Questions about my beingness may be more important than questions about my doingness. Burnout comes from seeking answers outside instead of inside. Asking why do I love my life so much has let me see my insides reflected back to me from the outside.

Wandering in the Fog Bank?

2007-05-15T19:40:00.000-07:00

Awhile back I wrote that I was leaving myself a trail of breadcrumbs to find my way back to the spiritual ah-ha I was experiencing at the time. I hoped I wouldn't need my trail so soon. One of my crumbs has to be my mastermind group who noticed that I haven't been blogging and wondered why. I described myself as wandering in the land of "I don't want to". I don't want to write. I don't really want to see clients, I don't want to be pulled out of my fogbank. I thought it might be grieving but that might make it too easy to act unconscious.

Not wanting to doesn't mean I am not taking action. Quite the contrary. When I look at my week I have cleaned the workroom and refrigerator. I have caught myself doing things to cross them off my list and stopped myself, refocused and did them as if they were the most important thing in my life. I have started eating all by itself for its own sake. I am not eating while driving, not eating while watching TV, not eating while reading. I am eating to savor the food and nourish my body. I have paid off my car loan. I have found a glassworking class I want to take.

So I feel as though I am in a fog but I am accomplishing much. Maybe I am mislabeling what is happening here. Perhaps my thought machine is quieter. I am thinking that I am in a daze rather than noticing I may be more in a natural flow in which efforting has given way to flowing. Maybe calculating and judgement is giving way to intuiting and accepting. If that is the case I am not so lost after all. The rewriting of my life that has taken place recently is simply spilling over into my present life.

Why do I love my life so much?

Getting to Here from There

2007-05-06T13:27:00.000-07:00

All of the introspection leading up to and following my Dad's death has made me wonder how I got from animosity to love but also how did I get into such animosity in the first place. If you were one of those who stayed close to family all your life, this post may seem peculiar.

Dad was tough, no question about that. He drank but I'm not sure when that became a problem. His voice instilled sufficient fear so spankings were seldom needed or used. I compared my situation with that of others and thought they were given things I had to earn. It appears I took isolated instances and generalized them into great themes. Like I probably saw dad try to kiss mom when he had been drinking and her push him away which led to my having a judgement everytime he tried to kiss her. How could he want her to kiss him when he came home from work and she was cooking? Or when she was dying and noone knew that she was sick, she didn't want him to buy another rental house but I thought she was against all of his real estate dealings. Somehow he became responsible for her death in my mind. And he yelled. And I couldn't or wouldn't stay and be the mom after she died. What stories did I have to tell myself to move out on my own?

I was civil but distant. I was angry. I believed I had to do it all on my own. I moved out of state so dad couldn't just drop in on me. I called home every few months. I didn't think anything of it. I didn't see my parents call their parents very often. We went to vist South Dakota and Minnesota every second or third year.

Dad gave me a loan to have time to sell some land rather than lose it. About that same time I was living with someone who called home every week. It had never occured to me that this might be appropriate. So I called more often, like once a month. Then I had an opportunity to be with someone who was waiting for the grown kids to call, someone who refused to be a burden but was clearly affected by a call or the lack of a call. That made an impression. Calls home were superficial in my opinion but I increased the frequency. Dad and Virginia, my step mom, seemed grateful. I wrote monthly with my loan payment.

I visited every 18 months or so. A couple of times they came to visit me or we rendezvoused at a navy ship reunion. Somewhere in there, I understood the importance of the navy to him and how effected my childhood. I gradually became more grateful.

Another leap in relating came through my studies in homeopathy. Vega, my instructor often brought his 2 daughters to class. As I watched him parent them, I felt reparented myself. I started to understand what "honor thy father and thy mother" meant. I grew in appreciation for the way I was raised and the pitfalls I avoided because of the way I was raised. It was one of those classes that inspired my classmate and I to swap family stories as we drove down the mountain. That helped me remember the good times in addition to the tough times.

I had made great progress but even as late as January of this year I struggled with what to want for my Dad. His quality of life was absent from my perspective. I didn't know whether to pray for his release or his life. My homeopath suggested that was a theorethical thing and that I find a way to realize how I was connected to Dad.
After much sighing, I opened a space to find that father-daughter connection.

Dad was in the hospital, seeing dead people. I set about reflecting. This is when I made the lists of things he did that I felt good about, things that he did that were good for me but that I didn't like, and things I faulted him for. I saw the good far outweighed the bad but my little girl emotional fear still outweighed the all the good. I wrote him a letter recalling good times and bad times, asking forgiveness for anything I might have done that hurt him, and giving him permission to go if it was time. My sister read it to him. He didn't remember. I read it to him again when I got there.

It was my sister who had the fantasy of a family reunion while he was still alive. She had that idea from an episode of "Little House on the Prairie". I got on the computer and helped it happen. I went a few days early to help it flow. It was a surprize. It was amazing. The last time all siblings were together was 1994.

This brings me to this last trip to help plan the funeral and celebration of his life. Now I am a genuinely loving and apprecitive daughter. Somewhere in there we healed and my heart is opening.

Why do I love my life so much?

Grounding the Ephemeral

2007-05-06T12:35:00.000-07:00

Perhaps this feeling of connectedness has been a spiritual experience of sorts. A great AH-HA that will fade away with time. There has been some spill over into life. I am gentler with myself. I am gentler with others in the sense of being more present to them and more compassionate. I don't seem to be looking out for my personal rights and interests in the same way. I am not trying to be different; I am noticing many places where I am.

Given that I have had great insights in the past and then forgot only to remember them again some eons later, I am looking to ground this new community sense. I am leaving myself breadcrumbs along the path so I can come back here and remember this time of grace. Better yet, I intend to instill this new perspective into my waking life.

I am being grateful when I observe I am responding with greater presence. I am trying on different reponses when my impulse is to behave from irritability. I made a collage of my life using copies of my Happy photos. It has photos relating to various turning points, bursts of creativity, people who tweaked my direction and bold snippets of text to remind me of what I now think I know. There is room to add more as I contiue my journey. I won't need a slide show at my death; my life is already compiled.

Even this blog is a way for me to ground my experience. Asking the question "Why do I love my life so much"? is helping me to pay attention to interactions that I might have overlooked in the past. This blog also gives me a way to remember. It may also be a force in my evolution. Scientists make an effort to research using double blind designs because of the observer effect. Questioning. observing and posting accelerates and I hope, grounds, my process. Maybe it encourages someone else in their journey.

Rewriting History

2007-05-06T11:08:00.001-07:00

Not so very many years ago I would look at childhood photos of myself and see a sorrowful and withdrawn child. A few years ago I noticed I didn't look so sad in those photos any longer. I just looked normal. Now I look at those same photos and see a smiling, happy child with a twinkle in my eyes. What happened here?

I know I changed the stories I tell myself. I used to tell myself I was a breech baby because I didn't want to be on the planet. After all, I was bathed in fear vibes while still in the womb. Dad had fallen off a roof, broke his back and both ankles. They said he'd never walk again. Mom wasn't allowed see him, being so pregnant at the time with me. so naturally, life was hard for me and I had a story to justify it. I felt alone.

Perhaps my photos became "normal" about the time I was searching for stories of what was good in my family a few years ago. I wasn't looking then.

I first saw the smiles and twinkle while looking at photos for dad's memorial. I am so puzzled by the shifting perspectives. I am convinced that the photos themselves changed, not just the eyes seeing them. I feel myself connected to my family in a different way now and through that, I feel more connected to the human family as a whole.

I once thought it noble to consider myself a "self made woman" now that seems to be an arrogant position. Clearly I stand on the shoulders of my parents, my siblings and even countless others both unkonown and unknown. I really am loving my life more now. Even the memory of feeling alone is fading away.

My history changed as I resorted stories and gave them a new spin. It might not even be a new spin. It might simply reflecting the change order in which stories I think of first. My "present time" has changed dramatically. My future trajectory has made a radical shift.

The Stories I Tell...

2007-05-01T21:16:00.000-07:00

I got to Seattle on Saturday. The service was scheduled for the following Friday. I took an active role in shaping the service. My sister and I worked from 7 Am till midnight everyday. When was writing his obituary my sister said I made it seem that he led a colorful life. If fact he did.

One of our early decisions was to take resposibility for speaking about dad instead of leaving the task to the minister. We asked the minister to do the spiritual comfort part; I would speak of the themes of his life. I am the eldest. I have worked consciously to heal my relationship with him.

I shape who I am becoming by the stories I tell myself about others and my experiences. The stories I would have told about my dad are far different now than they would have been years ago. They are different than they would have been a couple of weeks ago.

My stories changed radically at least 4 times in the recent 30 years. The first was an evening lecture in which the speaker suggested that we choose our parents before we are born. I couldn't see why anyone, meaning me, could possbily choose to be born into a family where the dad drank and had such a temper as my did and where my mom would die when I was only 19. I stomped about inside my head in a rage. Eventually, the idea had appeal in that if I chose my parents and a board outline of my lessons then I wasn't a victim. It gave me a kind of power.

The second took place in New Mexico. My dad and stepmom were visiting and we were all at a neighbor's house for lunch. My dad and our friend Clint began discussing their time in the military and in WWII. I had never heard my dad speak of the war before or since. He was not sharing with me but I was allowed to overhear their conversation.

I knew dad had joined the navy under-aged as an escape from his family. He credits the navy with making him a man. As I heard the stories of discipline he went through I understood how he came to raise us in the way that he did. In a way we grew up in a boot camp. Understanding this gave me insight and I softened towards him to some degree. We were civil as before but I started to call more often.

Did I say dad had a temper and was irritable? There wasn't physical abuse, I was just afraid of him. That little girl fear dominated my interactions with him. The third story changing event came as Peggy and I drove from Flagstaff to Phoenix after homeoplathy class. I don't remember what in class prompted us, but we began swapping positive dad stories. She would tell one and that would spark me into a memory I had forgotten. I began remembering family vacations, father daughter breakfasts, fishing trips, and times when he was there for me. My pre-occupation with his tone and manner had hidden all the good times. Who knew?

The fourth shift happened just last week as we shifted through photos and stories getting ready for the service. I know people mellow as they age. Dad did. He also stopped drinking. My sister ran a daycare that dad visited. The kids had a couple of nicknames for my dad. One was "Silly Grandpa" and the other "Rudolph". Who was this person? I think I would have lost my head if I had ever even thought to call my dad either of these names. It was a whole different side I had never seen but could imagine. He was strict but loving with the grandchildren and even better with the great grandchildren. I started to see and remember my dad as a family man. It only took 56 years and his death to see it.

I have lots of stories now to illustrate 4 themes in his life that he taught by example: 1. Never quit, 2. live big and ride the waves, the ups and downs of life, don't seek the always placid waters, 3. be ahead of the times by seeing the potential and taking action, and 4. be a family man.

You know, if I was looking at a book of potential fathers and I saw dad's photo with the caption underneath saying irritable, tempermental, drinking problem, but never quits, lives big, is ahead of his time and a family man, I would choose dad. Knowing everything I know now, I am glad that I did!

Go in Peace; Return in Peace

2007-05-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

My dad died. I received word late Friday night. It was expected. It was sudden. Just the sunday before, I thought he might live a few more months. I was no longer listening for the phone call. He died peacefully in his sleep, without drama and trauma.

My habitual pattern would have been to stay in class, fly home on Sunday as planned, fly out to Seattle on Wednesday or Thursday, attend the services, and fly home on Saturday. I fell asleep with that plan, continued it into the wee hours and got up knowing I was on my way to Seattle that day. My friends helped me book flights. I can only attribute this change in pattern to being open to why I love my life so much.

I stopped at my homeopathy class and waited for my teacher and mentor, Vega Rozenberg. He held me as I cried, and blessed me to go in peace and to return in peace. His words reverberated in my mind at the most emotional of times and gave me comfort. They still act as my rudder.

My homeopathy class is also my personal growth laboratory. Because of these studies I had already made peace with my dad. Before these studies I was a dutiful daughter, which was already far from the resentful daughter I once was. As a result of class I was a loving daughter.

I remember one class we were asked if we had become who we were because of our parents or through our own efforts. I said it was by my own efforts. I was wrong.
I realized my error a few months later and wrote a letter to Vega telling him so. The events of the past week have shown me that I still lacked clarity. The truth is that I not only became who I am because of my parents, but that I stand on the shoulders on my parents. I am not alone in this world and never have been. It was my illusion.

I have put on a new pair of glasses. The assumptions that protected my self isolation no longer work. What will life look like as I move ahead? Why do I love my life so much is taking on a fresher and warmer hue.

On Letting....

2007-04-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

Maybe letting is the opposite of trying. The dictionary does not indicate this but my life experience does. Trying implies resistance or at least tension; letting implies allowing or permitting. Trying impedes the flow for me; letting opens the flow.

The more I focus on why I love my life, the more I notice when I let things come to me. I let someone help me on the farm, I let in new clients, I am letting myself find a better way of eating.

One shift happened with the book by Jason Shulman, "The Instruction Manual for recieving God". I was inspired to let God in. This stands in contrast to my prior efforts of trying to be good enough for an audience with God at some later date. In letting I became a vessel with an open lid. Guilt was no longer a factor especially in regards to goal setting.

Guilt instead became stronger and more dibilitating in the area of eating and exercising which was where I had set that short term goal for a time. Enter another book, "Intuitive Eating", which is anti-diet. Instead of depriving myself, slipping, guilting and gorging I am learning to develop and trust my own hunger signals. This boook helped me see the parallels between this and goal setting, failing and resisting or refusing. Same pattern.

My homeopath suggested it is not goal setting per se that is my problem but rather the pattern that kicks into place when I set a goal. I am watching this point. I am also watching to see where guilt moves to next. I plug one guilt hole and another becomes evident. I wonder how many arenas guilt will pop up before I realize I have reprogrammed that defualt switch?

Learning about myself is one of the ways I am finding that I love my life so much.
Letting works better than guilting.

WHAT are the Chances???

2007-03-28T15:02:00.000-07:00

When my roommate came in on friday she siad, "I left more at the dump than I intended." It seems our black cat thought napping amidst the trash under the tarp would be a good thing. My roommate saw the cat when removing the tarp and put him in the truck cab with the wing windows open while she unloaded. She didn't see the cat when she got in but thought he was under the tarps. But when she started the engine, the cat streaked across in front of the truck. Despite her attempts at locating him, no cat.

I came into the story a couple of hours later. I couldn't believe she had left the cat there, though it is a headstrong cat even when it is not freaked out. I set off with the animal carrier and some cat food to the dump. What are the chances of finding him? Luckily it was not a busy day at that portion of our county dump. The dump officials let me look and eventually I heard Onyx's pitiful meow. He was under the giant dumster and I was able to rescue him. Thank goodness he wasn't in it.

In the meantime, the truck was refilled and ready for another dump run. My roommate calls and says to make sure there are no cats in the truck and since I had just had the truck bed covered, I thought she was playing with me. So my helper and I arrive at the dump, remove the tarp and begin unloading and would you believe... I wouldn't. There was our white cat caught in a roll of fencing wire we had removed from the farm. We hadn't seen that cat in 48 hours but that happens sometimes. I never expected she would be on the truck! This cat was caught tight and had to wait while we unloaded the truck to get to the fencing to find a way to disentangle her. She was in shock and not a happy camper! This time we knew to watch while getting back into the truck and she was poised for an escape.

What are the chances of 2 different cats doing the same weird thing? What if I hadn't wanted to go unload the trunk today in between the bouts of rain. Gypsy is fine now, thanks to some TLC and homeopathy to decrease the shock, but I doubt she would have lived another day caught in the truckbed as she was.

What compelled me to go back to the dump in search of Onyx? What compelled me to do a dump run on a rainy day. I had no conscious awareness of being guided but I count both these events as miracles and as evidence of why I love my life so much.

How many more things fall into place like this that we don't even notice because it is so seamless?

The power of a casual remark

2007-03-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, there was some manual labor that needed doing on the farm that I frankly didn't want to be doing but was. I was ready to blurt out some complaint like "I make so much an hour, why am I doing this job I could pay someone else to do." I aborted the sentence because I don't promote myself and therefore have available time for more clients. Therefore, if money is tight, stop whining and do the manual labor.

I had pretty strong feelings about this point but corralled my tongue. Then a most curious event happened. The next day someone asked us if we had any work that the son of a friend could do around the farm. Ha! Someone to do my manual labor. It was a win-win situation. He is strong, willing, courteous and learns very fast. My aborted comment set a chain of events into motion that delights me.

I made a list of jobs around the farm...anything that has ever bugged me, unfinished projects, all the things that weighed on me to get done but would take me years to do since I was not inclined to do them. And now, that list is nearly done. I am already seeing other things that can be upgraded.

I learned that I don't have to do it all myself. I knew having action taken on these things would create a momentum that would not only affect my joy and gtatitude but also my business. Sure enough, new clients appeared by word of mouth within days and the refferals continue to multiply.

Now I am inspired to make changes inside the house that reflect how I am feeling about the outside. Even while I was feeling stuck about goal setting, I was still finding ways in which I totally love my life that I didn't expect. I doubt that I would have set about finding such a helper, but the Universe read the energy of my heart and set things in motion. When the opportunity presented itself, I leaped.
This is a fun way to live.

One, not two

2007-03-27T19:50:00.000-07:00

When last I wrote, I was jazzed to lose weight. It is a S.M.A.R.T. goal. Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timed. And it stopped me cold in the sense that as soon as I start focusing my energy on this specific goal, I lost focus on my "Why I love my Life so much" project.

The mental debate is intense. On one hand, I have oodles of info on how to accomplish weight loss, identified my "whys", and know I have accomplished what I really wanted in the past. The reality is my self critical aspect rules in that I "should" be doing something else or doing better. I am future focused instead living in the moment. I am divided between this goal and others, like making money.

On the other hand, God is One. I have been reweaving my life into a unitary fabric that has variations in color and pattern. ASking my question feels like I am on a perpetual easter egg hunt, vigilent for the trail of energy towards my next joyous discovery wherein I rejoice in wonder and awe. I feel I have fallen yet again for the hype of the marketplace that tells me what is good for me and convinces me I want something that will later be taken for granted. I am chasing the carrot dangling from the stick that is always just a little out of my reach.

Somewhere in here, it seems that I "should" be able to do both, stay in the joy of the moment and reach towards S.M.A.R.T. goals. Right now, it is one or the other. In one sense, using why I love my life so much as a theme allows my day to day discoveries to arise anywhere in my life while I am still holding my end result of loving my life as the guiding goal or intent, but the script is short on pre-conceived notions and prescribed behavior.

I still think I would prefer being more trim and fit. I'm open to inspired action arising in this arena. I think I will focus my attention on the miracle of my body and life when I exercise instead of the shape I am hoping for. I may well land in the same place as if I persued that goal in particular. For now I am back to my focus of why I love my life so much hoping that I am not selling out my goal to stay in a comfort zone.

If I were scoring, I would need to count my joy at the end of each day. If I stay present and vigilent to the energies about me in the moment my question gets a point. If I feel I wasted the day and have nothing to show for it in aliveness, then maybe I should go back to SMART goals.

The Color of my Question.

2007-03-09T05:31:00.000-08:00

When I speak with someone about the theme question "Why do I love my life so much?", the initial response I get is a list of things for which someone is grateful. I have a question, they have a quick but often superficial response.

I explain I am not looking for an immediate answer but am posing the question as a frame of reference. It's like putting on a pair of colored sun glasses that changes the color pallet of what you see. One time I actually took colored Gels and made inserts for my glasses. I spent the whole day looking through red lenses, another day looking through green and another blue. It not only tinted my view but some colored gels actually reduced everything to shades of greys. My depth perception varied. Different aspects of things drew my attention because I was seeing with modified perception.

Viewing the world through the question of why I love my life so much also draws my attention to different things. I see things I didn't notice before because some part of me is alert and looking for an answer. I may well have forgotten the question by then but some part of me is still looking for an answer.

I don't think that it is so unusual to use a question as a frame of reference, though it may be unusal to pick the question purposefully like when I placed colored gels in my glasses for the experiment of it. More typical questions might be, "Why am I so tired?", "Why am I lonely"?. or "Where does all the money go"?

What question is coloring your view of reality? How would a different question see the same sequence of events? Or would there even be the same sequence of events? Might the question change the present? The Future? Maybe even the past?

Spilling over!

2007-03-09T05:09:00.000-08:00

No, it is not my sink. It is still draining. The llamas, however are still practicing to be escape artists!

What has spilled over into my life is the joy of setting a goal, focusing all my attention on accomplishing it and doing so. I had "worked" on the sink a few times. My efforts were half hearted. Two days ago, I determined to make that drain run or call a plumber. I was going to give it my best shot. I did that. And got the tulips planted as well. It was exhilarating!

So far I have used my question of why I love my life so much to observe and allow the flow of life. I am thinking there is also a place for determined focus and effort as I used in clearing the drain.

Therefore I am setting a 5 week focused goal to tone myself to be able to wear size 14 clothing. As of today I wear size 16w. Last year I lost and maintained the loss of 20# and dropped 2 clothing sizes. These 5 weeks I am using the same stategy that I used for clearing my drain. I am giving it everything I've got for 5 weeks.

I have ways to measure progress in place: Baseline weight and measurements. I have a nutritional plan in place and have chosen my conditioning plan. I am implementing my self image plan. I will report back in 5 weeks. I am officially 'in training' now and set myself accountable before you, my readers. Here's to a dose of wholehearted, consistent effort with a specific target by a set date!

The Sweet Sound of Gurggling

2007-03-07T18:30:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I am so moved that I burst into spontaneous song with made up lyrics. They are not fit for publication and my roommate is amused, but today was one of those days.

The kitchen sink has been stopped up for more weeks than I care to admit. Yes, weeks. For a time I hoped the drain pipe had frozen during the extreme cold we had a while back. Nothing worked. We even resorted to chemicals. Then a plumber's son told me grease + lye = soap. Besides that, after the lye didn't work then how do I dilute the contents that are standing in the pipe in order to get in and fix it? Anyway, we had the trip to visit my folks so there was time for it to "thaw".

Water was standing in the drain when I left, it had drained out of the sink but I had no idea how much had drained and what would happen if I added water. I finally became brave. At 2 quarts we had back up again. Long story short....we now have a gurggling, draining kitchen sink. I am the plunger queen! It is defintely worth singing about. And Melanie patched the fence to keep the LLamas contained...we hope. And I got the tulips planted.

There is such joy in getting things handled that have been slowly sucking my energy.
I did get the number of a plumber at the store, just in case my determination wasn't enough. But in the end, I did it myself! I am realizing part of playing further out from the 50 yard line is allowing myself to crow (or sing) about my accomplishments. I don't care is anyone is listening. My inner critic hears me joyous.

So, why do I love my life so much? Because I can open clogged drains, corral runawy llamas, and replant the tulips that the puppies dug up and still sing about it. At least I am singing when I get it handled; never mind what I was feeling about it before then. But then the playing field goes both directions from the 50 yeard line.

A Million Stairs

2007-03-05T00:21:00.000-08:00

Today we visited some friends on Whidbey Island. They had access to the beach but I didn't realize it was a million stair steps down to the ocean. Yes it was, I counted. Well I didn't really count but there might even have been millions. The last 15 feet of height we had to scramble down the cliff using root holds and a rikety ladder that sank when I put my weight on it. Down was one thing, up was another. I could benefit from doing squats regularly.

As we walked along the beach and talked I scanned the stones, looking for just the right ones to use in making my "I Love my Life Activity Kits". I didn't choose many since I was aware of the climb back up, but I found some beauties, just the perfect energy and size.

I suggested that my mountain goat friend go ahead and dash up the stairs, mostly so I wouldn't be too embarrassed by my lack of conditioning. I took time to sit and look out upon the mountain rimmed ocean. I observed the various types of moss. I noticed the young thistle plants that still had dew on their hairy, thistle-ly leaves. I took photos in my mind since I wasn't willing to carry a camera down and up those stairs.

I did it. I enjoyed it. My heartrate eventually calmed back down. I thought about another friend who just climbed 94 flights of stairs in 19 minutes. I am not sure I want to pay the price of training to do that but I am enjoying improving my fitness. I want to keep my options open. I am enjoying this spacesuit I call my body. Motion equals life.

There's No PLace Like Home...

2007-03-04T23:53:00.000-08:00

I am writing from Seattle at the end of my family reunion. It is so clear to me that I come from awesome stock. I am so proud of my siblings, each one in their own way has faced obstacles and grown a lot. My parents must have done something right!

We figure it has been 11 years since we were all together at the same time. Yet we picked up right where we left off somehow. I don't know that I would have taken my sister's idea for a family reunion and set it in motion, or even that I would have been willing to come to Seattle twice in one month, prior to my beginning the "Why do I love my life so much" campaign.

Allowing relationships to be more important than getting things done on my "list" makes my life richer than money ever could. Someone pointed out to me that I am arriving at themes people usually come to at the end of their life, when they look back at what it all meant. What a blessing to find what has meaning now, while I still have time to cultivate even more richness.

I also watched my nieces and nephews with their children. Not having had children of my own, I haven't thought about all the little ways parents give support and love their kids. Surely my mom was there for me in these same little ways, applauding my accomplishments and my efforts, kissing my boo-boos, and keeping me safe. I am beginning to replay what I saw this weekend with my parents raising me. It was the little things like how they got the kids ready for bed, coaxed them to put their coats on, or stood by while they climbed up to get darts onto the board. I have taken many things for granted, but my parents didn't or I wouldn't have the life skills I have today.

How have I been loved in ways I never knew? How many people do I have the thank?
Why do I love my life so much? Thank you for this sigh of contentment.

Looking into the Mirror

2007-02-28T07:44:00.000-08:00

I looked into the mirror this morning and saw myself reflected in the eyes and words of others. Charles Burke of www.bullseye-living.com and Susan of thetomorrowgame.com
wrote about this blog and insights that moved them. I have never had my work reflected back to me before in this way. It was such a rush I was moved to tears.

Susan did let me know she had linked to my blog and I followed her thread. I unexpectedly came across the other. It reminded me of a fall I was harvesting sweet potatoes. No pitch fork for me. I sat on the ground with my legs straddling the 3 foot wide row and combed through the soil with my fingers. Each potato I found was like a ruby. There were great big ones and little fingerlings. Each was a treasure. It was a miracle of nature. I spent hours out there.

The fruits of asking this question is a lot like finding each potato. The fruit was invisible on the surface but deep down there in the soil, magic was happening in various stages of maturity. Many of those spuds had their growth was terminated before they reached my table. Many of my ideas get aborted from lack of attention in my life as well. But some make it and produce the seeds/eyes of another generation.

I few days ago I felt this was a stupid journey. Today I found a ruby! It was the gift of sharing consciousness and growing in the act. This is a magic mirror. Mine is a magic life.

Hundreds of Heart Rocks...

2007-02-27T21:25:00.000-08:00

I see my private clients in a variety of locations. One colleague collects heart shaped rocks. She has hundreds, maybe thousands, of them. They line the house, the driveway, and gather around the tree trunks. She has bowls of them. Some are polished. Most are rough, just the way she found them, well after they have had a bath.

My client came in saying, "I wonder where she finds all these heart rocks"? Actually Holly finds them everywhere. She walks down the smae streets others walk, through the same parks, along the same stream beds. She sees them. Others don't. This is such a good example that we find what we are looking for. Just like asking myself why I love my life so much encourages me to notice and appreciate great, even if tiny, things in my life.

I actually asked Holly about the rocks yesterday. Seems she was having a very hard time in life many years back feeling very alone and lonely. She went out for walks and picked up rocks just because she did. Over time she started noticing that a high percentage of rocks she was pulling out of her pockets were heart shaped. She wondered why that was so. One day the thought came to her that is was mother earth's way of saying that she was loved. She wondered if that was the message and that day found the grandest heart rock of all as confirmation. What a great message!

Heart shaped rocks just find her. She finds and loves them. They do get baths. When she moves she takes some and leaves many gathered together. In a way, gathering heart shaped rocks is like the man who planted acorns. Small purposeful acts that ultimately make a difference.

I hope I always make time to act on the small matters and to know that they make a difference.

Whine Time!

2007-02-27T21:11:00.000-08:00

I have been struggling of late. It seems the momentum of my question has met the limitations of my belief system of self concept. I found myself complaining, becoming agitated and irritable.

I can trace some of the causative factors like eating sugar again which gives me the sugar blues 24-48 hours later. I am leaving tomorrow for my family reunion. It seems family issues bring up a desire for old comfort foods. I am still eating wheat though it makes me feel slow. But even so, these behaviors result from old patterns that still influence my life more than I would perfer. At least I think more than I would perfer.

I have noticed that my whining and associated moods have been controlling me instead of me controlling them. So I am re-instituting structured "Whine Time". This means I am scheduling 3 minutes a day totally devoted to whining. 5:00-5:03 PM. All of these bad feelings now have a specified space and time for expression. when they come up on the day, they just have to wait for their turn. Expression is then wholehearted and when the time is up, I am done with that for the day.

I do observe that what I resist, persists. But I choose to be in change of my feelings instead of them being in charge of me. At least this is the plan. I'll report back.

Brain On, Brain Off!

2007-02-20T08:48:00.000-08:00

I never know what will catch my attention. Today it was an article based on the Time magazine report of Daniel Gilbert and Randy Buckner on time travel in the brain. It turns out that our brains appear to have reciporcal functioning circuitry. By that I mean when concrete problem solving functions are engaged, the daydreaming functions that transcend time turn off and vice versa.

It is not right barin and left brain as I might have suspected but rather the frontal, parietal and medial temporal lobes of the brain that turn off when we focus on specific mental tasks or speculate about specific future events like tomorrow's weather or upcoming political changes. They turn on during daydreaming, which is all the time we are not focused on something outside ourselves.

This makes me think of the difference between goal setting and activity planning and asking the question of why I love my life so much in a nondirective manner. Perhaps they actually stimulate different parts of the brain. I was thinking I would pay attention to brain sensation as part of my study but even this or especially this would influence my results. It would, itself, shift the active circuitry of the brain. Hmmm, how to do this?

I do realize that I am not entirely objective in this reseach project. In fact I am not objective at all. I "feel" this approach is a very good one, but not in the mainstream of current teachings. I am looking for the reasons this might be so. This makes for very skewed observations. I will persist as a phenomenonalogical study none the less and allow you the reader to determine relevance to your life. At the same time I am observing relevance to my life.

Excitement or Relaxation?

2007-02-20T08:18:00.000-08:00

Sometime back I wrote about turning up the volume and excitement as I repeated my question, "Why do I love my life so much"? The variation was interesting. I don't know that it produced much change in the nature of life expereinces.

Recently, I happened upon using my question in a deeply relaxed state. Actually, I was doing my 'sit still, do nothing' thing and before beginning my counting I took some deep breaths and focused on a relaxed sensation in my brainstem, the back of my brain. I then found myself repeating my thematic question in this state. It was like my question was being carried along a deep and abiding current within the turbulance of life.

I don't yet observe the differences in outward manifestation to my approach towards asking the question but this approach does give me a profound sense of calm and well being. Maybe I am allowing instead of forcing. I do have the sense that feeling is more important than thinking in influencing life results. Perhaps the "excitement" of turn up the volume was more cerebral than felt, while the feeling of relaxtion was more compelling?

Watching and recording....

Longings of my Soul

2007-02-16T14:33:00.000-08:00

I am using my question, "Why do I love my life so much"? to allow, even encourage, the longings of my soul to emerge. This stands in contrast to setting a plan for fulfilling my wants. Perhaps it is naive of me to seek the longings of my soul. I wrestle with this theme in terms of both free will and purpose of life.

What does it mean to use my free will to do God's will? How would I know if I was deluding myself. It sounds more palatable, more personal, to use my free will to seek my soul's longings. It assumes there is a "divine matrix" if you will in which I have an optimum role to play that will give me my greatest satifaction. Whether I could ever choose to do something other than that is open to debate.

There is another perspective that encourages me to seek what I want, and in striving to attain and attaining my goals I become something greater than I was before. It is commonly said that a rich person can contribute more to others than someone without riches. Of course there are counter examples to that like Mother Teresa and the man who planted trees that inspired this portion of my journey.

Am I asking the best question? I am assuming that following my soul's longings increases my love for my life, but one may not automatically follow the other even if they were interchanged. Does loving my life result in the emergence of soul longings? Does following my souls's longings result in my loving my life more? Hmmmm I think I am describing a celtic knot here.

It is a good thing I am not looking for THE RIGHT answer here. I am looking for an approach to life that provides both meaning and joy.

I don't feel like it.

2007-02-16T08:56:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I simply am not in the mood. I don't feel like I want to do whatever is before me. It was hard getting back into the swing of things when I got back home. I kept asking myself "why do I love my life so much"? but it was out of desperation more than curiosity. I was pushing not allowing. Maybe it is like digging where I planted a seed to see if it is doing anything yet.

The good thing is this research project has self reflection built into the process. I ask the question, yes, but then I watch to see how it effects me and others around me. So the process raises me up to the observer level as well as being the participant. Shifting positions like this gives me fluidity and perspective. I don't have a single position to defend and curiosity takes away the self-judgment. Well, it reduces the self-judgment.

I don't want to get into psycholgizing the why's of not feeling like it. I am sure I could point to dozen's of outside influences that effect my "feeling like it". However, some behaviors support me and some don't.
While in Seattle: I did not "sit still and do nothing" for 20 minutes a day.
I ate wheat, sugar and ice cream that I know make me fuzzy headed.
I did not exercise unless moving furniture counts.
I did not take my supplements.

None of these things effect me greatly in the short run. Yes, I have more sinus drainage and my brain feels stuck to my skull. But I can function. At least I think I am functioning well. My sugar blues hit 48 hours later. Then I really don't feel like doing whatever unless I have another hit of sugar and on it goes.

So there you have it. I was dry for a few days. No creativity. No motivation.
Now I am back on my fish oil, my diet is cleaned up, I am sitting still and doing nothing at least 20 minutes a day. Exercise is in place. My motivation has returned, or at least my willingness to do things has returned, the creativity fountain is flowing again.

So, loving my life so much includes choosing to act in my best interest with external things that make a difference.

One more thing. Before I left I signed up for yet another of those 15 days- 100 days programs for changing my wealth. So everyday my mailbox has a great message about how to set goals and take their action steps. When am I going to learn that I keep time best with the beat of a different drummer. That would be my own inner drummer that I need to listen to.

There's no place like home!

2007-02-16T06:59:00.000-08:00

I've gone home, to my birth home, and returned to my home of choice and I can say there really is no place like home. Either home. My trip was most excellent. What made it so was a minimum of expectations and agenda. My guiding plan was to hold to my question of why I love my life so much and be as present to my dad and step mom as I could. I had no where else to be, nothing else to do. I did bring my photo album to share with my dad.

It is a good thing I am developing a sense of humor towards myself. Picture this. I was driving in the fog and feeling disoriented. I missed one of the turns to my sister's house and thought I would go around the block. Wrong. Street names are almost identical as in 160th sw place and 160th sw street. These are not the same and it is not good to get lost a few blocks from your destination when I really, really have to go to the bathroom because of diarrhea. I finally made my way, got to the door and said I love you and I need your bathroom. I few minutes later I was having another round of sitting on the toilet and then had to throw up. No stress going on for me!

Actually that was the only point of drama, the rest of the trip was good. I had remembered on the plane that I get a backache from the bed at my sister's and decided I could be OK. It was more than ok when she showed me to a different room and a different bed that suited me perfectly. Life is good!

My dad's condition stabilized and he had started doing better in therapy. I read him the letter that I had written a couple of weeks earlier and e-mailed to my sister to read to him in case I din't get there in time to do it myself. When I came to the part about asking for forgiveness for anything that I might have ever done that hurt him he grunted an affirming response. We looked at pictures but he said he couldn't really see them. He didn't recognize a photo of himsef with all of his brothers so I used the pictures to tell him stories. Sometimes he said things that told me he was remembering some things.

I noticed some interesting things about myself on this trip. I resort to old comfort foods and patterns when I go back to Seattle. After 8 months of not eating wheat or ice cream I started up again so as not to be a picky eater. Never mind that I had stopped those things because of their effects on my moods and thinking. I also realized I was not taking my supplements that I had determined really do make me feel better. Why would I stop the behaviors that work for me when I needed clearly of presence and mind the most? Just noticing.

The siblings have decided to hold a family reunion in early March so we can see everyone and do photos while we are all still here rather than meet at a funeral. As one sister observed, nobody knows whose funeral it would be. So we are all mobilizing for the great migration to Seatlle in a couple of weeks. Maybe I'll sit next to you on SouthWest.

the effects of negativity

2007-02-12T20:32:00.000-08:00

"If we could grok the effects of negativity on the mind and body we would never be negative again." Groking comes from the novel Stranger in a Stange Land. It is more encompassing than understanding. I think of it as getting it on a cellular level. The sentence leapt off off a comment page.

Focusing on why I love my life so much leaves little time for negativity but negativity is subtle. Earllier this week Matt Furey encouraged his readers to count how many times they say, "I am tired" in a week. How about in a day? This comment does not tend towards creating the energy and vitality I want for my life. It kicked my vigilance up a notch.

I don't want to spend much time on how negativity effects my mind and body but aversion is sometimes more powerful than attraction. I read that potato chip makers have almost no fat to recycle as they treat it chemically to remove some free radials and then use it again and again til it is absorbed. That was enough to get me to stop eating potato chips. Yuck! How toxic is that?

And negativity is even more toxic than treated potato chip oil. Skipping all my logic, I think negativity leads to inflammation which directly or indirectly results in death. How is that for a global statement? If the heart attack doesn't kill you, the bad mood you spread will make others wish someone was dead. Grok my meaning?

I am not advocating a Pollyanna approach to life. The more I ask myself why I Love my Life so much the more I am led to clean up little things in my life that weigh me down, even comments like "I am tired". I'm going to bed now to have a refreshing nights sleep. I hope you have one tonight also.

Where's the Sparkle?

2007-02-04T13:53:00.000-08:00

I have been asking myself "Why do I love my life so much" for over a month now, watching what draws my attention, and taking most of the action presented to me. I feel that I have made more progress in my life in this short time than in all of the past couple years.

So far I have been speaking the words to myself in a quiet, pondering kind of voice. Sometimes I was jazzed by the results, sometimes challenged. Last night I felt like it was time to add some sparkle to my question. Ask it like I mean it so they can hear me in the back of the theater.

I practised my question in different voices and tones in my head as I drifted to sleep last night. Today I found myself pumping my arms in the air when I met my desk cleaning goal. That little extra spark of expression added so much more joy and fun to my life. Who knew it was good and fun to make a little noise and tout my own horn.

I think my playing field just got a little it bigger. How fun is that!

WHY DO I LOVE MY LIFE SO MUCH?

Hah! I did It!

2007-02-04T13:32:00.000-08:00

Yes indeed! With four seconds to spare I had lassoed the clutter of my desk, thrown it down into appropriate files, and created a place to put frequently used items. I was standing with my arms thrown high in the air when the timer went off! That was easy! I was just like the cowboy who roped and tied his calf in record time.

And it was fun too. After dallying on the task for a couple of days and fussing over it for weeks or longer, it is now done and I feel great. Setting the timer helped me stay focused on this single task and kept some urgency in my step. Tangents got no attention. Project completed! Period. I'm loving my clean and clear desk. I love my "easy button". I'm going to find a timer with a melody instead of a buzzer and I'll love that. I'm loving my life!

Punctuation?!

2007-02-04T08:44:00.000-08:00

I am noticing that I often lead my life like it is a run on sentence. No punctuation.
No beginning, no clear end point, and no time to take a breath.

In asking why I love my life so much, I continue to find habits that need tweaking. Adding punctuation adds a lot more ease and focus. Adding punctuation may move me to the top 1% of achievers also.

This insight was clarified for me by a discussion with John, my martial arts instructor. He told the young people he works with that most people never get started on anything, but of those who do get started, 90%+ fail to complete what they start. They get most of the way and quit. John pointed out how that he is assessing who they are just by the way they paint their figurines. He notices if some are painted and some not, if some are half painted, the attention to detail. This tells him which of his young mentees will make an impression in the world.

I thought this is a lot like completing a sentence with the punctuation. It is not that I don't finish my projects as many do get finished, though not all. Instead I allow things to run on and on without boundaries, without clear starting and stopping points.

Take work for example. I have a fantasy of building my business. I have done the research phase enough to make a plan but I keep on amassing input til I am overwhelmed. Then I don't think I have done enough in the day so "work" slides on over into after hours. I can have the illusion of working hard as I put in lots of hours but the quality of my output is poor. I have little to show, I am not rested, my loved ones don't get my full attention.

So today I am getting out my timer and my "easy button". It has worked very well for my sit still do nothing time. 45 minutes to finish clearing my work space. Then I get to hit my button that says, "That was easy"!

My timer is set. Ready.....Begin....

Umbrella Questions

2007-02-01T17:20:00.000-08:00

I have decided to call the question "Why do I love my life so much" an umbrella question in the sense that it is broad enough to effect many aspects of a person's life without directly addressing each area separately.

Curiously, I am finding most or many people are more comfortable addressing individual life arenas than life at large. They are more delighted when I propose a question that deals with getting more business or finding a mate than they are when I pose my umbrella question about loving life. Maybe they feel they are doing something more concrete.

I myself, am more intrigued by the umbrella or global questions. I started asking why it is so easy for me to ask the best questions. That is interesting. I get questions like "Why is it so easy for me to remember who I am (at my core)"? and "Why do questions work better for me than affirmations or statements"?

Sometimes I get answers. I have much less resistance to questions so they sneak past my defenses better. And today, in a sparking conversation about this topic, I heard myself wonder if questions set up the brain to act as a antena scanning my inner and outer landscapes for answers. Affirmations, on the other hand, seem to treat my brain as a storage unit that needs reorganizing. If I resist organizing my inner storage as much as I resist organizing my desk then change is going to be tough for me.

More Input, More Input!

2007-02-01T16:56:00.000-08:00

What robot or form of artificial intelligence are you most like? Why?

I choose "Number Five" who later renamed himself "Johnny Five" from the movie 'Short Circuit'. The robots were constructed by the military but one of them was on a charging station that got hit by lightning. It became alive, rewired itself and went in search of "Input" from every conceivable source. He even developed a conscience and a sense of humor.

One of the things I really love about my life is sparking ideas. When I have someone to bounce them off, so much the better. I knew this before but it made a bigger impact on me today. I love being creative. I love seeing something in a different way. I love watching how energies interact. I am always in search of more input.

No wonder I had a hard time just setting goals and taking action. It was hard for for "sparking" to occur. The more I ask myself "Why do I love my life so much"? the more I catch an intuition or the spark of an idea. I still need to take action on the input, and the faster I do that the better. I have watched myself get bogged down when I don't take the action. But when I do, one spark can ignite a fire.

If I want to set a goal, I had better build in room for Input that can spark!

What Turned my Head?

2007-01-27T18:43:00.000-08:00

I am wonder what happened that I lost my momentum in my research. I think it was when I started fussing about money and how to make it. I have one of those "the grass is greener on the other side of the fence" genes and way too many self help programs.

I see people developing great internet companies and speaking empires. I think I could do that. I could. I can speak, I'm articulate. I haven't taken the steps to do it. Why? I see what is working in the money making arena but would I be sharing Truth or applying the latest technique to amass my personal wealth? I think wealth is good. What is the price?

Do I need to take a cruise or sit on a distant beach for nature to reveal her secrets to me? Are not the same secrets available for discovery right here on the farm in rural KY? I am reminded of the story "Acres of diamonds". The person searches the world over for the gems and someone else finds them right there on his original farm.

I have spent my entire life becoming awesome at relieving pain. No, I do not have money coming in while I take a vacation. I don't have passive income. But I have a gift of helping people feel better and teaching them to make choices that keep them feeling better. I encourage people to ask their own questions and find the answers that are bubbling up from within themselves. Maybe one day, my touch will comfort you.

What greater wealth can I want? Maybe these are the acorns I am planting. And one day they will sprout and renew the landscape. Can I stand before God in the end and say I was a spring in a parched and thirsty land? Is this why I love my life so much?

Hypnotic Temptation

2007-01-27T18:10:00.000-08:00

Yes, there are many hypnotic copywriters out in the world. Most of them have my e-mail address. There is always some plan better in the next e-book, something that will give me amazing results if only I follow their plan in detail.

I bought yet again. An affliliate marketing letter written by another hypnotic copywriter whose products I genuinely appreciate convinced me. In just over 3 months time I too can accomplish more goals than I ever thought possible. That will no doubt make me happier, won't it? Will it? Another campaign of doing. The material is fine by current motivational standards. Maybe I would get things done that I have let slide. Maybe I would do whatever to help me make more money. Would it make me love my life that much more? I don't know.

More self-help directed by others. What happened to the bubbling up from within?
I came to a couple of days where my results were slower or I did not recognize the doors opening or even dallied when I could have taken speedy effort. Today I actually felt discouraged with my project. All of this makes me ripe for picking by the hypnotic copywriters who have all the answers. What is authentic about the fast track to accomplishment?

My roommate has a real passion for direction arising from within and disdain for all of these self help programs. She has watched me become excited, make effort and crash many times over. I often think she is unsophisticated in the ways of the world. But perhaps she is at peace in a way that I seek.

This whole blog may be yet another self-help work designed to influence you, my reader, to do it my way. Some part of me may be hoping this will be my vehicle to my contribution to life and to riches and heck maybe even fame. Would that enable me to love my life that much more?

Anyway, I have put away the new action plan. I'm sticking with this reasearch and self reflection. I'm continuing to write about my experience with the process. Maybe someone will read this as a type of philosophy that gives them permission to quietly listen for "Why they love their life so much". Another bullet dodged ( or maybe an opportunity delayed).

Yes, but....

2007-01-25T06:10:00.000-08:00

Only a few things push my buttons anymore. The 'yes,but' response is one of the big ones. I am happier when my internal resistor is taking a siesta. In my work with clients, my patience is tested when someone slips into that state. It is better to jump in and try wholeheartedly or flat out say, "I won't".

A couple of days ago I found myself in just such a "yes, but" state. I was on a master mind call and the direction turned to promoting my business. My colleagues were offering solid ideas and for every one I had a retort. After a few attempts on their part, I felt myself backed into a corner but had the wisdom to see my responses were not working. I told them I hate it when people hold on to "yes,but" and I didn't know what to say. Finally an offer of assistance was left on the table for when I am ready and we moved on.

I think business development is about the only area of my life that has not yet been shifted in some way by my "Why do I love my life so much"? research. Perhaps I worry about it a bit less, knowing that it too will change if I persist. In the past months I have let go of positions that do not serve me, but have not taken a proactive stance to grow my private practice.

I have many reasons and excuses, for now I am wallowing in the swamp of 'yes, but' in this one specifc area on my life. I noticing that it is like a stubbed toe. The pain of that little part effects the carriage of my whole body, of my life. At the very least, I am a using my Why I love my life campaign to remind myself the discomfort is just in one little area and to keep taking action as I see it bubble up. I watching and recording here, the good, the bad and the humiliating.

Bubbling up, spilling over

2007-01-22T17:47:00.000-08:00

My approach to life is so very different these days. Clearly it is not because the waters are calm. They are not. Yesterday dad was admitted to the hospital. Priorities are changing. But what needs doing seems to be bubbling up from within, like do this and this. Both are small enough steps that I am not intimidated. I feel like different doors are opening with more satisfying approaches to the issues I am facing than I had before. And the route often does not follow conventional method, though there is an innate wisdom.

I did get out the old photos. I was reminded of many activities with dad I had forgotten. Sweet memories. Since it looks like it will be a few days before I fly back to see him, I wrote him a letter reminding him of the sweet times. And the times I didn't like but were good for me, and many things for which I am grateful. I asked him for forgiveness for anything I may have done that hurt him. I told him when I was coming and that I would bring pictures and talk with him about them. I still look forward to telling him these things in person but the message has also gone forth now in case he needs it for whatever reason.

Recently I heard an interview with the captain of the sole boat that survived the Tsunami. He directed his crew to turn the boat head first into the wave at full throttle. The ride down the other side was dramatic but there was water under them and the sea was then calm as glass. I don't feel myself to be figuring things out or manipulating towards a specific preferred outcome. I feel like my eyes are wide oped with wonder and the course appears to swell up under me as I turn towards the wave. I feel authentic somehow, not divided. I am no longer chasing around the stage trying to keep a bunch of plates spinning.

Change that Channel

2007-01-21T13:32:00.000-08:00

Today was the latest installment of painful interactions with my parents. At first I got caught up in the tragedy of the situation. It made me feel sad, helpless and confused. I even spread the pain around telling the story a couple of places. I recieved solid advice but continued in my feeling bad.

Something shifted. I realized that my parents present circumstance is a direct outcome of decisions they had made in all the many years and are now making. Sometimes it seems that they are competing to get the most attention or create the biggest drama. So I started to ask God to bless them in the journey they have chosen.

As I took a little distance I realized that I, without paying attention, had fallen into the space of feeling like I'm not being a good and loving daughter if I did not share in their drama and pain. I have no patience for drama queens or self pity parties. What role was I auditioning for here and how would it help either of them or me? Not only that but I was also spreading the misery around. Ouch!

I'm changing the channel now. I'm going upstairs and pulling out the photos I have of my parents and my childhood and recalling some of our good times together. Thank you you Dad for the love you showed me and the lessons I learned through the years. I now return to you the best I have to offer which is my gratitude and love. May these good vibes ease your suffering. I love you.

Lightbulb On!

2007-01-17T05:44:00.000-08:00

I know my theme question is a great one. But it could have been one of a million other questions. Why this one? The light just came on. The best questions approach life as an integrated whole. If my question(s) focus on a specific aspect of life like wealth, self confidence, or weight I am compartmentalizing life which inherently pulls me and my attention in different directions.This creates drama. Every question demands a bigger piece of my energy pie. Having one central question keeps all my ponies harnessed and pulling in the same direction. No wonder I am seeing my life change so much.

Why do I love my life so much? is the question I have planted, the one I romance, the one I allow to roll around in my brain. It is THE question I savor with all my senses. But when I have an issue that comes up, I do now frame it in its own question. Like with my dad, I ask, "Why do I feel so loving and connected with dad"?
This question takes the place of prior "mental masturbation" around our relationship which mostly made one or both of us come out the bad guy. While the question never looms larger than my core question, it does put a certain spin on the direction I am looking for the answer.

Does the question you have chosen address your life as a whole or focus on a chunk of life? Does it matter?