The Healing Power Of My Dreams

I must have my dreams if I am to live.  Dreams are the bridge that connects my waking life to my higher awareness.  My dreams are alive and filled with wisdom that often explains my world to my waking mind.  The people, events, all things in my dreams symbolize what I need to recognize and learn from in life.  

If I take the literal out of my dreams and look at their symbolic nature of what takes place in my dream scape I open to my inner wisdom.  Understanding and communicating with the symbols in my dreams allows me to move forward in my life's journey.  People, animals, things, and events in my dreams most often are mirrors of me and aspects of myself that I need to look at.  When I do this these dreams help me see a clearer picture of my life.  They show me where problems exist, actions I can take to resolve these things, and they introduce me to a deeper understanding of and relationship within my psyche.  

 

They bring me face to face with the shadow that I often try to avoid.  This avoidance I find often extends to my dream-time where I do my best not to have to connect or interact with this shadow.  Yet the shadow is an integral part of my psyche and when avoided it works harder to claim my attention.  When I accept that it wants and needs my attention it then gently moves into and takes its rightful place in my awareness.  It is my avoidance that creates resistance and struggle within me; when I relax into my resisting the struggle is resolved.  This recurs throughout my life as I move to deeper and deeper levels of awareness.

A recent dream of the young masculine energy resurfaced in my dreaming. (Post 12/4/14, Winter's Dark)  This is an energy that has stalked me throughout my adult life, and is one that I have negotiated and renegotiated with on my journey.  It has been a difficult energy for me to deal with, especially in the face that presents in my dreams, and I have often avoided it.  Recently it has become more persistent and I have had to work with this energy that I try to avoid in dreams.

At one point this energy and I engaged in conversation, but a few nights later I once again encounter this energy.  It is not threatening, only wanting to continue our conversation of the last time we met.  I am reticent and continue to try to avoid this until I find myself in a place that I have no way out, so I wake up to avoid the conversation.

My waking time leads me to explore more thoroughly my resistance in my dreaming of this energy.  A metaphor opens in my conscious awareness of the polarity of magnets.  I see two horseshoe magnets that I try to put together but I have the same poles lined up and they repel each other.  They cannot be forced together in this way.  When the opposite poles are placed together then an attraction is created and the magnets are pulled toward each other.  This gives me a conscious image for my unconscious struggle.  I have to change the charge of my own energy in the process of reintegration of this young male part of myself.  This conscious awareness can aid in my unconscious struggle.

Following this brief, but powerful, epiphany I have another dream with this energy. We are riding in a truck out in the country.  We are on a road, I am in the passenger seat looking out the right window, I see a beautiful tract of land.  It has gentle rolling hills, valleys, streams, and a river edging this property.  My young masculine energy is focused on driving and I remark on the beauty of the land we are passing.  He slows the truck near an intersecting road, pulls off onto a wider place in the road, and turns around into the other lane.  As we finish the turn I looked ahead and realized the land is familiar.  I thought that the road that was near where we pulled off to turn around looked like the land his family owns.  I remark on this and he says that it was but they no longer own it, and  they are no longer alive.  We complete our turn and drive back to the land I saw and commented on.  We drive into the property and I say that I wonder if I, being in a wheelchair, can handle this terrain.  He says this will not be a problem.  The dream fades, and I begin to come awake.

In this dream another level of integration takes place.  A gentle process that I need not avoid nor fear.  We have together found this beautiful, gently rolling property.  The part of my psyche that I have needed, especially since my stroke, has reintegrated with me, and together we will handle the terrain of my future.

I have gone down the rabbit hole - via my stroke (post 11/6/14) and have  returned.  The reclaiming of myself continues.  Dreams create a healing power by which lost and separated parts of me return.  This dream tells me that the past is not determining my present; only I can do that, and this integration with this lost male self furthers this reclamation.  My dreams connect me to the most treasured part of me, my instinctual self, where wisdom arrives slowly out of the dawn of an unknown ocean.

   

  

  

Winter's Dark

Silently moving into winter's dark I am drawn to the power of story.  Shorter daylight, a fire in the fireplace, the cold weather, and the silence of falling snow sends me toward reclaiming and living through my story.  There is a special quality in this season of darkness when we await the rebirth of the sun.  

The early and longer darkness moves me inward to home and hearth and into the cave of my own psyche.  This is the time of year that I plumb my depth of self understanding and self awareness.  It is from this that my self stories arise. My personal myth and legend come forth from the time spent in psyche's cave.
This is the time for dreams and dreaming; a time to reclaim lost parts of self, and what better way than through story.  

I dreamed a lost part of me returned.  A young male part that I had pushed away early in my marriage to accommodate and not compete with my young husband's energy.  Roger's energy compensated for this young male energy that I had shelved in favor of our marriage.  It wasn't until after Roger passed away that I experienced missing this part of me, and begin to want it to become a more conscious part of myself. 

This young male part begin to appear in my dream-time a year after Roger's death.  This energy assumed various roles and faces as it teased me to wake up to an integration of this back into my conscious psyche.  This energy danced in my dream space and through the faces of several famous young men.  Men that in my dreams I danced with and related to, and in a dream I even married one of these young men.  

Then several years after Roger's death I dreamed of a strapping young man, clad only in a breech cloth, standing on a mountain, blowing a Shofar, and I woke up to that primordial sound resonating inside my head.
  

This young male energy part of me was coming much closer to my waking life. 

A few nights ago the face of the symbol for this energy popped up in my dream-time.  He had changed; older, wiser, and a more balanced energy.  I did not recognize him at first.  His wife, a woman with long red hair, brought him to me; she offered this energy to me.  She said this energy had been created through the two of us, it was a sacred energy, and was something I needed, and must accept, at this place and time in my life journey.  I then recognized this energy as the face that had danced through my dreaming space years earlier.  We spoke, the first time since I had ask that he no longer be a dream symbol to me, and in this new conversation a healing and an integration began.

A reclamation of a lost part of me is occurring as a result of this dream.  A dream that is important to the process.  The brash, young male energy; the energy that could not fit into my marriage has matured and returns with a greater awareness and understanding of both of our energies.  He arrived via his red haired wife, through whom I recognized him, and began to assimilate his energy with my own.  This has taken time as I have been maturing toward this energy since Roger's death.  

          
   
This recent dream has awakened me to the thought/idea and the experience/feeling of this energy integrated into my conscious self.  It is an energy that can easily throw off my balance so it has gently and subtly reintroduced itself into my waking awareness.  This energy's feminine side  introduced me to this new and matured part of my younger male energy.  Her presence made me aware of the scared and gentle nature of this energy.  No longer brash, no longer the strapping male blowing the shofar, no longer the young men of fantasy, this energy is stable, steady, solid, and can be relied upon.  This is an integral and trusted part of me as I come to accept and utilize it within my energetic space.  

Some years ago, on the longest night of the year, I awoke in the morning to the primitive sound of the shofar.  It brought me wide awake into the new day.  A few days ago I awoke from a dream of integration with this part of me that had been awakened by that sound.  This young male energy has matured, mellowed, and has gently, quietly, and comfortably become a part of me.  So as we enter this time of winter's dark I find myself moving easily into another integration with me.  It is good.

     

The Importance Of Stories

As I sleep Sherman Alexie dances through my dreams.  To be exact his words, poems, and stories dance through my dream-time space.  He teaches the importance of the story where anyone can create a story from life that shows the importance of the daily, and sometimes seemingly mundane, happenings of waking, sleeping, and waking again.  I add Sherman to the list of teachers who have impacted my life.

A story that is woven through the fabric of daily life becomes a living story; a seemingly ordinary event becomes important by its weave in the story.  The man who is falling down drunk, the parent who abuses their child or the woman who leaves her man are each an integral parts of this weave.  From such occurrences the myth of life is created.

Each of us have our own myths, legends, and weaves that are the fabric of our lives.  When the weave of our lives intersect the weave of others lives a richly colored and interesting fabric is created.  To know, understand, and remark upon these stories insures the continuation of each life through the stories that appear in the fabric of this weave.  We validate each other’s lives.

Gathering stories is important for the survival of culture.  The collecting, keeping, and sharing of these stories allow us to see and understand ourselves in the larger picture of the family, community, culture, and world.  Stories connect us to past and future and allow the present to culminate in the wisdom of being here now.

Preservation of stories and through this the preservation of culture often is done by the least likely person.  The preserver of stories is not the heroine/hero, but is the one who takes the place of the witness; the observer, who watches without judgment and reports the events that make up the story.  In Sherman Alexie’s movie “Smoke Signals” the character Thomas Builds-the-Fire is the story keeper.  The little, nerdy guy, the seeming misfit of the reservation, who by being the outcast has a vantage point for recording/remembering the stories that brings cohesiveness to his tribe/community.  Thomas’ willingness and ability to do this for his friend Victor allows them to reach their goal.

Our stories, individually and collectively, are necessary to our survival both locally and globally.   The world around us is filled with all that we need.  If we become still and listen we will hear the heartbeat, the rhythm, the song of life.  Stories, our stories, surround us; we need only to pay attention to life as it moves through and around us.  Our paying attention is what will make us all the story collectors, keepers, and tellers in our lives.

A myriad of events and experiences present themselves daily.  If we are mindful and pay attention these things become the fodder to feed the stories in life.  In my family of origin my great grandmother, my grandparents, my parents, aunts and uncles were the story tellers to me.  I would ask visiting relatives to tell me stories and would clarify my request by saying, "not from a story book, but from your life".  As a child I was preparing for my adult career as a therapist; I was collecting stories of peoples lives as well as my own history.

Because we are all different our memories and recall are different, but a story recalled from different perspectives adds richness and texture to  the fabric of life.  My sons recall the history of events in our family slightly different from each other and from me.  Again this creates a unique weave as our memories are woven together.  No one is right or wrong. Memories are made by our own perceptions and are remembered and shaded in different colors making life interesting.  Accepting that when nothing is for sure then everything is a possibility we create an abundance in our lives that certainty robs us of.

We learn through stories of our humanity.  Stories told by Sara, my great grandmother, to my grandmother, to my father, to me, to my sons are the makings of personal legend and myth.  The characters in these stories that are told and retold take on the markings of myth.  They are alive and live through the retelling and the being heard and reheard.  When Thomas Builds-the-Fire tells Victor the memory of Victor's own life a small legend is being created.  When my relatives told me stories from their own lives I began collecting the legends of my history.  When I weave these stories into my sons lives these legends live on through them and through the people who have been shaped by the stories being told and retold.

Like ripples in a pond our stories reach out and touch the next ripple, and the next, and the next, and...  A living story will do this.  From ancestors to future generations is how this thread is past through the loom of life.  As stories are woven we can change the thread and the texture as the fabric of our lives unfold.  This is why these are living stories.

Our presence gives them life.  Remembering and telling these stories makes them our personal history.  Story telling, like history, is an oral tradition, and it lives through its being told and passed on to others.  As long as there are those who have voices to speak and others who have ears to hear the stories will live through their many incarnations. 

 It is good - mitakuye oyasin

 

Shortest Dharma Talk: I Am Home

Thich Nhat Hanh gave this, the shortest Dharma Talk, the other day: "I have arrived, I am home" means "I don't want to run anymore." You need that insight in order to be truly established in the here and now, and to embrace life with all its wonders.

Since life has grounded me I have the time to truly appreciate the wisdom in his words.  As I can no longer physically run from me, and I no longer escape through my mind/thoughts I find I am present in the moment.  Some of those moments are wonderful, others are frightening, while many are mundane.  

I realize that the running for me was most often from the mundane.  Life is filled with ordinary moments.  My wondrous and frightening times are small compared to the mundane times.  I feel many people fear their ordinariness and the need to be seen as special drives their running into life.  

I have found when my life feels mundane I have tried to bring excitement into it.  Now, being grounded as a result of my stroke, I experience what Thay means by his shortest Dharma talk.  This has allowed me to live this experience in my body rather than just having the thought of practicing it in my head. So I sit with my feelings, special or mundane, and experience each as it is.

This was difficult practice at first; to accept that I am not special and that we each are special no more so or less so than each other.  It is easy to pay lip service to this, but underneath I struggled with saying one thing but feeling another. A consistent practice helped my inner feelings begin to move closer to my outer expressions of who I am.

This practice grounds me in the eternal present and in each moment I am home; I no longer need to run as I embrace life as it is, because I am always home no matter where I am.  Accepting that I am always home within me allows me to experience peace and contentment in each moment.

I believe this is the purpose and practice of this shortest darma talk; to experience peace and contentment in each moment of life, no matter where I am, who I am with, or what I am doing.  If I will do this then I am always home.

So many people I encounter seem to be on an the eternal treadmill of life; their bodies are in constant motion, their minds are filled with thoughts, and they  mark time in place. They are constantly in motion chasing a dream or their next experience.  Their minds are occupied with collecting and hoarding thoughts and information, but they can't make progress in themselves because they are held in place by their metaphorical treadmill of life; constantly moving but getting no where.

I recognize this because I have spent time in that situation.  Much of my early adult life was spent in the pursuit of knowledge and recognition.  Looking back on those years I realize how empty my search left me, and how that drove my relentless searching.  Like a hoarder I collected and hoarded knowledge, learning, degrees, and certifications. I believed this was how I could find wisdom; I just needed to amass more.

Then I met a teacher, perhaps a shaman, who set me on the true path to wisdom. (See blog post of 9/15/14, "The Teacher Appears When The Student Is Ready.")  This was the turning point in my life's path; the place where I knowingly stopped and began to examine my life.  This teacher shared with us,  his class, life stories where people stepped beyond their own self aggrandizing, beyond their hoarding of knowledge, and accepted the wisdom of being present only in the moment.

The transition was difficult.  I had some very fixed ideas about what and how life should be.  Learning could only come though recognized institutions of higher education, teachers needed multiple degrees and letters behind their names, and over time and with diligent study and work I might become an expert in my field of study.  Imagine my surprise in learning that none of my beliefs and requirements applied to wisdom.  Wisdom came through learning from each and every experience in life, not just experiences associated with academia, or from teachers with multiple letters behind their names, but from life, my life, itself. 

I found myself entering the nether region of self experience, self knowledge, self understanding, and most important self acceptance.  It took years of work for this to assimilate into the core of my being.  Wisdom, I was to learn, comes slowly and gradually into the student; it cannot be forced or rushed; it arrives in time if I remain patient.  Wisdom is like the dawn that comes slowly out of an unknown ocean.

Through the years since that encounter with this teacher in New Orleans I have encountered many great and wonderful teachers.  I believe that time in New Orleans prepared me for the gentle words and teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh.  To realize that his shortest dharma talk may be his wisest words, "I have arrived, I am home".  I no longer need to search; I no longer have to expend energy in seeking out whatever I am looking for because it is, and always has been, right here with me.  I only have to open to the wisdom in each moment and all that I need is provided.

John, my teacher in New Orleans, suggested that in his class.  He introduced me to the idea that the mundane in life is what is important.  Thay's words and darama talks reinforce that simple but powerful awareness.  I am always home with me no matter where I am.  My life experiences have ranged from the sublime to the devastating, but as long as I stand in the center of my being I am always home, no matter what the illusions of life present to my outer world.

Realizing that I am always home has removed the burden of needing to prove to myself or others that I am worthy.  My experiences in life are of great value to me, and I need only accept satisfaction in myself.  I know when I am achieving what I can; when I accept my self worth; and when I realize that others can praise or disagree with me but only I can take in and internalize the worth of me.  This is truly self-worth.

 
 With this I have arrived, I am home, and I don't want or need to run anymore. 

       

Time For Self

  

Instead of setting up my life so that it is comfortable in each moment I set it up so that I have time for meditation, self reflection,  kindhearted and  compassionate self-honesty.  Rather than taking the bait that culture dangles in front of me and getting caught in the undertow of my emotions, where I grasp rather than let go, I allow myself to just be who I am in each moment.  In this way I become a true friend to me.

In doing this I practice mindfulness in my daily life.  It becomes a ritual and a mantra for how I live.  Mindfulness serves as a platform for waking up to reality: who I am, the truths of change and interdependence, and where happiness really comes from.  As I walk this path I remain connected to my true self which allows me to hold what I reflect in stillness and calmness.

This is not easy and I often stumble but when I do I am reminded to be conscious of my breath and return to my center.  Every feeling, thought, and action are just life living itself through me.  My responses to how these things manifest through my life becomes the map that I create for me.  This is the route to taking control in life.

Walking my talk can be hard, but not walking my talk creates more obstacles and difficulties for me.  Others waken in me feelings and thoughts that reflect my inner blind spots and unresolved work I need to do with me.  By not projecting these feelings outward and allowing them to reflect inner parts of me I am mindful to what and how my life is impacted by my unconscious self.

My stroke has afforded me many opportunities to do this. One of the biggest lessons has been with abandonment.  As a nine year old child I faced my father's serious illness, and he and my mother traveled to Boston for his treatment.  While my father struggled with life and death my mother was by his side, and I was left in the care of my grandmother.  This was a very frightening time for all of us, and I remember feeling alone and disconnected to the very real struggle my parents were dealing with. 

Although my child self had no words or concepts for what was taking place I later as an adult realized the disconnect and dissociation I experienced at that time.  My parents and grandmother did the best they could in the circumstance but did not know or realize what I was feeling.  The most important thing at that time was that my father survived.  He returned home, but the man and the father I had known was drastically changed.  The father I had known in childhood did not come back.  Physically, emotionally, and psychologically he was a different man.  By the time he recuperated from this ordeal I was approaching adolescence and how we related changed drastically.

So I carry with me the wounds of childhood abandonment.  An abandonment that was not intentional or for selfish reasons, but was done out of necessity for survival for my dad.  My stroke has brought the nine year old girl's fears of abandonment back to me.  People that I believed were friends are gone, and I had to address abandonment at a new level.  I could remain hurt by these peoples actions or I could address any remaining residue of my childhood issues and move on with my life.  

Addressing these ancient issues I am once again reminded how as I resolve my past at one level only for it to come around again to the issues at a new level that increases my understanding.  So my stroke reignited the childhood fear of abandonment.

My parents did not mean or want to abandon me as a child.  The people who have walked away from contact with me as a result of my stroke also had no intention of abandoning me either.  The common denominator in this situations is me, my feelings, and how I respond to others walking away from me.

I am in charge of how I respond to others.  I am no longer that young girl who needed her parents to survive, and even though people leaving me as a result of my stroke is hurtful I have a conscious choice of how I respond.  When I understand this then others behavior do not determine my responses.  My nine-year-old's feelings are triggered, but the situation is different even though unconsciously it feels similar. 

No longer being a child I have choices, words, concepts, and understandings that were not available to me when I was nine.  My adult awareness allows me to know and discern the behaviors of others from myself.  This allows me to make choices that are in my long-term best interest.

Recovering from a life-changing event has helped me realize the need to choose wisely for myself.  I now encourage friendships with others who can be present in each moment for themselves and therefore for other people.  These are the folks I want to have friendships with.  I have many acquaintances but few close friends.  My stroke has afforded me the opportunity to sharpen my discernment skills, and this allows me to strive for impeccability in my relationships with those I hold close.  

This teaches me the importance of taking time for myself and the art of a true friendship.  These friendships are gifts that I give me by being able to make the choice of life affirming relationships as a part of myself.  I am worth this and I believe that all others are worth choosing themselves first.  It is, after all, the only choice that allows us to then truly be present for each other.          

The Heart And Art Of Healing

Healing is a journey of the heart.  This quote came in an email from a friend, "Nothing in life is worth closing the heart. Request that the heart stay open and trusting in these instances, knowing you'll know all you need in each situation."  

When I close my heart I interrupt my ability to heal; when my heart is open all possibilities are available to me.  In western medicine there is the science of medicine, but there is also the art.  The science is the cognitive part, the art comes from the heart/the intuition.  When science is blended with art an intuitive healer is created.  The science without the art can make a cure, but the art creates an environment for healing to take place. 

Healing happens at all levels; emotional, cognitive, physical, and spiritual.  Treating a problem at only one or two of these levels can cure but will not heal. Healing is the heart of the art of western medicine.  Healing comes when my heart is open and I chose the path my healing will follow.

 

Western doctors often pursue a path toward curing, and many disregard the healing journey.  In the healing journey both practitioner and patient engage in the decisions along the way.  On my journey through my stroke I have encountered both kinds of medical practitioners; those who can only cure, and those who facilitate healing.  

My post stroke journey brought me to a healer; a rehab doctor who practices with both her head and heart engaged.  She has the cognitive knowledge of her specialty, but her knowledge is enhanced by the wisdom of her heart/her intuition.  As I sat in her office one afternoon a few months ago a medical student was there as an intern.  I was chatting with the intern and made the comment that medicine was part science part art.  The intern did not understand my statement.

A few moments later she ask the doctor why she, the doctor, was giving me an injection in a certain muscle; the doctor gave her the scientific explanation and then said that she knew me, knew how my body responded to the injection, and what she looked for as she worked with my muscles.  I interjected that she was practicing both the science and the art of medicine.  I said that without the art the science is often not effective. 

This doctor was someone I met during my stay on the rehab unit at the hospital.  She was not my doctor at that time, she treated my roommate, and I realized that she brought her heart to her practice of medicine.  Her offices were located in the building where my outpatient rehab was located.  When I needed a rehab doctor to supervise part of my treatment I ask for her to be my rehab physician.  My heart was open and I trusted that my heart would bring me what I needed.  It did. 

My journey into and through my stroke, the hospital, and afterwards has allowed me to remember the importance of keeping my heart open.  The medical profession often suggests treatment plans that I realize are not in my best interest.  They so often have to dot their I's and cross their T's that they seem to forget the humanity of the patients they serve.

This profession seems to find that approaching a patient as a whole person is alien to what they do.  My stroke is dealt with by neurologists, my rehab by a rehab doctor, and my general health by an internist.  An illness becomes a full time occupation for patients and doctors; if I would allow it to be.  I chose not to do this. 

I have discussions with each doctor who treats a part of me and remind them that I am whole; not a sum of my different parts, but a whole living, breathing, functioning person.  They each have their specialties, which I respect, but each specialty is a part of the whole of me, and how one part is treated effects the other parts. I ask them to keep this in mind as we discuss treatment plans.

I want to hear their suggestions and I ask that they be open to my questions.  My heart is open to hearing what they say and I ask that they remain open to my concerns.  In this way I attempt to have an interactive dialogue between the medical personal and me.  I am my own advocate for me, and I accomplish this by always leading with an open heart.

As the quote in my first paragraph points out there is nothing in life worth closing my heart.  My health, health care, and medical treatment needs my heart to be open as I navigate the labyrinth of those who populate this system. I believe that to promote open dialogues with others I must have an open heart to hear and understand what they say.

I certainly meet those who appear to not have an open heart, but I chose to not allow them to dictate how I will respond.  It is through the intuition of my heart that leads me to life affirming decisions in all areas of life.  The art of my healing lies at the very center of my heart, and it quietly asks that I listen to the wisdom that knows what I need in each moment.

   

 

The Edge Of Perception

I was taught that we honor seven generations past so that we can bestow honor and respect to seven generations forward.  This means to me that I must in each moment act with mindfulness and respect, and that will bestow honor to both past and future as I live mindfully in the now. It is so easy to become a prisoner of the past, and re-live and react to perceived past hurts and wrongs.  I honor my ancestors and teachers but I remain mindful to not become trapped in feelings that are not generated in the now.

To do this I must look at all of my blind spots into self.  Until I have done this I remain ignorant to how others feel and what I might do to really be of assistance to them. This ignorance is often fueled by good intentions, and it has been said that good intentions pave the road to hell.  Looking into my own self I realize how I use my inner blind spots to project outward thoughts and feelings I do not want to accept as my own.  Love, compassion, and strength do really begin at home within myself.  Until I see, accept, and understand my own blind spots all my efforts to be of service to others are really only self serving.

My good intentions are then driven (oft times unknowingly) by the desire to protect myself from my shadow.  I project the shadow outward and then attempt to save others from this, my own, projection.  As long as I am attempting to avoid my shadow it drives my perceptions of others and I cannot be of service to myself or to others.  

Separation will not allow me to connect to my ancestors past, or forward to future generations.  Living fully present in each moment allows past and future to culminate in the present, and this allows me to live mindfully in the moment with honor and respect to past and future generations, without being trapped in regrets or worry.

This is living on the edge of perception; living at a point of knowing, the point of gnosis, of being on the edge of awareness.  It is the middle way where I conquer myself by realizing and accepting my own truth thus changing my perception of reality, power, life, and death.  Converting me or others to a different belief system does not move me closer to freedom; it merely substitutes one system for another.

When I make my self blind spots visible to me I begin the walk to freedom through self-understanding and self-acceptance.  Exchanging one set of dogma for another does not bring freedom, it only brings more suffering.  Freedom means self understanding; seeing self blind spots, addressing them as they truly are, and moving on.

I cannot do this for another nor they for me.  The best anyone can do is through the example of how we live our lives.  When I look into my blind spots, take off my blinders, and understand my own truth I touch my ability to then help others to victory over themselves.  I can only teach what I have learned; not what my mind thinks of as learning, but what I experience inside my being. 

To be self deluded to my blind spots only creates more confusion in life.  If my attempts to help others are guided only by my desire to make things better I must ask myself, who am I really doing this for?  To be of assistance to others I will accept things as they are and not as I think they should be.  Until I address and know my shadow-self accepting others as they are is impossible to do. 

Coming to know myself, especially my shadow-self, has taken time.  Being able to stop, look, and listen is where I began.  Being grounded by my stroke has exacerbated my doing this.  I learned long ago to still my thoughts through meditation.  My stroke confined me to a wheelchair and I have had the opportunity to bring stillness of mind and body together.

Interestingly I soon learned after my stroke that when my body was forced into the wheelchair my mind became more active.  As the first winter after my stroke arrived I found that my mind created pictures, thoughts, and feelings as my body sat quietly by the fireplace.  My mind took up the activity that had once belonged to my body.  What had been a meditation practice became daydreams into flights of fantasy. 

As I realized what was happening I adopted the role of an objective observer.  I watched my thoughts with an isn't that interesting attitude, and then allowed these thoughts to go where they wanted.  I did not chastise my thoughts or attempt to control their trajectory; I simply allowed them to be.  I accepted them as they were; just like I must accept others as they are.  I realized that my meditation practice is the blueprint for living my life.  Sitting by the fire that first winter after my stroke I understood how these two things intersected. 

The more I allow my thoughts and feelings to be just what they are the more I come into the awareness of my life's purpose.  Knowing this allows me to be connected to the moment, and to move beyond getting trapped in past regrets or future worries.  My shadow-self is just that, a shadow.  It is a reflection of my inner self and by accepting and understanding this part of my being I step into unconditional self love.  This is the foothold into unconditional love of all others. As my perception of reality, power, life, and death changes this allows me to be present now for myself for and all others.    

   




  

The Heart And Soul Of Compassion

Compassion is defined as concern and care for others.  I have always felt that I know and have compassionate people in my life.  My parents were compassionate, my husband had great compassion, and my sons are very compassionate young men.  I am grateful.

Since my stroke I have found many compassionate people populating my life.  People who have care and concern for me, but who maintain their boundaries and do not try to rescue me.  I experience their love in their ability to give within the framework of their own boundaries.  This is a wonderful gift.

I was once told that if you have a major issue in life you will learn who your true friends are, and this is something we all should know.  I have learned who my friends truly are, and each and everyone of them are people who are comfortable with themselves and live and operate from their own boundaries. 

There are those who can, and do, express concern for me, but because they do not know themselves they cannot set boundaries and have fled from my life.  A couple months after coming home from the hospital one person told me that he feared I would be too needy, so rather than setting boundaries he quit contacting me.  Initially this hurt, but upon reflection I realized this was about him and not me.  Realizing this made it easier to let go of our relationship and move on.  He has fear for himself, and fear will not allow true compassion to be cultivated.

Compassion takes strength and requires knowing yourself, having boundaries that maintains who you are, and the courage to be honest with yourself and others about this.  Compassion is not for the weak of heart; it takes courage and self love, but in doing this we can practice true compassion for all others.

Compassion comes about through the unconditional love for self and is established by holding the boundaries that define self.  When I meet others who fear I will be too needy it is important to understand that they are telling me about them; this is their issue, not mine.  

When I operate from my compassionate heart no one becomes too needy because I know and maintain my boundaries.  Others are only as needy as I allow them to be.  When I remain centered in myself and relate to others from this place no one can become needy because I am not needy.  This is about my self perception, it is not about who others are, but is about how I perceive them.  

When I recall my interaction with people who have dropped out of my life since the stroke I realize how many good friends I do now have.  They are fully present and really there for me, and are maintained by their boundaries.  So this major issue in my life, my stroke, has allowed me to identify my true friends.  This is a gift; to know who my friends are, and to be able t count on them when I am in need.

Having needs does not make me needy.  But having needs will make others who are still undifferentiated in their identity, and who do not realize or understand their own boundaries, feel needy.  Their needs drive them to leave; it's not about my having needs, but it is about their own neediness.

The heart and soul of compassion comes from those who understand who they are; who have the strength to look inward at themselves; to stand unflinching in this reflection; and through this inner awareness they are completely present in each moment.  I now count my friends among these people.  This is a great gift.

         

Everything Is Easier With Two Hands

I took the time this week to edit a post about my experience in the hospital; Down The Rabbit Hole - via my stroke.  It was difficult to have written, and now to edit, and to then post.  In doing this I remembered the fear and anxiety of that time.  It was not just the recall of events; it was the recall of the sensory experiences of that first week in the hospital.  I tapped into feeling the anxiety of that time and allowed myself these feelings as I wrote about this experience.  

As I wrote this post several weeks ago, and as I edited and posted it a couple of day ago I was reminded of what I was afraid to face; my sense of powerlessness and loss of control.  My stroke opened me to my vulnerability; something that I still have difficulty accepting.  

My life as I knew it before the stroke has totally changed as a result of it.  Part of this change is how I allow others to experience my vulnerability.  Before the stroke I had the freedom of moving, if I wanted to; just leave, and I would occasionally do this.  Now my physically leaving requires the assistance of an  other, so I don't leave and have to sit with my feelings.  Sometimes it seems easier to just leave.

But staying with my feelings, examining them, accepting and understanding them brings resilience of character; that ineffable quality that allows me to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever.  My stroke has enhanced my resilience. 

Often hope and life spring forth from what appears to be dead.  No longer able to do what I once could I have developed other strategies to fill my life that wants to be lived to its fullest.  There are times when my mind thinks my heart's desires are not doable but then hope and determination take hold and resilience kicks in.  

A major part of my post stroke life is to not think with my mind but listen with my heart and to trust my instincts.  I thought I had always done this, and I have, but now there is a closer connection between my instincts and my actions.  As I recover from the effects of my stroke the wiring of my brain has developed new pathways.  These new pathways create new feelings about what I think, say, and do.  My right brain has become more predominate in the process of engaging in and living life.  I am less analytical (less caught in my thoughts) and more present in my being in each moment.

Talking about how and what I feel takes time as I construct the new pathways in my brain.  It is not that words escape me, but more that I need time to form relationships with the words I think and speak.  These words are not new to my vocabulary I am just thinking, processing, and relating to and through them in a new way.  Through this new process I am slowing down and taking time to be present in everything I think and do.

A friend recently ask me about this.  Her interest was in how I experienced these new pathways in my brain and what I felt manifested as a result of them. My thoughts gave title to this post; everything is easier with two hands.  I am not sure if this answers the scientific question about the brain, but it is more of a metaphor for my own experience.

My brain injury creates the loss of function of my right side so everything I do takes more thought and effort.  As new pathways develop in my brain it takes time and effort for these to become familiar to how they are being used.  It is a slow process and at times there is no discernible change even though the process is progressing in each moment.  

My thoughts and words are adapting to this new process.  The pathways in my brain are responding to the repeated patterns of use that I am developing.  Each thought, each expression of those thoughts, increases my resilience and I come back stronger as these new pathways are developed and used. 

As new pathways are developed and used it becomes easier except when I am tired.  When I am tired a disconnect occurs where the old pathways are not available and the new pathways I am not able to fully use because I still need focus to access these routes.  When this happens I must rest.  

Rest comes in different ways; at night I sleep. During the day I take moments to clear my head of thoughts and breathe.  A friend's daughter recently experienced a brain injury of a different kind.  Her doctors recommended that she allow her brain to rest and repair.  When I begin to feel fatigued I take a break, stop my mental process, and just hang out in the moment.

We are enculturated to always have an active mind.  We have equated a quite mind, devoid of thoughts, as being a sign of laziness.  In fact learning to still our mind is an accomplishment that keeps us grounded in the moment.  When I am tired if I will pause, let thinking and thoughts go, I find my energy being restored and I move back to center.

                      

As I empty those little clouds of words, images, and thoughts I quickly am recharged.  

When I am not able to accomplish tasks with two hands I learn how to do things with one hand.  It's not easy but it can be done, and I do it.  Just like learning to empty my mind of thoughts allows me to be in the moment and regenerate my energy; working with one hand adds to my being resilient.  

My motto is that I embrace change.  My philosophy is that no matter what we do change is inevitable, so to embrace and welcome it is the only sensible thing to do.  Accepting change makes things easier with or without two hands.