Reawaken Your Life

I've been promising a series of posts about my breakdown and waking up experience, but I want to throw in a couple more pre-remarks. When we are exhausted, lose our compassion and feel hopeless, we acclimate to the climate of this dark and dreary existence. We may not realize that this is not "us." Maybe we think this is the way life works. I want you to hear me: this is NOT true. There may be many reasons we feel "off" or bad, and I'm not suggesting that my "off" is the same as yours. I do not know what your pathway through the tunnel and back into the light might look like or what you need.

I just want you to know that you may need to reawaken to your life and it may take a LOT more time, effort and exploration than feels reasonable to you. Also, I do not want you to look for the magic bullet because I do not think there is one. I suspect that it is more likely a series of small steps forward, backward, to the left, to the right, over and under and around.

When my mother died my body tried to tell me that this was not a normal grief process. My usually sturdy, healthy body got sick. I caught every virus that floated in the environment. My joints felt creaky, my workouts were half-hearted. My sleep was off. I asked my husband, "Do you think I will ever feel happy again?"

I started my road to recovery by finding a primary care physician who believed in wellness. This required spending money on myself, lots of bloodwork, a nutritionist, an exercise guru and more. It was a decent start but did not immediately come with a side order of joy. What it did accomplish was return my body to a baseline of wellness with a regular monitoring system to warn me if something physically was moving in an unhealthy direction. I also found encouragement. My physician, looking at my numbers, asked me if I practiced mindfulness and meditation and I said, "I do." She told me that my cortisol reflected my good work in that area.

I was practicing my self-care routine even though it did not FEEL like it was helpful. Hearing that my body was getting the message even if my emotions were not exactly falling into line was an encouragement. Who knows if I could have sustained the efforts around self-care without my physician's encouragement?

When you consider human giving and human being - obviously, balance is key. How is your balance? Does one need more attention than another right now in your life?

A Meditation on Love…

Intuition is louder when you are still.

Angela Gorringe

Take a few minutes to sit and breathe. Pay attention to the feel of your breath. Take time to remind yourself to trust that all is proceeding along lines planned by God and executed in Jesus. Picture yourself using your freedom to say whatever needs to be said, whatever needs doing to be done, within the boundary of turning your life and will over to the care of God.

Imagine all the free time that will emerge when our decisions are in alignment with our values. Love God? Then we love our neighbor too, right? So we don’t need to complain, critique, criticize, judge, or try to change them.

Love your neighbor? That’s hard to do at times! But it is far more compelling to focus on how to do THAT than it is to spend time trying to make excuses for why you should not have to love them.

A Pause…

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”

James Clear

For today, let’s take a pause and consider our vote in light of our faith - our certain way of seeing.

Be still, and know that I am God.

Psalm 46:10 NIV

Let’s pray.

Father, how often we get caught up in our own certainty; our visions and dreams of the future; our schedule and routines; our insecurities and our creature comforts. Today, in homage to you, I sit. I breathe. I pray.

May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

May it bear fruit in my life.

Amen

Today Will Pass...

Bravery is acknowledging your fear and doing it anyway.

Cheryl Strayed

In a recent meeting I attended a very smart psychiatrist gave a great presentation on the topic of neuro-feedback. He had graphs and a powerpoint; it was awesome. We asked him to share during our Family Education Program about the latest research in this field as it relates to treatment of substance use disorder and other mental health challenges. He believes in this practice and has years of experience. It was both a humble and informed conversation.

At the end, one of the parents said, “Do you think this would be helpful for my child?” He replied, “Well, maybe. It’s expensive and time consuming. You could try this, or she could practice mindfulness and meditation.”

I’m not sure if he meant that the two were equivalent. But he clearly believed that some of the benefits of his skill are mimicked by the practice of mindfulness and meditation - which, for the record is free and accessible to all. Heck, you can research it on google or youtube if you want to know what that entails.

Sometimes it takes practice of sitting quietly, alone with ourselves, to become aware of our thoughts and feelings and motivations behind our actions. I personally consider this a way that I daily give homage to God. It is my small, humbling way of admitting that He is God and I am not. No distractions. Just me sitting at the feet of a big God.

I appreciate the value and right we have in this country to share our opinions and even peacefully protest as a way of expressing our beliefs. But I want to suggest to us that equally important is a deep dive in search of clarity about the “why” underneath the “what” and “how”. And our “why” cannot be found in busy “behaving” or even passionate believing. It isn’t found in doctrines and certainty. It is found, uncovered, laid bare, only when we are brutally honest with ourselves about our fears and insecurities, our doubts and prejudices, our wounds and our tendency to wound others.

So in this month of political upheaval and for many, personal crisis, I offer this simple prayer of protection:

The light of God surrounds me.

The love of God enfolds me.

The power of God protects me.

The presence of God watches over me.

Whenever I am God is, and all is well.

Amen

Feel protected, surrounded, enfolded, and watched over? Awesome, now pray this over the scariest, the meanest dude you disagree with and judge the most in the world.

One of the ways to unlock our habitual ways of thinking and seeing is through shock and awe. Either something amazing happens that gives us a glimpse of the majesty and splendor of our loving God, or perhaps something so scary that we are shocked into wakefulness about ourselves. Maybe we are given a medical diagnosis that scares us to death or someone we love dies. Something happens that disrupts our unconscious ability to believe that we are immortal or that life is fair and understandable. Whatever it is, we end up completely shocked and find ourselves disoriented and confused.

I for one try to avoid discomfort and confusion at all costs. But I have learned, recently, that discomfort and confusion are necessary companions if I want to live a meaningful life. Some days, I confess, I am not interested in meaning. I just want to enjoy a good hot chocolate beside a roaring fire and read a mediocre novel about a sad story that ends up all sunshine and rainbows.

But on days when that doesn’t happen, on most days, this kind of sugar rush and spiritual numbness is not fulfilling. So what’s a girl to do? If we are going to rise above our temptation to numb, ignore, or rationalize away the reality of life lived on life’s terms, how do we manage the pain and discombobulation that is inherent in such a life?

Here’s a quote that helps me:

This is not how your story ends. It’s simply where it takes a turn you didn’t expect.

Cheryl Strayed

I appreciate the discipline of knowing that today will pass. Shock inevitably gives way to other emotions, but eventually we find a new equilibrium. What I am suggesting is this - if we can find a way to calm our initial freak out over the shaking of our foundation with the knowledge that our journey continues and the world is not coming to an end, then we may be able to stay with the suffering long enough for it to do its work in us, rousing us to more maturity.

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

James 1:2-4 The Message

It is a good thing to know our true colors. It is a requirement in order for us to not judge the true colors of everyone else.

Where Are Your Habits Driving You?

During the pandemic and political cycle of 2020, Pete and I EVENTUALLY turned off our televisions and I began to limit my exposure to Facebook. It became obvious that exposure to the repetitive news cycle - with very little new information - was creating undue anxiety for us. We told our adult kids to tell us if anything earth-shattering happened, otherwise, we had the information we needed to make the choices we decided were right for us. When we relapse, we immediately regret our decision to tune in.

We upped our commitment to daily walks (long ones), meditation and prayer, and our grandchildren. We played more games, worked on more puzzles, and chose to keep the house quiet when our grandkids were not visiting.

These are all choices we had the capacity to make - but it took us surprisingly long to figure out that we could and should make them. We had developed some habits that needed to be jettisoned. It wasn’t like we were eating sugar with a spoon or guzzling soda. Our habits would not have alarmed anyone on an intake form for rehab.

But our habits were driving us; we were not choosing them.

Meditation helps us wake up. Our goal is not to turn our brains off or shut down our thoughts. Mediation is slowing down enough to NOTICE that which has become too automatic for our own good.

Today, sit with your eyes open and observe yourself and your environment. Notice the details. Observe your body’s feelings. Too hot? Too cold? Too stiff? Relaxed? Energized? Need a nap?

What habits might need shifting in order to improve your quality of life?