My Trainers

I changed gyms and paid for one-on-one hours with a trainer.  I got Jodi.  She’s 25 (sigh) and kind.  She challenges me, but she listens when I describe how my body works.

I’ve written before about having rheumatoid arthritis (click on Rheumatoid Arthritis in the cloud of words down below on the right).  Life can be a challenge some days.

So can an 18-month-old granddaughter.  Someone asked me yesterday if she’s walking.  I said, “No, she runs.”  She’s not chubby anymore, but she is solid.  And sometimes squirmy.

So Jodi helps me strengthen my upper body and core.  And we do cardio stuff.  Ever try an elliptical machine?  I am awed by people who do it for a long time.  An hour?? My goal is to move beyond 5 minutes.

Humility and a sense of humor go to the gym with me.  (There’s a fine line between humor and self-denigration.)  I am grateful for all my body can do.  Jodi pushes me past stopping just because I want to.

I led a writing group at a drop-in center for people who are HIV-positive yesterday.  The prompt was a quote from an article by Nancy Copeland-Payton in Presence (the journal of Spiritual Directors International.)

It’s a roller coaster.  I didn’t buy a ticket, never wanted a ride…the illness will keep recurring and I will die of it.

Who am I…?  I’m no longer the person who used to be in control, who had energy to take care of tasks and other people.  Rather, I’m the one who needs care.  I’m the one who is vulnerable.  This is not an identity I choose.  Buried inside are losses that need to be cried out.  This is a long mourning process.

I finally let go of my control and let myself be vulnerable and cared for by others.  When I learn to receive their care with profound gratitude, I receive the greatest gift.  I realize how much I am loved.  It’s extraordinary.  This love lets me be even more vulnerable.

While we wrote I played a Kenny G CD (they like soft jazz).  As we finished, we listened to the music and rested.

I wrote a whiny page about not liking roller coasters and not wanting to be vulnerable.  They wrote and shared about God’s love and how their disease saved them from drugs and a wasted life and changed them for the better.  I didn’t want to share mine.

The last song we listened to (not planned by me) was Louis Armstrong singing “It’s A Wonderful Life”.  They sang along and smiled when it ended.

Amazing grace, again.

Cracked Souls

I heard a man say that his HIV-positive diagnosis was a blessing.  I know a woman who says she is a grateful recovering alcoholic.

The man who is HIV positive says his diagnosis stopped him from following a path that would have killed him.  My friend in recovery says her worst day sober is better than her best day when she drank.  Both talk about the people they wouldn’t have met otherwise.  They know the meaning of self-compassion and they live healthy lives, physically, and spiritually.

Maybe that’s the common denominator–the spirituality thing.  They talk about a higher power that has kept them alive for a reason.  They share with others where they have been and where they are now.  The cracks in their souls that were caused by pain and sorrow let their light shine through.  They are wounded healers walking among us.

Some people are bitter and angry because their lives are not what they expected.  We all have hard stuff,  eventually.  Loved ones die, illnesses are diagnosed, jobs are lost, and children make dumb choices and get hurt.  It might be tornadoes or hurricanes or floods.  Relationships flounder and addictions are rampant.

We have choices.  We will feel the anger and sadness and panic and confusion that follow a crisis.  Then what?  How do we keep putting one foot in front of the other?  How do we find the strength to do the next right thing with some grace and dignity?

The man who is HIV-positive has connected with others who have that diagnosis.  My alcoholic friend has a recovery community for support and encouragement.  They have found compassion and understanding.  They have found others who can laugh at the absurdities of life.  They are not alone.

The Paper (or Cloth) Bag Story

Take your problems, all of them, from the tiniest annoyances to the most horrific, difficult challenges and put all those problems into a brown paper bag or a politically-correct cloth eco-bag.

Then imagine if everyone else took all of their problems, put them into their own bags and brought them to the center of town.

Think of how many bags there would be, all piled up in one big mountain of brown paper and brightly-colored cloth bags.

If you were told you could pick any bag of problems and take it home with you, do you think you’d want someone else’s problems?

(Story borrowed from The Faith Club, by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner)

“Better the devil you know than the one you don’t.”  The Familiar can be quite comfortable.  It’s predictable, we think.  It’s known.  We’ve practiced dealing with it. We assume we know how things will turn out and we get ready.

My body and I have lived with rheumatoid arthritis for over 20 years.  Pain and discomfort vary.  My pain–physical, emotional, spiritual–is invisible if I choose to disguise it with humor or stoicism.  So is yours.

Remember PacMan?  That’s how I pictured my arthritis in the beginning.  The disease was an enemy force of scary little critters using my blood vessels as a superhighway to randomly chomp on my joints.  I hated them and the medications I was trying were losing a lot of battles against them.

Eventually, I gave up the anger and war images.  I had to make peace with those mean monsters inside me.  If I could be compassionate and forgiving, they might be gentler.  So I prayed for willingness.

Today we are next-door neighbors inside my body, the critters and my Spirit.  Sometimes they are noisy and intrusive, but I can shut my windows and ignore the doorbell.  They are familiar and they could be worse.  I accept them as they are and I deal with them one day at a time.

I know how to do “hard”.  I’ve had practice.  We all have.  I know I can probably handle most any problem that pops up next.

If I could pick one bag from the pile, would I pick my own again?  I’m not sure.

My Inner Two-Year-Old

Adaline is one now.  Her world is just fine unless she is hungry or tired.  Then someone takes care of her. No one expects her to be self-sufficient.  What does she have to be snotty about?  The one-year-old is usually quite content.

In a year, she will be 2.  Things will be different then, I think.

Disability came as a surprise for me after my knee replacement surgery a year ago.  I expected to hurt and hobble.  I didn’t know I would need help with everything, including going to the bathroom and bathing (which Mike insisted I do daily so my incision didn’t get infected).  I appreciate my husband’s patient and loving care through those weeks.

I wasn’t always gracious.  My inner two-year-old raged and cried and temper-tantrumed more than a few times.

I couldn’t put on a pair of pants by myself because my knee wouldn’t bend.

“Let me help.”  “I do it.”

I had to use a walker to get to the bathroom and then I had trouble standing up.

“Let me help.”  “I do it.”

I couldn’t stand up long enough to fix anything to eat.

“Let me help.”  “I do it.”

I will be sympathetic when Adaline says “I do it“, even if she can’t.

My knee is functioning well.  I am grateful daily for what I am able to do on my own.

I can take my own showers and go to the bathroom alone and even put on my pants easily.  Maybe one day that won’t be the case.  I do wonder if I should have long-term-care insurance.

Today, just for today, I did what I wanted.  My inner two-year-old is very grateful.

Where’d It Go?

My granddaughter is learning about “Where’d it go?”.  Yesterday she was on my husband’s lap and he showed her the cross he wears on a chain inside his shirt.  She, 10 months old and teething, wanted to put it in her mouth.  So he dropped it back inside his shirt.  She pulled the neck of the shirt and looked down inside.  There it was!

That’s how I feel about my week.  Where’d it go?

I had plans and goals for this week, mapped out on a nice chart given to me by Elaine, a spiritual coach.  It breaks each day into 3-hour blocks. You fill in one to-do for each block.  The hope is to get that one to-do completed in each 3-hour block.

None of my blocks got checked off.  We had snow and ice that I wouldn’t drive on.  My inner child had a “snow-day” mentality. We babysat Wednesday and Friday and I (choose to) get nothing done if Adaline is here.

I learned recently there are three possible responses to stress/anxiety.  I knew about “fight or flight.  The third response is “freeze”.

I need to plan for a class I start teaching on January 19.  I’m out of my comfort zone with this project, which I volunteered for.  I’m afraid of not doing well.

In my family of origin we dealt with distress or fear by shutting down emotionally and getting lost in something to read.  We are all good readers, but not very good with feelings.

I read a great book this week.  I didn’t work on my class.

Now I’m more anxious than before and writing this instead of working on my class!

Help me!

Six Simple Steps To A Stress-free Season

Advice from the Experts at Duke Integrative Medicine

WALK IN THE MORNING
when the world is still sleeping.TAKE TIME FOR TEA
The caffeine and polyphenols in tea have the combined effect of mild stimulation and lasting calm.

BREATHE
Breathe in for 4 counts.
Hold your breath for 4 counts.
Release your breath for 6 counts.
This “UJI” breathing quickly reduces stress and calms your central nervous system.

TIME OUT
Take a break from demanding tasks
(like shopping or cleaning)
and difficult people (like that family member who rubs you the wrong way)and do something that nurtures you!

BE KIND TO YOUR FEET

Fill a bucket with warm water and add some drops of rosemary and peppermint oil.
Place a golf ball in the bucket as well.
Soak and massage your feet and calm your entire being.

PRACTICE LOVING KINDNESS
Volunteer at a soup kitchen or a local shelter and help someone who is struggling. Discover the benefits of a practice of gratitude.

What tips do you have to share?  I say:

Bake cookies.

Get lots of sleep.

Remember, this too shall pass.

And try to laugh.

Gratitude

My friend, Lisa, asked me to write about gratitude for her blog. (Here’s the link: Lisa’s Cheap Therapy Blog. ) Please check out her website–Cheap Therapy–she makes really cool cards and posters and then gives away a good chunk of any money she makes.
Here’s what I wrote for her blog:

The Gratitude List comes up a lot at 12-step meetings in November. Enough to make me groan sometimes.

Listing the good stuff is easy:

1. my granddaughter laughing and flying in her swing

2. being a cancer survivor

3. a perfect fall day—sunshine, slight breeze, 68 degrees with low humidity, colorful leaves

4. lunch out with a group of smart, laughing women friends

5. a quiet awareness of God’s presence surrounding and protecting me.

What about the hard stuff, though?

1. Illness–mine or a loved one’s

2. Pain–physical and/or emotional

3. Powerlessness–my inability to make it all okay for other people

4. Letting go–not enabling and letting others learn from the consequences of their choices

I rage at God sometimes about the hard stuff. My spirit aches as I watch my adult children struggle with life’s challenges. I ask WHY?

Then I surrender. Trying to change or control people and situations takes too much energy. Because it is impossible.

So I learn:

1. to lean on God

2. to trust that those I love also have a God who loves them

3. to resist my urge to isolate and instead share my hurts and griefs and struggles.

When I was learning to throw pots on a pottery wheel, my hands could only make lopsided bowls. They were goofy-looking. My teacher explained that the beauty of handmade pottery lies in the imperfections that make each piece unique.

So it is with us, I think. We are the clay and God is the potter. It is our imperfections and cracks that make us real. That’s where God’s light gets through to our hearts and where love and compassion flow out from us to others.

Joy and beauty are in the good stuff. Gifts are in the hard stuff.

And so I am grateful.

The Pleasures of an Ordinary Life by Judith Viorst

I’ve had my share of necessary losses,

Of dreams I know no longer can come true.

I’m done now with the whys and the becauses.

It’s time to make things good, not just make do.

It’s time to stop complaining and pursue

The pleasures of an ordinary life.

 

I used to rail against my compromises.

I yearned for the wild music, the swift race.

But happiness arrived in new disguises:

Sun lighting a child’s hair. A friend’s embrace.

Slow dancing in a safe and quiet place.

The pleasures of an ordinary life.

 

I’ll have no trumpets, triumphs, trails of glory.

It seems the woman I’ve turned out to be

Is not the heroine of some grand story.

But I have learned to find the poetry

In what my hands can touch, my eyes can see.

The pleasures of an ordinary life.

 

Young fantasies of magic and of mystery

Are over. But they really can’t compete

With all we’ve built together: A long history.

Connections that help render us complete.

Ties that hold and heal us. And the sweet,

Sweet pleasures of an ordinary life.

Life for Dummies

I am a grumpy, impatient beginner.  I need to feel competent. I don’t like when someone tries to help me.

I love those gaudy yellow and black Dummies books.  They have titles like Baseball for Dummies.  Slightly insulting, yes, but beginner-level information that I can study privately and at my own pace.

I looked months ago for Grandparenting for Dummies. I don’t think there is one, but Amazon has The Idiot’s Guide to Grandparenting.  I refuse to buy any Idiots books–they are an ugly orange and “Idiot” is just rude.

On a quick trip to various bookcases in my house I saw these Dummies books:  Ebay, New York City, Yoga, Chicago, Paris, Feng Shui, Cancun and the Yucatan, Blogging, Pregnancy, Blackberry, iTunes, and Excel.  I keep saying I’m going to put them all in one bookcase so I can find one when I need it, but I haven’t done it yet.

Study —–>Knowledge—–>Control.

Right?

Feeling in control is the opposite of feeling powerless.  But then what about risk and adventure?  Going with the flow?  Being in the moment?  Being lost, on purpose?

Can we really control the unknown?  Or is being in the unknowing our Life’s task?

Sometimes I do need to know how to do something, especially computer/technology stuff.  Online manuals don’t help me much.  But I’m learning to have faith that I will be able to handle Life as it comes to me.  If I don’t over-think, over-plan, and over-analyze, I can be amazed and astonished.  That’s why I want to learn new skills and go to new places.

Faith allows me to be comfortable in the unknowing and uncertainty of Life.  That belief takes daily maintenance and awareness of God’s presence.

I am grateful for my faith.  I don’t take it for granted.

Turtle or Gazelle?

Kim and Donna, as part of a Soul Collage workshop, led a guided meditation to help us envision our totem animals.  I was hoping for something graceful and elegant, able to leap in the air and run fast—a gazelle, perhaps.  My Spirit gave me a big, old, ponderous, turtle.

Turtle is not glamorous, but really not as uninspiring as I first thought.  Here is what I learned about turtle symbolism:

1.  Turtle’s whole life is one of steadfastness, effort, and patience. It lives a slow and steady life of “non-doing”.

2.  Turtle takes its wisdom one day at a time – not reacting, simply accepting and moving on in its natural rhythm.

3.  The medicine of Turtle is its deliberate and thorough approach to life.  

4. Turtle naturally withdraws and goes within when in turmoil. It does not need to learn the importance of this focusing inward, it naturally knows.

5.  Turtle is courageous because it makes progress only when it sticks its neck out and moves forward with patient, steady flow.

6.  Turtle is always at home within itself.

I have spent years learning about living one day at a time, being in the moment, and accepting life as it comes to me.  All those words in all those books and discussions are summed up in “Turtle”.  Once again I am humbled.  And delighted by how cleverly Spirit teaches me.