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Our Journey Continues
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We are each on our own healing journey.
There is much to heal, and many
places to explore. We
have come such a long way. We are learning and growing
every day. Trying to not
only make sense of what is happening, but why it’s
happening, and what we
are going to do about it. We are not alone. We are are
connected. Its time to
learn, to live, to love, and to laugh.
Linda Noble Topf states in You Are Not
Your Illness.
I found
that, rather than being limiting, and painful, living with
an illness
could be enriching. It could be, as one person put it, a
magnifying
lens bringing life up closer, where the truths of all humans
become
better known and appreciated.
Everday that lens gets bigger and bigger.
When we are no longer able to change a
situation, we are challenged
to change ourselves.
Victor
Frankl
Since being diagnosed I have discovered so
many new worlds that I never would have really seen, or experienced. Each day
brings new challenges and opportunities. How I handle them, and what I do with
them is the curriculum for my continuing education. My lessons have become my
treasures I am collecting along the way. My professors have become my coaches
encouraging me and teaching me. I am growing in ways I never thought I would or
could.
Express Yourself, an article in the July
issue of New Age magazine
expresses it.
Each of us is here to express our
potential, manifest that something
That’s unique in us.
None of us is aiming for triteness, in pursuit of
shallow. It’s the deep
down thrill of knowing we went all out, put our soul
into an endeavor and
created something new that made an impact. . . We want
our lives to sizzle with
passion, to ignite ideas and laughter and wonder and
kindness, to spread
hope, like wildfire through these times of darkness.
One person who truly put his soul into an
endeavor was Tour de France
winner (twice!) Lance
Armstrong. In his book, Its Not About the Bike, he
sums up his battle with
cancer this way.
It was time to quit
stalling, I realized. Move, I told myself.
As I continued upward,
I saw my life as a whole. I saw the pattern and
the privilege of it, and the purpose of it, too. It was simply
this: I was
meant for a long hard climb.
The more I thought
about it, the more cancer began to seem like a race to
me. Only the destination had changed.
He uses the bike as a metaphor for life.
As one sports commentator
noted at this years Tour
de France, Lance is truly a disciplined champion.
He re-created himself. The cancer did
that. It changed his life. It made
him humble. It allowed
him to become more human. A better human.
His goals are no longer about winning,
they’re about helping. Helping
to find a cure, helping
others. He is creating a new life, a life with a
purpose. I want to be
this kind of champion.
In The Art of Happiness, the Dalai
Lama talks about a man who was
diagnosed as HIV
positive.
Over the past year things have changed. I seem to get more out of
each day than I ever did before, I feel happier than I ever have. I have to
admit in some ways it has transformed my life . . . in positive ways.
As the Dalai Lama emphasizes, Happiness is
determined more by ones state of mind than by external events.
It all starts from the neck UP.
Youve heard it before.
Attitude =Altitude!
Altitude is our viewing point, our
perspective.
Attitude is the way we approach
things.
Attitude DOES = Altitude!
How are YOU doin’?
The greatest discovery of my generation is
that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind.
–William James
I like to be in control. Some have said
that I am an A++ personality.
For that reason I refuse to cope. Webster
defines cope as, to struggle. No. N-O!
I prefer to deal. Deal, to take ACTION in
response to something.
NOW
we’re talkin!
The beautiful thing about being a human,
we have the power to choose. To cope, or deal. One of my clients told me about her three year old grandson who
came up
to her and said,
Grandma, what’s your choice? What are
my options, she asked.
His response, Happy or sad.
Is this great? This
child is three! What a great lesson for us ALL to
learn. YOU choose . .
happy or sad.
If thou art pained by
an external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs thee, but thine own
judgement about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now.
-
Marcus Aurelius
Dr. Seuss is teaching young and old this
lesson in Oh, the Places You Go.
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great
Places!
You’re off and
away!
You’re on your own.
And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy
who’ll decide where to go.
Another one of my new treasures is Harry
Potter. I’m not reading these books, I’m inhaling them! They’re terrific.
Everyone young and old is reading them, as they should be. There’s a moral and
a wonderful lesson in each and every one. In The Chamber of secrets,
(Harry #2) Harry is told that the end by Dumbledore, It is our choices, Harry,
that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
There are times,
because we are . . . human . . .
because we
are . . . hurting
as part of
the . . . healing process
we need to go down
the . . . hole.
I call it the hole, because we must go all
the way down, rock bottom. Then we must claw and scratch our way back up to the
top. Very slowly . . .
very carefully . .
. very methodically . . . so that we
don’t miss, and don’t miss out on what is happening to us, to what is taking
place around us.
So that we do not lose
ourselves in this mandatory process. We
must let the tears flow . . . Let the hurt, the ache, and the pain we feel come
out.
We must let it out, and let it into our
lives.
Let it be a part of who we are, and what
were going through.
Let it be a catharsis, an awakening for us
on this journey we are
experiencing. We must
let it become part of our adventure, part of our
growing and glowing
process!
The author, Sark, in her book, Transformation
Soup, writes backwards,
upside down, sideways
& in crayon, says . . .
I think that until
we cry as often as we laugh, we are not fully
alive. . . Our tears are the waterfall of the soul and it is our
right to
experience and express sadness and other feelings through tears.
When we allow these emotions to come out,
we can confront them, and
deal with them. Then,
and only then can we choose our next step.
Then . . .. can we take action. Then . . .
can we get going.
This is not about wallowing, this is about
facing our feelings. This is about dealing with our fears.
Lance Armstrong sums up fear this way . .
.
To be afraid is
a priceless education. Once you have been that scared, you know more about your
fraility than most people, and I think that changes a person. I was brought
low, and there was nothing to take refuge in
but the philosophical:
this disease would force me to ask more of myself as
a person than I ever had before, and to seek out a different
ethic.
In Still Here, Ram Dass states,
Rather than closing ourselves to fear, we learn to open to it, to
sit with it, allowing it to arise and pass in its own time. . . . You will
discover that the fearful thought you are looking at is quite different from
the fear you’ve run away from; the minute you look at it and embrace it the power
is yours.
How we choose to deal with our fear is
what’s important.
Linda Topf emphasizes, What we must
seek is a shift of perception so that we are not hypnotized by our fear. Make
it your warrior.. The warrior is the one who is not controlled by the fear. . .
. Get to know fear as one who serves with strength and purpose.
Action is what makes the
difference. . . . Action is about living fully. Inaction is the way we deny
life. . . . Taking action is being fully alive. Its taking the risk. . . . Its
expressing what you are.
These words of wisdom are from Don Miguel
Ruiz in his wonderful book, The Four Agreements.
Pima Chodron, an American Buddhist nun, teaches us in When
Things Fall Apart,
Lean toward the discomfort of life and see it clearly rather than
to protect ourselves from it. . . Awareness is found in our pleasure and pain .
. . We’re continually opening further,
learning more, connecting further with
the depths of human suffering and human wisdom.
The teachings continue.
This very moment is the perfect teacher,
and it is always with us.
Get to know your fear. Make it your
warrior. Send it into battle so that it CAN fight for you. Take action. NOW.
Know that nothing is impossible
ONCE you set your mind
to it. Even Alice learned this . . .
‘ I can’t believe that”, said Alice. “Can’t you?”, the queen
said in a pitying voice. “Try again,
draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.” Alice laughed, “There’s no use trying. One can’t believe
impossible things.”
“I dare say you haven’t had much practice”, said the queen.
“When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why,
sometimes I believed as much as six impossible things before breakfast!”
Thank you, Lewis Carroll.
We’re in this together. Anything is
possible.
Change your thinking. Change your life.
To change ones life: start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. NO exceptions.
-William James
Our journey continues . . .
Or as Lance would say . . . Move!
Cathy Finney Soar303@aol.com
