Shaking my head in delighted amusement.

Just like anybody else, i end up in the dark sometimes.  i get lost.  i know all of the "stuff" - the tools - for staying in the light; i even give the occasional speech about how important it is to meditate, take care of yourself, live without judgement and expectation, etc etc etc.  and yet, i get lost.  and amazingly sometimes i don't even KNOW that i'm in the weeds.  things just don't feel right and i just keep blundering along until a friend comes along and knocks me back on course.  like those bumpers on the bowling lane.  and yet what really amuses me is that after i've been saved from my own confusion and i look at the big picture i realize that all of it, every single moment of it: the drowning in the muck as well as the liberation into the sun, has been exactly as it is meant to be.  it is this illumination that leaves me grinning like a fool and yes, shaking my head in delighted amusement.

May today there be peace within.

May you trust God that you are exactly where you

are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite

possibilities that are born of faith.

May you use those gifts that you have received,

and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content knowing you are a child of God.

Let this presence settle into your bones,

and allow your soul the freedom to sing,

dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of us.
(Saint Theresa's prayer)

breathe baby breathe

Its humorous to me that my last post was about moving and my "insights" for how to embrace change.  Funny, it always looks much easier from the outside.  Isn't that always the way it is?  We watch our friends or perfect strangers do something and we think we see so clearly how to go about "it" the "right" way.  (That tempts me to write about how everyone is facing some kind of challenge or stress or decision and that Please, Please, Please BE KIND because we have no way of knowing how much courage is required just for that person to leave the house.  But I digress.)  Back to moving: my partner and I are looking for a house and the BIG CHANGE that alternately beckons and looms is a bit stressful.  I have a new appreciation for my parents who, while they've lived together for fifty some odd years, had the guts to pack up their home and move hundreds of miles away to a new town, new house, new life: the unknown.  Ahh, there we have it.  The unknown.  I thought i was going to write about moving but i guess it is really about me and the unknown and how i struggle against that. ( humorous to see that as soon as i hit on the "real" focus of this post, my capitalization went away; i am anti-big-letters.  i also tend to be pro run-on sentences and rambling and dashes and .....s).

i feel better already - breathe, make friends with the unknown, trust my gut.  all that stuff i probably put in my post about my parents but of course did not apply to myself.

the house thing:  i am an adaptable sort of person.  its a gift.  we saw a house a few days ago that made me want to cry, scream, despair.  i felt affronted.  i couldn't believe that my partner was actually considering this house.  then i sat with it for a few minutes and the next thing i knew i was planning to change this, make use of that differently, alter that bit over there.  to the point that i actually felt somewhat disappointed (its a good twelve hours later and i am just beginning to feel relieved) that we are not going to move into that house.  i think some part of me was ok with the house because at least i was no longer swinging in the unknown.  here was a physical house and i could latch on, move in, make use of it.  now we are back to the hunt and yes, the unknown.  i will acknowledge the slight tension, the resistance, stick my tongue out (respectfully) at the monster under the bed, invite the unknown in for a cup of tea, and celebrate (hey, sometimes you have to fake it to make it, right?)

Wahoo for change!

In the past week I have observed two moves - physical moves.  One was my parents' who sold the house that they've lived in for the past twenty plus years to move back to their roots of Oklahoma.  They have been saying for years that they would like to be closer to family and recently they followed through - finding a new house, packing up a lifetime of accumulation, locking the old door and moving on to a new adventure.  The other was the yoga studio that I've been practicing in for ten years.  The owners decided that they would like to own the space that their business is housed in rather than renting.  A few months ago, they purchased a building, and began the process of creating their vision anew.

Both of these moves were entirely voluntary, both were what the "movees" said they wanted but, at least from an observer's point of view, very different.  My parents stressed, the yogis exalted.  Where my parents  seemed to come from a place of "how do we make this new place like the old place", the yogis looked at the new space from the point of massive possibility: "wahoooooooo,  a new beginning, how fun, lets see what we can create!".  Now my life partner and I are shopping for a house.  We've never lived together, we've each had our "own" space for many, many years.  How will we choose to experience this transition?

Years ago my sister described my approach to life as "my (Kristy's) way or the highway".  Interesting being that my partner is very much of that ilk.  Put the two together and you can imagine what combining two complete households COULD be like.  BUT we, I, can choose.  I know that I like things a certain way but I also know that I can let go, step back, and see what we can create together.  My new house does not need to be like my old house.  In fact, being in the new yoga studio yesterday, where everything was different than it used to be, I felt excited, exhilarated.  I had a physical sense of a new opening where I had become stagnate in my routine.  Change, transition, gives us a chance to shift, a chance to experience our world differently.  In my "my way or the highway" days, I was much more controlling.  I was fearful of the unknown.  I wanted everything to be the way I planned for it so that I was safe.  Or so I believed.  I think my sister would describe me differently now.  I may not be brave enough to face the unknown without quaking a bit in my boots but I'm working on it.  One day I hope to be able to honestly say that I celebrate in the unknown.

Face your fears.

There's a great scene in the movie Defending Your Life in which the game show contestants are competing to see who will face their fears.  There are times in my life when I am worried about something and I will hear that actor's voice in my ear saying "Will she face her fear?  YES, she is going to do it!  She is going to FACE HER FEAR!!"  And everyone in the audience claps, I breathe, laugh a little, and let go.

One of my biggest fears until recently was speaking in public.  And when I say "public" I really mean any group of more than five or six.  I'm not even sure what I was afraid of - that I wouldn't be riveting and that my audience would be bored?  That I would choke up and cry?  Or that I wouldn't remember what it was I wanted to say?  Or that people would discover that I am truly unintelligent and foolish to boot?  Or maybe even that if I were talking and people were looking at me then they would start noticing that I'm not all that physically attractive.  Just like it takes a certain amount of courage to press the "publish" button when I post these blogs, speaking in public made me feel vulnerable.  Like somehow I was actually going to die if I tried to do something that scared me.

Well, if God is Love, then Fear is the Devil.  In fact, I have come to believe that fear is nothing but a sham. We put it in front of ourselves as a means of keeping ourselves small.  Why would we want to keep ourselves small?  Because any time you allow yourself to be big you become a open target for other peoples' criticism.  Even The Beatles had their detractors.  So we hide our light under a bushel and hope that no one will direct their derision our way.  But you know what?  When you allow yourself to be big, to truly follow your dreams, to face your fears, you also inspire others to do the same.  When you say "this is who I am, take it or leave it", you give the people around you the permission to do the same - to come out of their emotional closets, to dare to risk looking silly following their own path, to be brave and face their fears.

Recently I volunteered (unbelievable!!!) to speak in public.  I actually went to my sister's grade school and spoke to eighty fourteen year olds about the things that I've learned in the past five years.  Did I cry? You better believe it!  For all of about sixty seconds, I was on shaky ground.  And then I was through the door.  Fear is a mirage.  I found that speaking to those children was not only easy but downright enjoyable.  I can already hear my detractors (or maybe its just my own brain) saying "yeah, ok, so she did it once.  Will she do it again?"  Damn straight I will.  I don't know if it will be a bunch of eighth graders or a room full of yogis or an auditorium of cancer patients but I do know that my fear of speaking in public faded away the moment I faced it and didn't back down.

What are you afraid of?  Why are you holding back?  All of us will benefit when you choose to live your life fully, without fear.  Put that art out there for all of us to see.  Sing your song.  Write your book.  Be you, be big, be brave.

Taking the time to smell the .... dogs?

Yesterday, in celebration of five more years of life, my partner G and I took the whole day off work to just be together.  Days like this are rare for us.  We both own small businesses and between those and our kids we typically confine ourselves to a couple hours of down time at a go.  But yesterday, wahoooo, we were on vacation for a day.  The highlight?  Well there were several actually but what I want to tell you about is the time at the Boulder Humane Society.

G and I are both animal lovers - between us we have four cats and two dogs.  So we don't need any more critters in the house.  But I wanted to go simply to share some love with animals who are still waiting for a home.  G indulged me;  I knew, or thought I knew, that going to the humane society was not really his idea of a good time and yet he seemed happy enough with the plan.  When we got in the building I went straight to the dogs and G followed.  In all of our years together G had always described himself as "not a dog person".  This has been shifting of course being that he spends his days with my amazing, perfect, gorgeous, cute, smart, insert everything positive thing you could ever say about a dog, dogs.  But if you pointed this out to him - that he has fallen in love with three dogs over the last few years - he would say that Zoe and Zeke and Boots are not really dogs; they are / were somehow different than the average dog on the streets.  In other words, just like getting to know people of a different race or culture, you find common ground and love blooms where you might not have expected it.  (This could be a whole other post.)  Back to the humane society:  my dear life partner walked from stall to stall positively cooing at the dogs.  Reaching as far as he could through the bars, he was scratching behind ears, rubbing noses, giving warm words of encouragement.  He would come find me every few minutes to tell me about a dog - this one is on hold for a home, this one was abandoned, this one was transferred here from another shelter.  I was amazed that this man who I thought was humoring me by not only coming but by visiting the dogs (he is a self-proclaimed "cat person"), was genuinely touched and interested in the well being of the dogs.  Long story short:  no we did not come home with any animals.  We stayed true to our intention.  But I did fall in love all over again - not with a dog or a cat but with the man who opened his heart and took the time to pet a bunch of scruffy, needy, beautiful, homeless dogs.

4 /5/ 2011

I've been waiting for this day for quite awhile.  Well, not really THIS day since, as I type this THE DAY is still one hour and thirty five minutes to go.  4/5/11.  It is the big five year anniversary that I mentioned in my last post.  On 4 / 5 /06 I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Now, on 4 / 5/ 11,  I can claim five years clear and as far as the medical community goes that means cured.  I could tell them that I was cured a long time ago but let's not quibble.  Now is the time for celebration not debate.

The amazing journey that began five years ago is obviously too much for any post; that's why I've got this blog to take each bit a little at a time.  I hope that, even though my experiences are really just mine and may not apply to anyone else, this bit of typing will somehow comfort someone, even just ONE someone, somewhere.

Today I want to pay a long overdue tribute to a woman named Beverly.  Beverly was a volunteer for an organization here in Denver called Life Spark.  It is a non-profit which provides healing touch and reiki, energy work,  to people actively receiving treatment for cancer.  Before my cancer experience began I had never heard of this type of work and I am quite sure that if I had, I would have been extremely skeptical.  Maybe more than skeptical.  But a trusted friend who was essentially showing me the ropes introduced me to Life Spark and I was paired with Beverly.  What a gift!

Before we had our first session Bev asked me a series of questions - basic stuff about my treatment, my lifestyle, my emotional state.  Then she asked me about religion.  AWKWARD.  I had quashed any religious beliefs I had been instilled with as a youngster decades before.  Now this woman was asking me about religion and I started realizing that I had all kinds of unanswered questions.  Not questions for her, but questions for ME.  Beverly, a retired minister, was unfazed and totally non-judgemental.  In fact she made me feel more comfortable with my inability to answer than I would have thought possible.
Over the course of the next three months, meeting once a week, the topic of religion never came up again but somehow lying there on that table while Beverly worked what seemed like magic to me, my spirit found an opening.  I can't explain it and I'm not even sure that I was aware that anything other than pain and stress management was happening at the time, but looking back I  realize that a shift was occurring.  Beverly was moving around energy - something that I couldn't see but now had to acknowledge as real.  What else was real that I couldn't see?  What else had I been discounting simply because I had blocked off the possibility of its existence?  I still wonder, question, explore;  I still have no  
way to define what it is I have come to believe.  But I am forever grateful to that tiny beautiful lady for graciously opening the door to spirit.  Blessings dear Beverly.

Living my fifth year

Years ago my neighbor introduced me to her birthday ritual:  she claimed a birthday MONTH.  In other words where the rest of us were merely getting a day to call our own, she latched on to the entire month of her birth as hers to celebrate.  I thought this approach was genius and have adopted it for my own.  Likewise the whole cancer survival anniversary.  Although its difficult to say when I was officially c-f, I have thought of myself that way since the surgeon cut that meatball looking piece of confused flesh out of me.  So, there are many many anniversaries for me to celebrate this year - five years since diagnosis, five years since finishing chemo, five years of growing my hair... and rather than picking one single day, I am celebrating the whole year.  And then I think I'll just keep right on celebrating.  I'll be like the person who forever celebrates their "29th" birthday.  Except that I'll be partying to the tune of five years cancer free.  According to the doctors, five years = cured.  And cured I am.  (makes me sound like a ham, sam i am :) ).