Letting Go to Make Room for New

Fin de Año 2013

Wow! Well, the end of the year is upon us and we have so much to celebrate and be thankful for and also much to let go of and leave in the past. I'm excited about all the possibilities to come in 2014!

I participated for the 4th time in the Burning Bowl Ceremony at Seattle Unity on Sunday. This ceremony gives us an opportunity to literally see the things we want to release from the previous year burn up in flames. It has been a very powerful and cleansing process for me and I am very grateful to my friend, Julie for taking me to my first Burning Bowl in 2010. 

This process also reminds me of the Ecuadorian New Year's tradition of burning paper mâché lifesize dolls called "añoviejos" or "old years" that represent all that you'd like to let go of from last year at midnight. 

This year after I burned my "añoviejo" at Unity, I was given a card with a word and affirmation for the new year. My word was "zeal," which goes very nicely with my next creative project for the month of January. My card said that "I am energized by the power of God's or the Divine presence in my life this day. My enthusiasm comes from the deep well of God Love or Divine Love that is the source of all life. My joy is contagious and I shine my light in the world." I just love this as a point of focus to start this new year off on a positive and light foot! 

Thanks to the awesome and inspiring project of my creative friend, Angie, I'm going to participate in Fun-A-Day this January. Each day in January I will either:

*Make a pair of earrings

*Take nature photos

*Dance, or

*Write.

And I will record my creative endeavors here on this blog. So really for me, it will be a blog-a-day for the month of January. I think positive habit-forming motivation like this will really help with this SAD weather! And I think it will also be a great start for my very own Happiness Project! My mom gave me The Happiness Project for Christmas and since then I've been feeling inspired to start my own project to focus on increasing happiness in our lives.

My hope is also to start a habit of being creative everyday and choosing happy, joyful activities over vegging out and feeling SAD from the dreary winter. I'm looking forward to it! Maybe you'd like to join me?

Wishing us all the freedom of New Year's and a 2014 filled with joy, courage and inner peace!

Vulnerability As Strength

"Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness." 
~Brene Brown

I’m just going to put this out there: opening up in my writing and publishing these pieces on my blog is pretty scary at times.  Being vulnerable to possible criticism, misunderstanding, anger, pain is a real challenge.  But I have realized through past posts that the times I am most vulnerable and open in my writing are the posts my readers most enjoy.  It is compelling to read someone’s honesty, to see inside someone’s heart.  It can be rare to be given that opportunity.  There has been a lot of buzz about the word and concept of vulnerability lately, thanks to Brene Brown’s amazing work.  (I am super excited and grateful that my dear mom gifted me two of Brene Brown’s books yesterday!  If you haven’t heard of Brene Brown’s work, please check out her website here.)  

I feel a lot of resistance to being vulnerable sometimes, especially because of past hurts.  I’m trying really hard to let these painful memories go so I can free up space for new light and joy in my life.  Holding on to them weighs me down and makes me feel heavy and closed off to the world.  I want to feel open and passionate.  Having your guard up is a natural protection mechanism but it doesn’t bring any joy into your life.  It only stops everything from coming in.  I have been very adamant about remaining open despite getting hurt, but it is easier said than done sometimes, especially when you receive multiple blows and forget to stay centered, or in my case, your center is literally cut open.  This has affected me immensely.  More than I can describe in words.  

I have to reframe how I view what happened to me last year in a more positive light though, because thinking my spirit has been kind of broken from all the pain and suffering endured does not help me move forward and shed all the layers of painful memories from my back.  Only when I focus on all the strength and wisdom and awareness I have gained from the experience can I then begin to put one foot forward and then the other, slowly but at least in a forward direction again.  I must stop turning around to look over my shoulder at all that has happened.  And instead look at where I am right now, in this instant.  If I look too far forward into the future, fear can paralyze also, so my challenge is to stay in the moment.  Enjoy the present.  Be grateful for where I am right now.  Find peace in my heart that everything is going as planned.  Have faith that I am strong enough to handle anything with grace and love.  

I so want to embody this quote by Rumi:

"The wound is the place where the light enters you."  

My physical wound from last year has been healed for one year now.  The emotional trauma however is taking longer to get past, but as Rumi said, it is where the light comes in.  If you let the opening in your armor just be and sit with it, trusting everything will be okay and not fighting the fact that it exists, incredible things can occur in your life.  A light far greater than you could ever imagine can fill your heart and soul and transform the way you think and perceive life.  

I recently listened to a talk at Center for Spiritual Living online and Kathianne Lewis said that angels manifest in our lives whenever we have high thoughts or thoughts of greater awareness--epiphanies as I like to call them.  So even when we feel that we are not moving forward as much as we would like to, perhaps physically if we have had health challenges or with our life goals, if we are having these high thoughts and understanding humanity or ourselves a little better, we are being supported by these angels in our lives who help us understand what is happening and recognize the grace in each situation.  And through this divine assistance, we are growing and changing and moving forward as spiritual beings.

I will leave you with one more quote on vulnerability:

You don’t always have to be strong.

You don’t always have to fight off those tears.

Sometimes it’s good to let them flow and let it go.

All your holding back can just keep building it all up.

It’s alright not to have it all figured out yet.

Give it time to unfold.

~Karen Salmansohn

Getting My Sparkle On

Over the past two years, I have learned way more than I could have ever imagined about my physical and emotional body.  I thought I had been put to the test the year before but I had absolutely no idea what was in store when the Nutcracker hit.  Nearly two years ago, in January 2012, I experienced a very extreme case of pain one snow-day.  It felt as if someone or thing was stabbing me with a sharp knife in the lower pelvic region.  I worried that I might have something rupturing inside and thought of calling someone but the nausea and dizziness and pain engulfed me and I almost passed out.  My now husband called me right in that instant to check on me because I had felt kind of nauseous earlier that day, and he immediately left work to come and take me to the hospital.  Of course the first visit to the ER didn't find anything.  They thought I had possibly eaten something that caused this pain.  They really didn't know, even after doing several tests and four plus hours later.  Then the following month, another episode happened while I was at work.  My co-workers said I turned as pale as a ghost and I nearly passed out there too.  This time I was taken to an urgent care facility who referred me to a GI doctor, in case what they had said the month before was valid.  A few days later, I went for a CT scan where the Nutcracker was discovered.  It took several more months to confirm this but in the end, I had open abdominal vascular surgery to move my left renal vein down a few centimeters so it would no longer be "nutcrackered" by my aorta and superior mesenteric artery.  This nutcrackering effect had resulted in varicosities below my kidney region which were extremely painful.  Imagine a normal sized river trying to fit all its water through tiny streams when the river got blocked by, let's say, a beaver dam. (To read more about the Nutcracker Syndrome, read my Nut Notes blog from last year.)

I consider myself so very fortunate to have been referred to the right doctors in a relatively quick timeframe so that I didn't have to live with the increasing pain and discomfort, even from standing or sitting for more than 10 minutes, very long.  The active life I knew before the Nutcracker had almost completely come to a stop, my twice weekly zumba and other dance classes became almost non-existent as the pain got more and more plaguing.  But then came recovery.  The doctors had estimated 5-6 weeks after my open surgery.  They had not anticipated the surgical infection I got because I was so healthy and young, compared to many of their other vascular patients.  The infection was deep, probably happening during the actual surgery, and took a very long time to heal.  But the pain and suffering it caused as I had to have dressings changed twice or three times daily for four long months was even worse.

Within several weeks the actual infection was gone, but I was left with a very open wound that my now husband and mom took loving care of everyday, twice a day for four months.  The risk of further infection was great if this wound wasn't cared for properly and I am again extremely lucky to have such a loving and caring partner and mom in my life.  They took such good care of me.  Honestly, I'm not ready to write about all the painful details of the ordeal, but I do want to reflect on all that I learned from the experience, now that it's been one whole year since my wound finally healed completely.

Early on the doctors described to us what needed to happen for my wound to heal and they used a term that my mom and I couldn't quite remember afterwards.  My mom and I joked that fireworks or "sparklers" needed to happen in order to regenerate new tissue in the location of the wound, healing from the bottom up.  Now I can't even remember the actual medical term for this phenomena but since this wound was requiring so much love and care and energy from us all, I felt we should name her.  So "Sparkle" it was.  I hoped and prayed for the day when Sparkle would become a Sparkle Scar and I could put scar gel on her, rather than fill her with painful gauze and tape her down onto my tender belly skin everyday.  And that prayer was answered finally after over four months last December.  I had recently attended a church service at the Center for Spiritual Living on 12-12-12 with my dear friend, Julie and her family and we were asked to share prayer requests so I felt I had to say something.  I shared my story briefly and after the service, a woman--or I'd say an angel--approached me and told me that she did healing energy work and would like to sit with me for a few minutes.  I am a very open-minded person and welcomed any and all possible healing for Sparkle so I gratefully agreed.  She sat next to me for less than five minutes, putting her hand over my heart and near my abdomen while breathing deeply.  Within 4 days, Sparkle was completely healed and turning herself FINALLY into a scar!  I will be forever grateful for this anonymous and powerful healing.

So what did I learn from this experience?  Now that it's been one whole year and I'm still regaining my physical strength after being so inactive during the chronic pain from the Nutcracker and then from the long healing process of Sparkle--even 8 minutes of yoga on my TV this morning thoroughly tired me out--I can view the experience from a distance and instead of remembering all the pain and suffering, I can begin to see all the beauty and love that I received during that time.  Not only did I grow even closer to my dear mother who cared for me at every minute for over a month straight and then came to my house to care for my wound everyday after I moved back home, but I discovered and affirmed my soulmate and life partner and knew with all my heart how absolutely dedicated and devoted he was and still is to me. We married four short months after Sparkle became a scar.

Once I was able to walk around and drive on my own, I learned that despite almost all my body's energy going to healing Sparkle, I was still able to be in a beautiful wedding as a bridesmaid, even if I had to sit down during the ceremony on a little bench they provided for me.  I took a trip on my own as I travelled to Chicago for my dear friend, Rosey's baby shower while Sparkle was still healing, and I created 40 pairs of earrings to sell at the college's holiday craft fair.  I moved into a sparkling new apartment after being in my condo for seven years.  I sat by my grandma's side on her last conscious night here on Earth and laughed with her and held her hand as she began her transition to Heaven.  My life continued, I didn't stop for very long.  I remember every bump in the road, literally, but I am also grateful for not feeling pain every time we hit a bump in the road anymore.  I sometimes may not feel as strong as I really am but my strength is in there, it lies deep within me and helps me propel my life forward in new and positive directions everyday.

So the morale of the story is to never give up.  Never give in either.  Keep living, create beautiful experiences, even when your current situation isn't perfect, isn't exactly as you'd like it to be.  Because despite all the pain and suffering I felt, I have so much to show for that time in my life and so much to be proud of and remember fondly.

I learned to not take the simple things for granted. I learned to take things one at a time, and if I still get frustrated sometimes about not being able to do as much as I'd like, I've learned to be patient. I'm still learning to be patient. (This is a lifelong learning journey, but a very important one.) I now have great empathy for others who are in pain. I have the gift of putting myself in their shoes and almost literally feeling or imagining what they might be going through. I am extremely sensitive but also extremely aware. I have learned that not everyone will like what you say or what you do or what you share. But that what's most important to me is being authentic, being real, being open. Being open in the face of fear and uncertainty has brought me so many more blessings and opportunities than I could have ever imagined.

I learned how fragile life as we know it--and so often take for granted--truly is. I've learned how beautiful and delicate and graceful life can be, if we can enter into the mindset that all this is made for us.  I'm learning to trust all this wisdom from within and from others and take comfort in that trust, that faith.

I have learned to be grateful for all the little things--the little improvements, little epiphanies, little joys, little breaks, and the little sparkle we discover, recognize and share in our everyday lives.

Breathing and Trusting You Have Everything to Gain

"Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else; it's something you do for yourself.

It's saying 'you don't get to turn me into a victim. You are not important enough to me to be the object of my hate.' Once you do that, your enemy stays chained to his past history. But you, you're free."

~Jodi Picoult in The Storyteller

Wow! Those are such powerful words! The act of forgiving is a very difficult task to take on. But I've found it is so very important. If we just try to cover old resentments and hurts up and ignore them or try to forget them, they come back to us quadrupled in the form of stress oozing out of us, physically, mentally and emotionally. But it's quite a spiritual act, the trusting that forgiving is really good for you and nothing will happen to the person who wronged you either way, whether you continue to hold on to what they did with your teeth or packed up in your chest, not allowing your light to come out, or by letting it go. I feel that our creativity is also stunted if we don't make a conscious effort to forgive. When I'm most creative and open and loving, I've finally let go of the grip I had on things that weren't fair or hurt me deeply. That grip paralyzes our ability to brainstorm new ideas and solutions and create new realities for ourselves. We get stuck thinking about what happened if we keep holding on to it, or squirreling it away, as Jodi Piccoult wrote in The Storyteller.

It's almost like we hang on to these painful memories because if we don't, we think we're not giving our feelings enough importance. "What do you mean I have to let go of what so-and-so did to me?" We tell ourselves that it's not fair, but the irony is that what's not fair is really what we are doing to ourselves by holding tight to these indiscretions. 

But how, you might ask, do we let go of what someone did to us? I still struggle with this, even after reading article upon article about the topic. But what seems to work every time is breathing--and that's a very important piece to remember, it's not that once you say "ok, I forgive you," that it'll be all healed up in your heart and it won't bother you anymore. It's really something you have to work on regularly, at least at first. But if you're like me, and are prone to remembering how much so-and-so hurt you over and over again, it'll take time. It'll require creating a habit of breathing into the hurt or angry feelings and consciously letting the grip in your chest unwind, metaphorically unbinding that past pain from your core and releasing it into the ground or air or wherever you'd like to send it--as long as it's not inside you anymore--with your out breath. Isn't the image of breathing in fresh, calming, peaceful, loving air into your core and then breathing out all the negative, painful emotional gunk you've been keeping in there such a relieving, hope-filled thought? 

Practice. Practice. Practice. That's what it'll take. Trusting. Trusting. Trusting. Trusting that YOU will really be the one who has everything to gain from forgiving, and knowing that it no longer has ANYTHING to do with the other person. What a relief!

Recognizing the Unhealed Parts of Me

 

“What angers us in another person is more often than not an unhealed aspect of ourselves. If we had already resolved that particular issue, we would not be irritated by its reflection back to us."

~Simon Fuller

"I’m learning to hold the little hands of those scared parts inside of myself, and just sit with them.  They love this.”  ~Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy aka. SARK

 

What are the unhealed parts of myself?

What an empowering and proactive way to look at yourself—what are the unhealed parts of me?  If I look at all the things that bother me or irritate me or make me flustered, I think I know deep down that those are the unhealed parts.  When I don’t feel in control, when I feel pressured, when I don’t have the answer, when I feel stuck, when someone judges me, when someone talks back to me, when I feel rushed.  

The list could probably go on and on.  But what’s most important is recognizing that these parts of my being are just scared.  They’re scared of failing, of not doing well, of being uncomfortable, of experiencing pain.  And as the SARK quote goes, if I pay attention to them—with non-judgmental attention—and show them love and compassion, these parts will relax.  They’ll stop resisting reality and just be, rather than create friction in our lives and inside ourselves by fighting what’s a part of us.  It’s not to say that we should just roll over and let all them take over and bother us; it’s to say that if we recognize these parts of ourselves and let them be, rather than trying to fight them all the time or ignore that they even exist, we can feel more peace.