Tag Archives: choices

11.14.20
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chocolate stars theory

I used to joke (ok…not really a joke) that the best way to eat chocolate (like those chocolate stars that used to be available in movie theaters but now may be bought in bulk from a buy-your-stuff-in-bulk-store) was to stuff my mouth full of that melty chocolate until it began to seep out of the corners. I now believe that this theory…while I still believe it to be true…was really just an analogy of the way I lived my life.

Everything was either really good or really bad and I did not have much desire to just float along. I either had to go full throttle to love it/fix it or ruminate. I either really liked someone or something and enveloped my whole being in that comfort or really disliked it/them and then was disappointed when life didn’t play out the way I could accept.

But with age, therapy and embracing spirituality rather than organized religion, I’m realizing that my years of angst had everything to do with my expectations and the stories in my head. Those stories on replay…those stories queued to play my favorite tune when I needed justification for my opinions or behavior. Once I had the “discipline” to stop, drop and roll, I loosened my grip on my need for black and white, hate and love, yes and no.

With every breath we have the ability to change the way we think. We don’t need to breathe in the very same air we just exhaled. We are not preprogrammed to pass or fail depending on what “happened to us” the last time we tried. Changing the way we think changes our life. It’s not how someone reacts to us, it is how we react to our own thinking.

Namaste

11.10.20
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It wasn’t wrong it just was

Yesterday I did this! I went for a walk around the pond and just kept following my feet down the path for about 1/2 a mile. It was warm when the sun would peek through, a fall breeze blowing fall leaves…I embraced the smells, the beauty, and wind blowing through my hair. The best part was I stopped several times…there was no destination, there was no goal. It just felt like a walk with my dad as I chatted with him and asked a lot of questions.

So many gifts he handed down to me. For a short time I found myself teary….why didn’t I get out of the house all summer and fall, why didn’t I ask my dad more questions, why didn’t I this and that!

Until I realized I just didn’t. The past is the past and I did exactly what felt right to me in the past. This is now and I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing right now. Each time I embrace the right now and let go of the shoulda, I find peace. This is also one of the shouldas that followed…why don’t I do “this” all the time? Because its just not what is right for me in that “all the time narrative” that I like to have preprinted for my life. Right now is right now.

I came back and jotted this haiku that had formed somewhere in my soul!

Guided by the light

I’m back on the road again

Embracing the light

Namaste

02.12.18
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Tripping over the stones

Where I am in my life, tripping over things is okay….the best way I can explain being okay with tripping is it doesn’t hurt as much as falling down or falling over the cliff. I have been on a path of self discovery for many years….mainly because I didn’t like to spend time with myself and my negative thoughts and I knew there was something I didn’t understand about life and living…..I knew that an inner peace was achievable and the journey was not going to be easy. I guess what I didn’t really realize that I would have to take this journey one step at a time rather than trudging up the hill in an hour or a day. It started when I was about 25 and I’m closing in on 62 and every single day I learn a new way of thinking, a new way of being….a new way to live life. It’s like the picture slide projector from the 60s…we would have our pictures developed into little squares with cardboard surround and we would put those in a Kodak projector shining on a white wall or screen and one by one we would view these pictures with a click of a button.

Sometimes a very slow process because if you clicked too fast, the machine would jam. Sometimes we would linger on a certain picture in order to remark about it, reminisce about a memory associated with it or attempt to figure out exactly why we took the picture.

We all start on the road from a different intersection and we meet others at different Crossroads. Sometimes we choose to walk along with them other times we choose to continue alone…..but the bottom line is we must keep moving…up that hill even if we fall down and if we go over the cliff?? Well, it’s a long way back up to where we were but with skinned knees and injured pride, we will know what to watch for as we continue.

Until next time….

07.03.15
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I’m not a victim in this kidney cancer scenario.

I believe I am a victim of my own circumstances and my own making…there are perhaps some genetics at play in my life because after all – and I quote my mother, “you come from a long line of big women”.

Oh = holy mother of God…what a great excuse!!!!

Heard it many times…said it many times.  If I had known I was going to get old, I would have taken better care of myself.

In every thing we do, we make choices.  Sometimes we feel we don’t have any choices or we feel that the choices before us are not ideal…but we make choices…if we choose one little Y in the road different, everything else will turn out different.

I had my followup appointment with the urologist on Wednesday.  I cried internal tears of joy when he told me that he got it all within the kidney, the tumor was between 6 and 7 cm in size.  He advised me to followup with the pulmonary specialist ref the noted teeny tiny nodules in my lungs but said he was pretty confident that even if there were something there, it would not be a metastasis of kidney cancer.  I will see him again in 6 months for x rays and blood tests and again in a year for a ct scan…….I’m the luckiest person alive!!!!!

Later that night, I read up on my particular clear cell RRC.  While there are cases of family history and genetics at play in some cases.  I do not fall into this category.

Smoking tobacco is the #1 reason I probably developed kidney cancer…google it if you want the particulars….and if you are a tobacco smoker, for God’s sake STOP.

Obesity is the #2 reason I probably developed kidney cancer.

and on and on.

So…I’m not a victim in this scenario.  I made very bad decisions.  But the early warning siren to clean up my psych and live and eat healthy was received loud and clear.

Until next time….

02.13.13
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Sometimes “euphemism” crap just happens

I think one of the things our reliance on the christian religion has done is given us a “reason” for everything…well, it’s God’s will.  In my spiritual journey, I’ve decided that is why some people rely on their religion for day to day disappointments….and I recoil when I hear those words.  I remember the days of thinking…well this happene to teach a lesson.  But when I rationalized this all out, this reminded me of the moronic rantings of the religious right and their sick explanations of God causing disasters in various parts of the world because of the sinners…like gays.  I’m also torn by karma explaining away the good and the bad.  While I really believe we are what we think as well as what we eat, I am still questioning the possibility of the existence of Karma.  I would like to think it is real so I could have it to rely on as an explanation for good and bad happening to people.  But this just does not add up either.

Stuff happens just because it happens.  Yes…we have control over some actions just by the choices we make…that is the one thing that I think everyone can agree on….we have choices and the result of those choices can have far-reaching results and effect…and there doesn’t seem to be an expiration date for our choices…a choice made many years ago..enhanced with another choice, enhanced with another choice….things just happen! 

The one thing that draws mankind all together is our choices.  All of them will have an impact on someone…somewhere down the path of life, someone is going to be impacted by a choice someone else has made!

That’s where I am today…..until next time….