Category: balance

Can you feel it?

by worrylessjourney, posted in balance, connections, intuition, questioning

trust 1I read an article recently that talked about intuition. Something was said about how little intuition is respected. I think intuition is a good barometer and we should pay attention to it. An intuition is not necessarily a bad gauge to go by. There may be a compilation of experiences and learning that are prompting it and not just some feeling. It is like making soup. If there is just one ingredient it may not be any good but the combination of all the things we put in make it wonderful. All those things meld together to jog something in our brain.

People who are concerned with provable facts don’t think there is anything to intuition. It is often scoffed at….especially as women’s intuition. One of the things I did as a nurse was to have classes for young children called the Touch Program. The program was to tell young children that there can be good touch such as hugging and bad touch like being fondled inappropriately. The children were told to be aware of a bad feeling in the pit of their stomach. A gut feeling. Young children understood this. Those who reported abuse could usually tell you that something felt wrong.

intuition

As you can tell I am sure that intuition is a useful tool. Sometimes it can be wrong but most frequently it is right on target and women are not the only ones who use it.

Forgiveness takes work

by worrylessjourney, posted in balance, connections, forgiveness, habits, life changes

My husband and I have been watching the BBC series “Father Brown.” I have been struck with the many scenes about confession and forgiveness. Father Brown makes completely clear that there is no forgiveness if there is not true regret and a desire to change. That is the view for the person who needs forgiveness. There is also the side of the injured. What is forgiveness from that point of view?

trustForgiveness can be a difficult thing. If someone has hurt us badly we can have so many different emotions…anger, pain, hurt, disappointment, betrayal and others. Our emotions may swing from one feeling to another. Forgiveness may be the last thing we think about. Maybe we don’t even want to forgive for to do that we would have to let it all go.

The important thing to remember about forgiveness is that it is not just for the person who hurt us but for us as well. All the emotions  that we are feeling heighten our body in a flight or fight mode. We secrete extra adrenaline causing our body to prepare for danger. When we think about the hurt we drag up those emotions again and again. You can feel the upheaval. If we continue to hang on to the hurt and drag it around with us it damages our well being. Somehow we have to find a way to let it go.

forgiveness 2

Letting it go may take time and conscious effort. Some of the hurts I have encountered in my life have hung on for quite a while. We have to consciously decide to turn it loose…. and do it again and again until those feelings subside. When we can remember the hurt without the emotions attached then we have truly let it go. There may always be a small residue like ashes left after burning paper but the real pain has subsided.

Forgiveness takes work.

How do we fill the void?

by worrylessjourney, posted in balance, compassion, healing, life changes, peace, prayer

What are we missing? What is the thing that makes us feel as if we are not complete in some way? What is it that makes some of us feel that only money can fix it. For others it may be fame and others some sort of addiction. We try to fix it with food, alcohol even suicide. We label some people as having an addiction and yet each of us is addicted to something. The question is something that helps us or something that hurts us.

puzzle piece

Each of us lives out life striving to fill that void. The quote below from Blaise Pascal shows that humans have had this longing for centuries. Pascal equates it as God.

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.” 
– Blaise Pascal, Pensées VII(425)

Some people have said that there is a God sized hole in each of us that we try to fill with things but nothing works. Those of us who sense that hole may be reaching out to understand and find God….each in our own way. For me that search fulfills itself in Christianity. For others it may be Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or wherever you find that peace.

peace

In my mind that peace is found in love and compassion toward others which seems to be at the root of most faiths. Accepting and caring for others no matter their beliefs, color, sexual orientation or anything else pulls us toward filling that hole. Seeking to find something more than ourselves by meditation, prayer and acts of love fill us in a way that nothing else can.

Seek to find that peace for yourselves and help lead others to it.

Laughter Heals

by worrylessjourney, posted in balance, healing, Laughter

Today has been a good day in spite of everything messing up.. No matter that it was very hot and also humid I pushed myself to work outside. I tried to finish all major yard work during the spring so that only maintenance  would need to be done in the summer but as usual I didn’t finish. Our yard has long stretches of azaleas which form a border between our property and the next door. These are large bushes which grow with little help but so do the vines that love to climb on the azaleas and prevent the sun reaching them. Dragging out vines has become my lifes work. I use an antique golf cart and pull a cart behind it to fill with vines and haul them to the street to be picked up. I was half done with my planned job when the golf cart quit.

Leaving the cart half way down the drive way I decided to weed wack the area I had been working on. As expected I pulled the starter for at least ten minutes before getting the weed wacker to work. When I had done about half of the area new string was needed. That’s when I found that my grandson had replaced the string incorrectly requiring me to go in the house for pliers to fix the problem.

laugh

The thing about all of this is that in spite of the hiccups, the aggravations, and the heat I got something done. After a cold shower my sense of humor returned and I found the whole thing funny. In life one of the most important things we need for survival is a sense of humor. Not only should we be able to laugh at events but most importantly laugh at ourselves. We can do some really stupid things but being able to shake them off with laughter is critical. Laughter heals. It is good for our health. If we could laugh for ten minutes of each day we would feel so much better.  If we try and find the humor in the things that upset us we will be so much better off.

I am sure that God laughs at us frequently.

Finding Balance

by worrylessjourney, posted in balance, connections, guilt

balance

Today I am thinking about another one of my crusades. We have allowed electronic devices and the world they have created to rule our lives and more importantly our time. We allow ourselves to be connected so much that we have no think time. Our ?free? time is interrupted constantly. The human body is not made to cope with this. No wonder the stress level is so high. We have to find balance.

Balance is a very tricky thing. I have a book done in the 50’s by the cartoonist “Osborne”. The book was originally a lecture done for a design conference in Colorado. The lecture was wonderfully illustrated. It became so popular it becambalance osborne a book. This is one of the best things I have ever seen about using our time well. He talks about “the perfectly attainable Leisure the picnic, the two hours in the evening, …….the non-frenetic weekend with gardening or carpentry- the QUIET moments which CAN be had.” He says that the “crux of the matter……we must set limits to out efforts…..How much LAWN are we going to MOW? If we choose too little we have lots of Leisure, but a vapid face. If we choose too much we become tired, irritable, dislocated, insensate.” (Caps etc are his) *

This is the tricky part. Figuring out what is too much and what is not enough is difficult to say the least. Balancing work, family and some social life is complicated. Who do we leave out when we see it all as too much? What is most important? It can be different things at different times. Osborn wrote at a time when more women were at home and he saw it as difficult then. Think how much worse it is now. I think the anxiety about trying to stuff everything in for children is why helicopter parenting began. The idea that we MUST do the best since we are working parents. The guilt about not being there is overwhelming. Many families never have a meal together.

Eating together is central to the ministry of Christ. I think all of us see sitting at a table together is a huge part of connecting. Over food we can share feelings, discuss problemsin a non-threatening way and just enjoy each other. When meals are eaten in fast food restaurants or the pressures of life are so great that a meal is a trial things go downhill fast.

How do we find that balance? We have to set aside time to understand ourselves and our situation. Each day may require a different balance of priorities but over time balance can be seen. NOT EASY. Some serious listing on paper may be needed and discussion with others whose schedules coincides with ours.

 

*If you are interested I found there are still used copies on Amazon. Osborn on Leisure, A Ridge Press Book published by Simon and Schuster, copyright 1956 by E, R, Squibb & Sons. 

Cartoon drawing from the book.