Category: change

Kindness begins with ourselves

by worrylessjourney, posted in anxiety, change, coping, kindness, life changes, needs, stress, touch

teaYesterday I talked about the importance of touch. There is another side to the idea of needing touch. It is very important that we learn to treat ourselves well. We can get some positive touch from things that we do. What do you like to do to make yourself feel better? I love smells so lighting a candle for the odor makes me happy. Slipping between clean sheets is something that I love. I love to take a walk with the dogs. A wonderful sup of tea. All these things tend to bring me down from whatever stressors are jumping on me.

While at my grandson’s wedding I was feeling stressed (weddings are always stressful for those involved) but really had no way to stop the cycle. I wanted to but I was away from home with other people and couldn’t think of a way to stop.

When I think back I realize that I could have taken five minutes to take a short walk outside and just breathe.  The way that we do nice things for ourselves is a way of giving ourselves soothing touch.

small-actsThe secondary benefit of this is that we are more ready to offer something soothing to someone else. Being kind to ourselves is a step in the direction of being kind to others. We will begin to treat others the way we treat ourselves. Kindness can start at home. Learn to take time to do something for yourself and let yourself pass it on to others.

 

New day, new creation!

by worrylessjourney, posted in balance, change, coping, faith, fight, God, hope, infinite, just sit, life changes, prayer, silence

wallowToday is a new day. Today I pulled up my socks and decided to stop wallowing. Today I took some steps to move forward and it feels so good. I made some appointments that I need to do and made the decision to get on with it.

Doing this made me feel better. Now the idea is to keep it up. My experience shows me that I will have down days when I don’t want to keep moving. My prayer life has been perfunctory and an obligation except for the last prayer of the night from the New Zealand Prayer Book which is:

 

Lord, it is night.

The night is for stillness. Let us be still in the presence of God.

It is night after a long day. What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done; let it be.

The night is dark. Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives rest in you.

The night is quiet. Let the quietness of your peace enfold us, all dear to us, and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn. Let us look expectantly to a new day, new joys, new possibilities.

This prayer brings me peace and prepares me for sleep.  Now I need to find a way to make this same kind of connection during the day. I will do this by setting aside a time for prayer and meditation in the morning before the day gets in my way.

Prayer is so important. No matter what God you believe in prayer is the connection. You may just call it something else but it will involve silence and freeing your mind to acceptance, to wait upon God. We always need to expand our prayer life and learn to experience God. This is different from talking to God. This is immersing yourself in the creator and letting all else go. This is not easy and like anything good requires work and consistency. I plan to do the work. Pray for me!

Just Sit !!

by worrylessjourney, posted in aging, anxiety, change, depression, just sit, life changes, peace, sadness, Uncategorized

i just sitToday was a little strange for me. I love Easter and its wonderful gift to us but today was a little off. Again it has to do with change. Usually, at Easter, I do baskets for my two grandchildren who live near. They are adults but I still like to do it. My daughter-in-law and my grandson are both on a cruise so it seemed a little unnecessary to just do one basket. My granddaughter is in her 20’s and on her own with a good job and didn’t expect me to do anything. Time moves on and things change but it did feel odd.

Church was also different. The service was not the usual service and started with the Exultant which is beautiful but somehow I wasn’t ready for that. It is just me trying to adjust again. The service was beautiful but I wasn’t.

Once again I come up against my own failure to accept change. Change is hard but it shouldn’t be this hard. I am trying but not succeeding in feeling at peace where I am. It’s hard when you know that the problem is you and not the life around you. Maybe I am facing aging and not being in the midst of things. That also is my error for not pushing myself to get out there and do something.

just sit 2There! I have voiced my sadness and my frustration and will need to move on and find what God has in store for me. I think the hardest thing that God tells us to do is to do nothing. The plan to do mediation has been slow in coming but will get here in time. I know that things will move on. God just needs to bop me on the head and say “I told you! Just sit!”

Be thankful

by worrylessjourney, posted in anxiety, change, compassion, family, grief, needs, sadness, share

povertyI have often said that anyone who doesn’t like living in the USA should have to live in a third world country for at least a year. We lived in Panama for two and 1/2 years and it made a lasting impression on me. There are so many things that I saw there that changed the way I think.

I appreciate that I can live in a place where the police and the military are not one and the same. I am grateful that my home does not have to be surrounded by walls with wire on top and the only yard is inside the wall. I am glad that the law does not allow me to be arrested and dealt with without trial or any recourse. I am grateful that there still is a semblance of a middle class and not just the very rich and the horribly poor.

child-funeral-2While living there I made a car trip across the isthmus from Colon to Panama City. In front of me was a small bus called a “Chiva.” Along the road the Chiva stopped and I stopped behind it to watch a family get in the bus. There were what appeared to be several generations from young children to the elderly. Several men were carrying a small coffin. The bus started up and continued on the road for several miles where it stopped at the entrance to a cemetery. There was a priest waiting at the entrance and the family filed off the bus with the coffin of a child and followed the priest to the burial site.

I was moved to tears by this incident. Just the thought of how this family lived and coped with everyday life was overwhelming. So poor that they had to take a bus with the coffin to bury their child.

Be Thankful For What You Have

We are so blessed with the life we have. I know that there are communities that suffer from poverty and sickness here. That is why, although I can’t help elsewhere, I am called to help where I can.

Luke 14:13
But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding Home

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, change, church, connections, just sit, life changes, needs, perspective

home2For the last 40 odd years I have been connected to one or the other church home. First it was the Episcopal church I attended with my husband. The people there are wonderful and at that time there was a great minister. Later, after I was working for the Lutherans there was a minister at my husband’s church whose moral core I couldn’t live with so at my husband’s urging I disconnected myself from there.

Then 20 years ago (while still a member of the first church) I was hired by the Lutheran Church as the Parish Nurse. That was the perfect job for me as it married my vocation with my passion. The 20 years I was there I felt at home and completely fulfilled. Since leaving there I have been at a loss. I don’t feel the same at the first church and don’t feel connected to the second since their removal of my position was not done well. I think the powers that be in that church did not get the difference between a ministry and a job. I am sorry and feel that it was their loss.

The bottom line of all of this is that I don’t feel at home in either place. I know that I need to let all of the disappointment with both places go and seek out a place where I do feel at home. It matters greatly to me. For some reason I am reluctant to move forward with this and so don’t often go at all. This is not a solution but I seem to have little motivation to do anything.

home-G-Gawne-KelnarMaybe there are times when we just need to sit back and just BE. I may be in one of those eddies where you just spin around and around. I feel connected to God but not to church. I do struggle with this when special seasons of the church hit me in the face. Holy Week is one of them.

It is important to move forward in whatever way will work for me. A period of absence and reflection is not wrong. I just need it not to go on for too long.

This verse seems appropriate.:

On God rests my deliverance and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is in God.

Psalm 62:7 NRSV

Patterns and change

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, anxiety, balance, change, control, coping, life changes, Uncategorized

Patterns_of_changeI think this is the first time in 43 years that I missed Palm Sunday. We we away attending my grandson’s wedding on Saturday and also a baby shower for my granddaughter on Sunday morning before returning home. It did feel strange. Usually I am immersed in the progress from Lent through Easter. Now we are in Holy Week and I feel lost. I know that I can attend Maunday Thursday services and Good Friday but it seems different.

It is interesting how we can develop patterns that comfort us. Lately my routine has been completely out of sync and as a result so am I. I am looking forward to getting back to routine. I know that some people hate routine and I was not as fond of it when I was younger but over the years I have learned more and more about enjoying things staying somewhat the same. I know, boring. Maybe not.

I need at least some normal to keep me centered. Recently between my family and my friends nothing has seemed the same. It is one of those times in life when we experience lots of change and have to find a new normal. Time has taught me that eventually these changes will slide themselves into a new routine and maybe it will last a while before it happens again but there are no guarantees.

change2

We are guaranteed that life never stays the same. There will always be change and we have to learn to cope. I frequently use this prayer from Compline in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer:

Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through the hours
of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and
chances of this life may rest in your eternal changelessness; 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Fly your freak flag day!

by worrylessjourney, posted in change, fun!, Laughter, Live!

Today I decided to have fun and read things that make me happy. I pulled out “Falling Up” by Shel Silverstein. I just love laughing over the poems and the drawings. I have always loved this poem. noise day pictures

Every one of us deserves one of these days. A day when we can let all frustrations out. A day to fly our freak flag and just let go. How much emotion we have bottled up that we haven’t let loose.

I really think that we should all try it.

A day to yell, scream, break something, play music full blast, blow the horn endlessly in the car, jump on the bed, splash water out of the tub, bark with the dogs, run in the yard in your pj’s, throw the paper you have shredded all over the living room floor, roll down a hill like a log, hit a pillow until the feathers fly, jump in a mud puddle!!!

I am sure you can think of some things you would like to do. I feel freer just thinking about it.

A joyful, crazy, exotic day. Let’s do it!

Time to clean out

by worrylessjourney, posted in addiction, aggravations, anger, anxiety, change, life changes, memories, mistakes

clear-the-clutter-how-to-spring-clean-your-crm-5-638Recently I have been trying to clear some of the clutter from my house. I am creating a collection of things that can go to charity and putting them aside. There is so much in my house that has been collected over the years that I don’t really need. Some of them have memories attached. Nevertheless it is time to clean out and let go.

We have to do the same thing about ourselves. Sometimes it is time to look deep inside and let go of the garbage that has collected. It may be anger at someone or the pain that a slight caused. It may be the memory of something that we are sorry we did. There are times when we need to face all these thing and throw them out.

Open the closet doors and just pull away the bad things. Let the light get in so you can see the dust and dirt and really sweep it all out. The lightness that we feel when we take this action is amazing.

SometimesIt is a hard thing to do and it may have to be done one closet at the time but there is always a time to get started. We can each do it!

Patterns

by worrylessjourney, posted in appearance, balance, change, God, habits, patterns, perspective

quiltSometimes you are up and sometimes down. There is not telling when it will happen but I do have a pattern. If I have a day when I have nothing to do I am down. Now understand, there are plenty of things that I could be doing. There is laundry to do, floors to clean, dusting, and I could go on and on but that’s no what I want. I have no pattern to my days and I am not used to that. The interesting thing is that when there is no pattern I actually do less and that makes me feel bad.

We need consistency in our lives. If there is no visible pattern then we need to make our own. Patterns help us to find calm. When there is no pattern we are at sea. It is so easy to crawl under the covers and cover our heads. There doesn’t seem to be a reason to get up and move forward. I really spent the day doing nothing. I hate it.

The bottom line is it is up to me. I am the one who has to find a pattern. I can’t wait on someone else to do it for me. It is part of the healing process. I have realized that it takes strength and effort but it has to be done.

Patterns are part of our lives. Even if we can’t see the pattern it is there. It can be an erratic pattern but it is there. Now I just have to find it. There is a pattern to each life. God will help to provide the pattern and I will wait to see it. Sometimes we are too close and need to back away. We many not be able to see it but God can.

quilt

I am angry

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, anger, change, complacency, fight, sadness, violence

anger-clipart-16Today I am angry. I am angry at all the people who want to blame just guns for the shooting in Florida. To blame guns is the easy way out. They think it can be fixed by just taking away the guns. They are so wrong. The gun is the end not the beginning of the problem.

Before the person goes to get the gun there is something wrong. Something wrong……because why would they want or need a gun unless something was wrong? Anger or hurt or pain has built up inside until it had to have an outlet. They see no other way. They see no path to shed all of that unless they hurt others. The emotion inside is too strong.

To fix the guns is the easy path. To find what has caused the hurt and pain is the difficult problem.

This is a much bigger problem with no easy answers. It is linked to so many things. Societal breakdown, over-stressed parents, broken homes, lack of mental health availability in our health systems. I am sure I cannot think of it all.

We are a country in crisis. We are a people in pain. It is hurtful that one in four people have anxiety and depression. It is hurtful that  six and seven year old children are being diagnosed with mental health issues. At least we can be grateful that we are finding some early but it is the tip of the iceberg. When we find issues can we find treatment? Can we afford it?

do_somethingI am angry and I will find a way to express my anger to those in power. They may not listen and probably won’t because they will follow the easy path but I will make it known however I can!