Seeking Balance – What *does* it look like?

13 Apr 2013 Leave a comment

by Lucia in Recovery, Spirituality, Transformation Tags: , , , , , ,

It’s been over a month since I’ve written a post, even though dozens of times I’ve had ideas and experiences I wanted to share. It seems as though my life has been about rediscovering balance…and it still feels elusive.

At the beginning of March, I moved into a house with three other roommates. I never thought I’d want to move in with so many strangers, yet it has been a pleasant and delightful adjustment. The gay couple who own the house have been so easy to get along with, always wanting to make sure I’m comfortable and happy here. And I am! Just the other night, one of them told me I was the best roommate they’ve had. It was a lovely affirmation of what I already knew – that this is exactly the right place for me to be right now.

Last night, I was surveying the corner of my room that I reorganized a week or so ago. It’s still rather chaotic, not particularly helpful in terms of making things accessible, and not at all what I want it to be. It’s the corner where I’d like to put my tall bookshelf – the one that’s in storage. It’s filled with boxes and buried behind a layer of boxes and will need considerable effort to bring here. A challenge for another day…

It occurred to me last night that one of the reasons this place still doesn’t feel like home is because I’m still not close to being settled. I have truly been honoring the slogan “Easy does it!” I have been settling in slowly, letting things find their proper places in my bedroom, in the bathroom, and in the kitchen. The bathroom is happily in order. We haven’t yet expanded my space in the kitchen because I haven’t been inclined to rush and organize anything – I’ve wanted to take my time. And now I’m ready to begin transforming my room.

That’s the funny thing about transforming living spaces – it takes time and it usually begins by transforming ourselves first.

Most of March I was tired – unaccountably tired and sleepy virtually every day. My days were literally about getting up, getting ready for work, going to work, coming home, eating dinner right away, and heading to bed an hour later. I felt really good if I got something as simple as adding up my checkbook done. I wondered how I could ever do anything else I wanted to do in life. It turned out that at least part of the problem was that we needed to further adjust my thyroid medication. (Too much hormone and you sleep poorly. Oy…)

The last couple of weeks I’ve finally begun to feel a bit better. My schedule hasn’t changed a lot, but I now have the energy to begin asking myself what I can do differently. And on my mind now are two particular questions: What can I do differently to be able to enjoy more of life during the week, so there’s more to my life than sleeping, eating and working? And what can I do to make my room feel more like home?

The first question will require my inventorying what I’m doing now, considering “How Important Is It?” (the slogan from last week’s meeting) around each part, and discovering what I might do differently. My journey in Al Anon has taught me to listen and notice what works for me and what doesn’t. I’ve discovered that small changes have the biggest and most lasting impact, which is exactly why I’ve been disinclined to rush to rearrange my room.

Have you ever had the experience of quickly moving and settling in, even if only for a visit with a relative, only to discover you can’t remember where xyz is because you so quickly put things away and it isn’t where it used to be or usually is? Well, I have – dozens and dozens of times! And I’m tired of it and no longer willing to do that. But I do want to create some order and begin to make this place feel like home.

The balance I’m seeking right now may not be earth-shatteringly important. But it is important to my serenity. It is to pay attention to what I’m doing, to see what I might be able to do differently, and to enjoy the incremental improvements in my energy by considering how I can make this house my home.

Baby steps, Bob. Baby steps. 😉

A pointless delay or Divine intervention? Day 339 – 27 days left (Wed – Nov 7)

07 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

by Lucia in Faith Walk, Spirituality Tags: , , , , ,

Sometimes I wonder if those little things that delay my getting out the door in the morning are actually my Higher Power lending a helping hand to keep me from harm’s way.

This morning, I had hoped to get out the door about ten minutes sooner than I actually did. Come to think of it, I intended to remember to leave even earlier than that, since there was to be road construction with up to twenty-minute delays on the route I normally take. But I had forgotten all about that this morning until I was walking out to my car. Since there was nothing I could do about leaving any earlier, I let it go.

As I approached the turn onto the back road I normally take, a very ‘still small voice’ said, Go right. Without missing a beat, I simply turned right instead of left, as I usually do. To my surprise and delight, there were virtually no cars going the way I was going and I encountered lots of green lights. Then, as I drove over the freeway on my way to the on-ramp, I noticed the traffic was backed up and seemingly at a stand still.

By this time, there wasn’t much I could do about the route I’d chosen, nor were there any alternate routes from that point. So I slowly – very slowly – inched my way along until I finally merged. It wasn’t even stop-and-go traffic. It was stop, inch, pause, inch, wait


It took about half an hour to cover the distance that normally takes perhaps five minutes. I knew there must have been an accident in the stretch where we still only had two lanes before we could spread into four. I began praying for the people involved, the emergency response teams that were either there or on their way, and even for the emergency vehicles trying to make their way through the clog of cars.

When I finally drove past the accident site, which was much farther ahead than I had guessed, I saw at least four cars that looked badly mangled from the collisions that had obviously happened.

My efforts to let go and simply pray for those involved, including releasing concern about being late for work (I knew no one would be upset – which is something I might not have recognized a few short months ago), enabled me to experience a lot of serenity during what could have been a stressful driving experience. Most people I know aren’t too happy when their 15-minute commute turns into a 45-minute commute. Yet I was truly at peace with that part and more concerned about whomever may have been in those badly damaged cars.

Shortly before I left the office at the end of the day, I heard that two people had been killed in that accident. In checking online just now, that, as so often happens, may be an exaggeration. According to the report I read, two people did suffer major injuries and six cars were involved. Apparently a trailer had come off of a big rig and caused the multi-vehicle accident, closing that section of the highway until shortly after I got there. Leaving considerably earlier wouldn’t have gained me more than a few short minutes.

As I was driving home, it dawned on me that if I had left as early as I would have liked, I might have either been a participant in the accident or perhaps a witness to it. As I learned a few minutes ago, it happened far earlier than that. Still, it helps me to appreciate the value in “being still” and letting things unfold. Even the time it takes me to get ready for work and out the door in the morning. Perhaps even the time it takes for my life to change in the bigger ways over which I seem to have so little control.

A break in the wall – Day 317 (Tue – Oct 23)

23 Oct 2012 Leave a comment

by Lucia in Body/Health Talk, Change, Spirituality, Transformation Tags: , , , , , , ,

Do you ever have trouble deciding what to do? Not because you don’t have anything to do; rather because there are too many things to do. That’s how it feels for me right now. I keep floundering. Do I go through mail? Do I organize my shelves? Do I do Step work for my next meeting with my sponsor? Do I start my Step work for the other programs in which I’m less active? (Everything goes back to Al Anon for me, so that’s my primary program and the one that helps me with the others.)

Do I read? Do I relax? Do I blog? What is it exactly that I’m “supposed to be” doing right now – besides hiding from the emotional turmoil just below the surface?

In the past ten days, I have been through an upheaval of body memories and emotions. Old memories are surfacing, clarity is arising around those experiences, and possibilities for positive change are determined to filter through the confusion of unexpressed grief, fear and anger to let themselves be known. I tried writing about this, but I find myself talking in circles and don’t quite know what to do.

Without going into detail, I had an experience of recognizing on a deep level the abusive nature of a previous relationship. I had spent years discounting how I had experienced it because it wasn’t physically violent in direct or tangible ways. Therefore, it couldn’t really have been abusive, right?

“WRONG!” my body tells me.

I’m still trying to sort through the myriad thoughts and feelings that have surfaced and continue to unfold. Later this week, I’m going to work with a dear friend who is trained in areas that will help me to process this. We’re going to do some InterPlay work with this because I need to work on a body-spirit level and avoid getting stuck in my head. I’ve already spent too much time analyzing and compartmentalizing my experiences of this. It’s time to listen to what my body has to tell me about how this did (and still might) affect me.

The thing is, as difficult as this has been (I know there’s a ton of grief just waiting for the right window to open so it can spill out), it has also led to the deconstruction of certain beliefs about myself and relationships. In short, I have realized that something I believed about myself might not be true and that I may have the ability to move more gracefully into a new relationship than I would ever have thought possible.

That realization itself leaves my head fairly spinning, as I continue to integrate this new information.

Perhaps I’ll be able to talk about this more later. As I continue to discover what is and isn’t true about myself, I know it will reshape how I see the world and what I see as possibilities for my life. For now, I’m grateful to discover that pulling out a single stone from the wall sometimes leads to an avalanche that creates a new door to a brighter other side.

(Am I making any sense at all today?)

Challenging Choices – Day 288 (Mon – Sep 24)

24 Sep 2012 Leave a comment

by Lucia in Change, Spirituality Tags: , , , , , , ,

The trouble with change is that there are so many choices to be made as a result of the change. Moving, in particular, presents its own challenge because virtually everything has been thrown up in the air to land in a different place. Sadly, my desk top and the corner to the left of it still look like that’s what actually happened. This is where the challenging choices come in.

Did I mention the room is quite small?

It’s the end of a day that started before 5 a.m. when my alarm clock went off. I’m tired. I probably shouldn’t have followed dinner with that delicious Trader Joe’s Greek yogurt. (I feel too full, which doesn’t help.) And I’d like to start getting ready for bed in about half an hour so I can get a reasonable night’s sleep before the alarm goes off early tomorrow morning. I have clothes to get ready, things to put away, and breakfast and lunch to plan.

I find myself faced with too many choices. I could (and probably should soon) bring my check register up-to-date. I realize I’m not at all certain what my balance actually is. (Online banking is helpful, but too often misleading.) I would like to start putting things in the desk drawers, rather than having them scattered on top of the desk or temporarily perched in various other places in the room. However, before I can put things in the desk, I’d like to remove the old and grimy-looking drawer liners and replace them with fresh, new contact paper. Plus the drawers stick when pulled, so I have some sanding to do. There are still a few boxes I need to sort and clear out. The bookshelves are only partly organized – some things are where they may stay, other things are temporarily hanging out till I can put them in more convenient places.

I could check my email, write in my reflection journal, read some Al Anon literature, relax and watch a DVD, make a call about tomorrow’s possible lunch date, write a blog post (clearly you can see which choice I made this evening), or start early preparing for the morning (picking out clothing, cutting up food for breakfast, and so on).

It’s a mystery to me how I ever used to be able to do so much before and still get my rest! I used to have a three-hour window between getting up and getting out the door; now I have a two-and-a-quarter-hour window.

How’s this for dazzlingly large…not!

Does it truly make that much difference to have my “kitchen” scattered in three locations (bedroom, kitchen and garage) when my bedroom is only five steps from the kitchen and the garage is reasonably close (although it won’t feel that way in the rain)? At my aunt and uncle’s, my bedroom was down a long hallway from the kitchen and my refrigerator was just past the good-sized dining area. Yet I seemed to have been able to get more done in the morning and to have consistently had time for my morning journaling. What am I missing??

It was more convenient to have all my refrigerated food indoors, where it only took a dozen steps each way to retrieve one more thing if I forgot it. It is challenging to have to stop and carefully plan everything I need so I only have to go to the garage once (hopefully) while preparing breakfast and lunch – especially because it’s dark out when I’m fixing all this.

But what bothers me more than anything else is the frequent sacrificing of my reflection and journaling time. That’s my time spent talking to and listening to God. That’s the time when I ground myself for the day. That’s the time I depend on to be reminded that I am not alone on this journey even though I often feel alone. At least in terms of human companionship.

I dislike having to make choices between multiple things that are important and/or multiple things that I want to be doing. I dislike having to rush or forego my journal time with God if I’m going to prepare food that adequately nourishes my body (except that I haven’t found time to properly evaluate the foods I’m preparing and suspect I need to overhaul my breakfast and lunch choices). In short, I dislike – sometimes intensely – feeling under a time crunch both morning and evening and keep wondering how on earth I’ve been able to do seemingly so much more in the past…

Yet despite this frustrating time of adapting to a new and, let’s face it, rather inadequate living space – perhaps even because of the challenges, there are incredible moments of letting go that seem to come with greater and greater ease than ever before. Could it be that this is the winepress and I’m the grapes being pressed to yield the best part of the fruit?

One bona fide perk of this tiny room – the view out the windows lined up along one wall!

Day 136 (Wed/Apr 25): Taking a moment to appreciate the little things

25 Apr 2012 Leave a comment

by Lucia in Faith Walk, Money Walk, Spirituality Tags: , , , , , , ,

My "kitchen" - at least it's indoors

I live in an area where there are a lot of people living on the streets. There are few places I walk where I don’t encounter someone asking for help. Sometimes I offer a dollar or two; sometimes I don’t. It depends on what feels right at the moment. At the very least, I try to offer a smile and perhaps a caring remark.

Yesterday, when I was walking on a main street after leaving my car for some repairs, a young man barely out of (or not yet out of) his teens asked for 50 cents. I was in a rush and taken by surprise, and apologetically said no. His face stayed with me and I prayed for him as I rode public transportation to work. I dubbed him “Michael.”

I have options

The encounter got me to remembering a woman I used to see when I was a kid. At some point I learned her name was Mary. Mary wore a voluminous, light brown, tent-shaped coat, winter or summer, which I now suspect may have covered her entire wardrobe. I knew she had no place to live and that was a mystery to me back then. Now that I live in an area with so many homeless people, the image of Mary has often come to mind. I can still see her standing on the street near the liquor store, across from the gas station and an auto parts store. I have wondered what may have happened to her.

The strain of constantly peering at the computer for days on end has left my eyes strained and irritated. I

It's not much, but so much more than some

decided to take a few minutes this morning to soothe them with a warm, wet washcloth. That simple act of running hot tap water over the washcloth led me to think about Mary and Michael and so many others, and the countless little things we take for granted. I have learned to appreciate many things I take for granted in recent years, as I have needed to move from place to place, sometimes house-sitting, sometimes staying with family or friends as an act of grace, sometimes being able to actually pay for my own place. But this morning, I thought of even the most basic things with renewed appreciation:

Access to hot tap water, for everything from washing dishes and showering to the simple things, like creating a warm compress for my eyes. Microwave ovens, toaster ovens and regular ovens, too. A bed to sleep in. Fresh water to drink. A refrigerator in which to put food that would otherwise spoil.

It does the job

Lights in the rooms to enable me to see, to work, to feel safe. A roof over my head. A bank account – no matter how low or high the balance at any given moment, right now I’m appreciating the ability to have one.

Shoes for my feet – in fact, having choices about what to put on my feet, knowing they are all in good condition. The choice to let go of my favorite ones when they have worn out. Clothes and the spaces to store the ones I’m not wearing, the ones I don’t need to wear.

Food. Music. Transportation. Family. Friends. Places to feel safe. Moments of quiet


I'm safe and warm at night

There is so much in life to be grateful for, even when the going is hard. Today I’m grateful for the little things, as well as the bigger ones.

Big and Small Steps:

  • Allowing myself to ignore certain phone calls, knowing they would derail my serenity and disrupt my work.
  • Making a (small for them, good-sized for me) payment toward that “debt” – they can accept it or not.
  • Attended a Debtors Anonymous meeting Sunday.

Noticings:

  • That the step/stair exercises I was doing were actually triggering the discomfort in my low back. (Whoops!…Rats! Gotta find something else to do for exercise.)
  • How much easier it is to keep my serenity when I choose the time and place for difficult phone conversations.
  • How much more important my own self-care is becoming to me, and…
  • How much I’m beginning to consider the “big picture,” if you will, of my life by seeing beyond my immediate circumstances, especially in terms of finances.
  • How much better I felt this morning after I rolled back over and let myself return to sleep, even though my alarm awakened me only an hour later. 🙂

Day 120 (Mon/Apr 9): Kipping

09 Apr 2012 6 Comments

by Lucia in Body/Health Talk, Money Walk Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Some things take time to bear fruit

Have you ever done gymnastics – particularly on the uneven parallel bars? Well, it’s been a hundred years since I’ve done that and I was never particularly great at it. But I loved it anyway and had a great time trying to do as much as I could
and as much as I was brave enough to try.I remember learning to kip on the unevens. It’s that move you see the Olympic and other televised gymnasts do with such grace. They make it look so easy, as if anyone can do it by just leaping toward the lower bar, hands outstretched to grab it, swinging under it, then doing a sort of abrupt snap back with the arms and hips (the “kip”) and, voila!, you’re on the bar with your hips at hand level, ready for your next move. There’s only one teensy little catch: your untrained body has not a clue as to how to actually make this move!

I remember trying and trying and trying, seemingly countless times, but my hips and legs and everything else couldn’t seem to get the knack of that sudden movement that seemed so effortless when I saw others do it. Since it involves arms and hips and legs and hands all working in one coordinated movement, it seemed like different parts of my body would get their particular part, but trying to get everything working together felt impossible. Then I almost got it. And once I almost got it, I got more of it – until suddenly my body understood what it was supposed to do and I could do it!

Patience has its rewards

The thing is, there were too many little parts to this move to be able to mentally teach myself how to do it. My body had to experience it to get it. Once my body had experienced it, then it got a little easier and easier. (Perhaps more accurately in my case, it got less and less awkward. ;-))

I suppose I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I learned to kip because there are certain things in life that I just don’t seem to “get” how to do yet. They involve lots of steps or pieces or bits of knowledge that need to come together to do them with ease. Thankfully, not too many of them are the kind of thing that don’t work until all the mechanics are in place. What a relief! I don’t have a set of unevens to practice on.

Around financial matters, this morning I had an unexpected piece fall into place. With my usual monthly paycheck having landed at the end of the month, along with a decent-sized check from the temp agency, I had a little breathing room. It didn’t feel like I was spending much, yet when I checked my bank balance this weekend, I was startled at how little I had left. What the heck happened, I asked myself.

This morning I discovered that nothing “happened.”

As I wrote in my journal, reflecting on this seeming insanity, I found myself using the word “able.” I’ve been able to catch up on some of my grocery shopping. I’ve been able to buy a few clothing items. I’ve been able to restock some of my nutritional supplements. And so on. All of a sudden I realized that what I had been experiencing with regard to purchasing some of these (needed) items was what would be normal if I had a regular, full-time income. None of the purchases I was making in the past couple of weeks were unusual, indulgent (if you don’t count a few extra snack foods) or extravagant. They were simply the things I have routinely been buying, plus a few of the things I have not been able to buy in recent months.

Wow! What a difference it made to be able to recognize this. I still put on the brakes and want to move slowly with regard to how I continue to spend, but I gotta tell you – it sure feels good to know I was simply taking care of myself in what shouldbe a normal, healthy fashion.

So I continue to remind myself...

Big and Small Steps:

  • Returned the phone message from the person who called in an “attempt to collect a debt.” (Admittedly, I was relieved that I got her voicemail. ;-))
  • Checked on my student loan status and was relieved to discover all but one (which I knew about) are still in deferral for a few months. Whew!
  • Gently informed someone when she (unintentionally) left me feeling dismissed through a poor choice of words.

Noticings:

  • How quickly the sensation of hunger produces mild, but nonetheless obvious feelings of anxiety.
  • How palpable the shift was while journaling this morning, when the fourth “able” helped me see things from an entirely different perspective.
  • How much I long to have more time and internet access to explore other possibilities, like resources for other people’s photos to use. (I’d love to have a pic of a gymnast doing a kip to go with this blog, for example.)

Day 116 (Thu/Apr 5): There’s dreaming, and then there are dreams

05 Apr 2012 Leave a comment

by Lucia in Job Talk, Spirituality Tags: , , , , , , , ,

A week ago, I awoke with an interesting dream, followed by two more interesting dreams the following two nights – or mornings actually. (Have you ever noticed how natural it is to talk about dreaming during the “night,” when the reality is that it is often happening in the hour or two just before waking up in the morning? But talking about something happening “this morning” sounds like something happening while you’re awake. English is such a peculiar language
) Anyhow, the short versions


Last Thursday, I awoke with a dream about a little girl who was just a baby, being held by a woman who was a kind of nanny or nurse or something. We were singing the familiar song about having ten fingers and ten toes. It’s a counting song for little kids. [At least it was in my dream.] Then I noticed that the little girl actually had eleven toes on one foot and twelve on the other. I started saying things like, “How cool is that!” and “How special you are!” in an effort to make sure she knew it was okay to be “different.” Moments later, another woman, the matron, came in with a doctor, both obviously concerned and distressed about this “condition.” I was afraid they would undo my efforts to affirm this little girl. When I awoke, I remember how important it had been for me to make this little girl feel accepted and lovable just the way she was – the way I would have liked to have felt more often in my life, especially as a child.

Last Friday, I awoke with a dream about my son and I traveling somewhere in a kind of wilderness, like in the mountains or something, up near Alaska. [Where I’ve never been.] I was trying to determine if we had what we would need, in terms of clothes and gear and such. I was trying to decide what to take and what would be safe to leave in the car. When I awoke, it wasn’t hard to make the connection between my assignment that began this week and how little I knew about what I would be doing or what would be expected of me. What I “needed” (to wear) was even unclear to me at that point and I was worried that my wardrobe would be inadequate. (It isn’t the least bit inadequate.)

Saturday, I awoke with a dream where I was on a freeway in the area here. I couldn’t really see other cars, but there were somehow there or nearby. I was in the far right lane at a diverging point, when I needed to be way over in the next-to-the-left lane. I felt like I had been and was being swept up in the flow of this invisible traffic. I remember being partly awake and actually feeling in my physical body the force/influence of others trying to move me along. It was like being caught in a current, with no time to think or to pause to choose/discern if I was heading the right way. When I awoke, my thoughts went in two directions. One was noticing how quickly I was spending the money I had and wanting to slow down, to pause and plan. The other was noticing how quickly other people were ready to see me as a permanent employee of the company where I was assigned this temp work.

Wednesday morning, I awoke with a dream of getting ready to go on a (very strange) honeymoon and not feeling at all certain it was what I wanted. That day was my first day of working first at one job, then finishing my day at the other. I wasn’t at all certain this was what I wanted and that uncertainty was noticeable in my dream.

I don’t always have such clear and significant dreams, so it has made for an interesting week. I am thankful for my conversations with God, through prayers and journaling. It has helped me to remember that I don’t have to make any decisions about any of this at this point. I haven’t been offered a job and am not yet sure if I want to apply if there are openings. Just for today, I am appreciating the income I’m earning, the new people I’m meeting, and the expanding of my work experience into slightly different things than I’ve done before.

Dreams are for dreaming

Big and Small Steps:

  • Let go the temptation to see if the credit card company has made any changes to my account online – as in, can I still make payments

  • Continued to think a lot on forgiveness and release and letting go. I keep thinking about these as a theme I want to follow in my posts for a time. (Another recent dream brought up a situation with someone where forgiveness is needed.)

Noticings:

  • How supportive and affirming the people are at my temp assignment.
  • How good it feels to have one’s work noticed and to be appreciated.
  • How grateful I am to have dreams that teach me what I need to know or lead me to what I need to be considering for now.

Day 89 – Fri, Mar. 9th (89/277): Oh, what a relief it is!

09 Mar 2012 Leave a comment

by Lucia in Body/Health Talk, Job Talk Tags: , , , , , , ,

This post really will be short. I’m back at my regular job (whoo hoo!) after three rather fun, but incredibly mind-and-body-numbing days of intense data entry. I say “intense” because it was entirely repetitive. I archived some 1500 files and my neck, shoulders and wrist are barely speaking to me at the moment. Actually, perhaps they’re speaking a lot: they’re saying, Don’t even think about it!

The funny thing is that yesterday, because of the monotony of the task, what I did a lot of (besides hundreds of mouse clicks) was noticing. So that’s what this post is about.

I noticed how it felt oddly, vaguely demeaning when a male employee went by and greeted us cheerily, “Morning, guys!” The fact that we were all females and he was male left me pondering why it’s okay for me to say, “Morning, guys” to my female companions, but his doing so felt like invading my turf. It’s rather like, I can call my brother a jerk but you can’t. (I don’t consider my brother a jerk, btw.) I wondered if I would have had the same reaction to another woman calling us “guys.” (Btw, in case you haven’t checked your dictionary lately, “guys” can refer either to a group of males or a mixed-gender group – the classic linguistic tradition that defaults to male references as “neutral,” while female references can only refer to exclusively females.)

I noticed that sitting up straight and holding my posture gently, to relieve the stress of constantly gazing down at a laptop, was more helpful than trying to force a more rigid and deliberately anti-slouching posture.

I noticed the new-job, settling-in patterns of the small group with whom I was working. Even though it was only our third day there (and the last for most of us, as it turns out), there was a growing comfort in our surroundings and a growing confidence in our freedom to go down to the cafĂ© to get a snack or to partake of the cupcakes and goodies by the kitchen area. I didn’t partake of the goodies, but only because they were foods my body no longer enjoys. (Thanks be!)

I noticed that, in response to a particular sound, someone asked of another co-worker, “Is that a cough or a sneeze?” When the co-worker said it was a cough, the first person did not offer the usual “Bless you” she had been saying in response to (perceived) sneezes. (She’d said that to me a few times when I coughed, apparently thinking I was sneezing.) The history of saying “bless you” has to do with the perception of keeping evil away in order to stay healthy. Why do you suppose it is that we do not say “bless you” when someone coughs?

I noticed that it’s easier to remember to move and shift around more when my body complains of discomfort or pain. This, of course, is just plain silly, since moving and shifting around more in the first place would likely avoid the pain.

Finally, I notice that I’d like to be “on the clock” at work in just a few minutes. So I’m going to post this, sans pics this time, and get to work doing lots of wonderfully non-repetitive tasks that require thinking and evaluating and making choices. Whoo hoo!!!

Day 59 – Wednesday, Feb. 8th (59/307): Blessings and Self-care

09 Feb 2012 Leave a comment

by Lucia in Body/Health Talk, Job Talk, Recovery, Spirituality Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

I’m late in getting this posted. In fact, I’m late in getting it written. It’s amazing how much time can pass in such a short period.

Tuesday turned into a surprisingly good day. Not that I expected a “bad” day, but sometimes things happen in ways that bless and nourish unexpectedly. That’s what happened.

I came in early to work and submitted a job application. It’s for a full-time, temporary position. We’ll see if anything comes of it. Part of my ongoing challenge is being willing to let go this part-time job I love to make space for the support I need. I know that if I am blessed to find fuller-time employment, it will be a blessing for all, including my present employers. Whether or not I receive even a response to this job application (aside from the auto-reply “we got your application” email), it felt good to submit it.

Later in the morning, when I was the only one in the office (which seldom happens), a friend called. Since it was quiet and I had the time, our conversation ranged to the personal. We ended up scheduling a time for the following morning for her to do some energy work with me. Wednesdays have often been my day off from the office, so the timing was perfect.

Tuesday afternoon, I went to a check-in at JVS. When asked how I was doing with my job search, I could feel my body tense up. I had expected a check-in around using the computer lab, not an all around check-in. As the conversation continued, with only three of us in the group, I found myself struggling with fear and resistance, feeling of inadequate for not doing more.

When I asked what the instructor included under the umbrella of “networking,” she said she considered any contact with other people, especially in person or at least by phone, to be “networking.” The way she described it started shifting my perception of networking. Suddenly I saw networking as being available to me anytime I’m talking to someone else and am willing to mention that I’m looking for work. It was rather like what my pastor calls a “BFO” – a Blind Flash of the Obvious. Yet it hadn’t been obvious to me before. As I continued to think about the conversation, I realized that finding opportunities through people I know has actually been true for several of my employment situations over the years. I just hadn’t noticed it till now.

Thus, Tuesday became a day of unexpected gifts – little things that added up to a pretty nice day.

As for Wednesday’s activities
 What can I say? After the lovely time connecting with my friend in the morning to receive a most welcome Reconnective Therapy (“RCT”) treatment (see http://www.reconnectivetherapy.com/start.htm for more information), I gave myself an entire day of relaxation. I know little, as yet, about RCT, except that I trust this friend and have had wonderful healing experiences through many forms of energy and healing work. Not surprisingly, the topic of fear came up. Also not surprisingly, the area of my body where she was led to begin treatment was the very place where the fear and trauma of a particular experience when I was a young child had been held in my body’s memory. I had uncovered the trauma some years back; now my friend was bringing healing to this area. What a gift!

I was having a touch of digestive unsettledness already, so when she talked about how I would be integrating this experience and would need to hydrate a lot over the next few days, something told me to listen to my body’s need to simply hold still. I’m not sure I remember when I’ve ever let go of “responsibilities” for a whole day before, but I did this day. I spent virtually the entire day enjoying Columbo movies on DVD and enjoying a beautiful jigsaw puzzle I recently received as a birthday gift. It was lovely.

Action step(s):

  • Submitted a job application!
  • Followed-up on monthly billings at work and cleared out the erroneous papers that I’d been afraid to toss too soon (i.e., cleared out the chaos and created order!).
  • Attended a follow-up workshop at JVS.
  • Connected with a friend and availed myself of a wonderful healing session.
  • Gave myself an entire day of self-care.

Day 57 – Monday, Feb. 6th (57/309): Coming out/Breaking Out

06 Feb 2012 2 Comments

by Lucia in Change, Queer Talk Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Before you leap to the popular understanding of what “coming out” means, let me start by saying that I don’t happen to be gay, bi or trans, though I count my many LGBTQ friends among my “heroes.” They have had to break through many (valid) fears and barriers to claim who they are. Whenever I’m around these friends, I wonder, how long will it take me to claim who I am, to be the person God created me to be?

I’ve carefully avoided talking about queerness in any sense of the word. And just in case you haven’t been hanging around academia in places like Berzerkley and other planets, queer is actually a term used and appreciated in academia around gender studies and the like, to explore the ways we push against the status quo and notions of the way things are or have been (as if they ever were a particular way). But I am not an academician, so I won’t even attempt to go there. I offer this point merely as a way of quieting, hopefully, the discomfort or concern some people feel about using the word “queer” in connection to notions of sexual orientation or gender.

I might as well tell you right now that I enjoy using the word “queer” because I rather like pushing against, well, lots of things that make some people uncomfortable. We are too often told what we “should” or “shouldn’t” do or say by others and that in itself is a good reason to question the way things are. (It’s also the nature of Aquarians to be a bit contrary.)

But my queerness – or lack thereof – is not what this is about for me. What I’m trying to do is to keep pushing at the boundaries I’ve built around myself that keep me from breaking through my fears. When I began considering bringing up LGBTQ topics (like, this morning), I balked. That’s not really what my blog is about, I thought. I don’t want to derail the conversation (even if it has largely been one-sided) that is here to help me break through my fears. Then I noticed that bringing up a subject about which I feel passionate (as in supporting LGBTQ people) brought up fear. Oops! And I thought this journey was merely going to be about organizing and purging the paper piles and finding adequate employment


“Coming out,” for me, is about breaking through my fears and not being afraid to be who I am. I have so many friends who have had to face far worse fears than I do to be who they are and they are not only fine, they are amazing and often wonderfully successful because of who they are. The fact that I am so drawn to my lesbian and trans-women friends made me wonder about myself. Eventually I realized that the attraction I experience is not what I experience toward (“straight”) men, but rather the admiration for those who have had the courage to become more fully themselves.

For me, as someone who has considered herself to be shy most of her life, part of my “coming out” will be to embrace the closeted extrovert in me. I remember remarking to my pastor once that I was shy. He looked at me with a puzzled expression and said, “You’re shy?!” The memory of that moment stayed with me. It is only in the past couple of years that I have come to recognize that my shyness has really been about fear and being afraid to be who I am for fear people would dislike or reject me

There’s so much more to say on all this, but I’ll stop for now. Be prepared, though, now that I’ve brought up one of my favorite topics. (See, Aquarians really do like to be contrary and, I suspect, do a bit of trouble-making!)

Have a blessed and wonderful day being yourself!

Action step(s):

  • Writing a birthday card to my birthday “twin,” even though it’s a bit late.
  • Giving myself permission to perhaps regularly get to work early and take some time for my own tasks before “clocking in” – like writing this post.
  • Bringing up the “Q” word in this blog – despite the fact that I feel extremely nervous doing so. (Have I lost you now? ;-))

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