Danger vs. Safety

"Do not assume that she who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. Her life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, she would never have been able to find these words." - Rainer Maria Rilke

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This photo was taken from my youngest daughter's sorority house on January 21 of the tornado that touched down in Huntsville's historic district and Five Points area.

Referring back to Rilke's quotation, some storms, like this one, are visible while others, though similar or worse, are not visible at the time. Or, there may be an internal storm in progress that cannot be seen so easily. While this tornado was forming, just minutes before it touched down, my oldest daughter, her two children, and three dogs were driving in a car directly beneath the funnel cloud.

They saw and experienced the storm "up close and personal" while others admired it's beauty from afar. My daughter called me, panic stricken about what to do. Why did she call me? For the same reason that my youngest daughter called to verify that the girls in her sorority were taking appropriate action to stay safe.

Both girls know that I have lived in "tornado alley" all of my life, first in Kansas and now in Alabama, or in other words, I have experience with how to try to stay safe in the midst of nature's fury, a tornado. They also both know that in the face of a crisis, they can count on me to be that calming voice of comfort that will talk them through the "storm", and help them maintain focus and clarity until the crisis is resolved.

I am told that this is how I conducted myself after my accident. As I sat in my car with a broken neck and crushed left shoulder blade, I instructed the first people to respond to my crash to please not try to move me until the paramedics arrived. I could not move my legs, yet even in this personal crisis, I stayed calm and in control. Of course, I was not alone. God had me in his hands.

As the past four years of struggles and hard work to recover have passed, I have been able to stay focused and calm by separating myself emotionally from the after effects of the accident while I did what I knew had to be done. It seems, however, over the last few months, numbness and disorganization have replaced the clarity of purpose that kept me motivated through over three and one half years of physical therapy.

It seems that my emotional self is having a difficult time reintegrating with my physical being and the compartment that kept my emotions closely in check to allow for physical recovery has sprung a leak! I am so glad my daughters still see me as a calm and reassuring touchpoint in the middle of a storm.

Little do they know that while this tornado was ripping through Huntsville and they were both calling me on the phone, I was taking care of bodily needs that are no longer independently functional as a result of my injuries. Evidence to me that my ability to compartmentalize is still alive and well. How can such a useful ability also be a source of distress? The million dollar question!!!

Perserverence vs. Quitting

"A jug fills drop by drop." - Buddha

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"Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained". - Marie Curie
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Quitting is so tempting at times! It takes a lot of motivation and energy to persevere! I am consciously trying to correct my sleep schedule issues and yesterday marked three days of waking at a reasonable hour and going to bed early enough to assure a full night's sleep. Then, today I backslide.

Went to bed at 2AM and slept until 1:15PM frustrated and feeling as though I'm behind the eight ball again. What does it take to get on track and stay there? I will do my best to get right back to correcting my sleep patterns. I don't want to give up. I really don't know why I am having such a hard time with self-regulation and organization. It seems like a never ending battle. If I take time out from this constant push to get life in order, I start feeling like I'm drowning again. I don't know what the answer is, but I have to figure it out!

I want to move on to things that make living worthwhile. Constant efforts to get life in order do not fill the bill. Guess I will stop writing for now and try to accomplish something today before time to go back to bed. This seems to be a treadmill rather than life. Maybe the treadmill is life?

Heart vs. Mind

"Even when you feel mired in fear and sadness, there are ways to persevere." -

Therese J. Borchard

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The posts on the Christopher & Dana Reeves site are hitting home for me today. No anniversary date or mega event. Checked my email this morning and read about a retreat I would love to attend but know it is not possible now, so I moved on, finished reading my emails, sent a few e-cards for birthdays, thinking of you, get well soon, and so on.

Some time later, between setting up my medications for the next two weeks and playing a computer game, the tears started. It has been four years since my accident, when will this nonsense stop!

Then I read Dr. Dan Gottlieb's post. I know what the trigger was and I'm having a not so comfortable day today physically. After reading Dan's response to another post on his forum "On Healing", I gather that my mind believes that enough time has passed for me to get over feeling sad sometimes and is ready to move on, but my heart hit a bump in the road today.

So, today is a day to go with my heart, knowing that tomorrow will bring a new day.

Thanks, again for your well timed comments.

Connection vs. Isolation

"Of all the needs (there are none imaginary) a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going to be hope and a hope of wholeness, is the unshaken need for an unshakable God." - Maya Angelou

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I cannot get the faces of the children in Haiti out of my head. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to be suddenly orphaned, injured, hungry, or thirsty and to literally see everything that represented life as a Haitian child disappear before their eyes. How would a child view such a catastrophic event? How can such a child come to believe in a world that has vanished or literally fallen in on top of them?

Children are amazing. With care and love, they will come to trust again and again. To see what is right in the world look into a child's eyes. When sadness is reflected back, we must do all that we can to love, nurture, and surround that child with protection and security to restore hope. What a monumental task the world is facing when the sheer numbers of orphaned children are considered.

The Haitian people are veterans of difficult living circumstances such as poverty and hunger. Haiti is located geologically on the convergence of the Caribbean and North American tectonic plates and just above the South American plate that make up the earth's crust. These plates are shifting minutely on a continuous basis, creating conditions favorable to repetitive earthquake risk that is supplemented by the melting at the polar ice caps.

Haiti has needed global resources for an incredibly long time. Perhaps this horrific event is a world-wide wake-up call to the connection we share with every other human on this planet.

Dreams vs. Wishes

“Listen to your dreams. They are the whispers of your heart telling you all you’ll ever need to be happy.” - Belva Davis

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If dreams are the "whispers of your heart telling you all that you'll ever need to be happy", then what are

wishes? Perhaps they are the noisy declarations of our minds telling us what we "think" will make us happy. How are we to differentiate the two? I wonder if I have dreams or simply wish lists?

Discerning our dreams and God's plan for our lives requires an inner stillness and listening for what is in the present. Wishes are the "what ifs" and "if onlys" of the past and future. We make wish lists in the midst of multitasking, chaos, and the incessant noise of our fast paced everyday lives. Dreaming our dreams requires a conscious effort to relax, observe rather than become our thoughts, listen for the voice from within, and open to possibility without censure.

All well and good, but why is this on my mind today? This week has been a busy week (for me) of reconnecting, climbing out of my self imposed, cold weather avoiding, isolation, back into the world of action and relationships. Every conversation I've had this week has touched on the importance of friendships, relationships, interaction, relaxation, and reflection. I'm listening, everyone! I realize that each of these exchanges have delivered a much needed message. I believe we all need reminders from time to time about what is important and how to listen for our dreams.

The missing component for me recently has been my inability to fully relax. My personality is fairly laid back, flexible, and easy going most of the time, however, I have noticed a definite change over the past several months. As I reflect on this time, I recognize that many of the activities that gave my life structure and a sense of purpose have changed. Now, more that ever, I need to create my own opportunities to listen for the desires of my heart, spoken by a soft voice from within.

The most prominent obstacle on this new journey is myself. Nothing new. Just that "being human" thing that gets in the way so often! This week has been a good one. I know that I have a choice to make. Do I want to keep making wishes or do I want to capture the "what is" of each day? Perhaps, I will begin with purposeful inclusion of silent meditation and listening prayers in place of only thinking and speaking.

Stillness is what I have been avoiding. When I relax, listen, and observe, I have to face straight on who I am at this very moment. Wishes, noise, and denial cannot change the reality of this point in time. I am giving myself permission to relax, reflect, respond, and take the time to identify shattered dreams and create the space to replace them with new ones. Are you listening Carla?

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Happiness

FREE to sing, laugh, dance... create!

New Beginnings vs. More of the Same

"We don't know what we don't know until we know that we don't know it." - Richard Fisher

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The beginning of each new year is filled with hope and the promise of possibility. We make the decision to continue with the "status quo" or reflect upon the previous year and opt for change. Regardless of our approach to a new year and, this year, to a new decade, change will happen, even if we are satisfied with how our lives are unfolding.

I'm looking at the past year with curiosity, appreciation, and a willingness to carry forward lessons learned into the new year. For example, I learned this year how dependent I have become on technology such as my cell phone and computer. Within a few days of each other, my cell phone was lost and my computer crashed. I realized that I am totally dependent on my telephone for phone numbers and on my computer for email addresses. I had even entered my addresses master list in a document on my computer.

I knew that my computer should be backed up but did not really know how to do that. I thought my telephone was backed up through my service provider - wrong! Now that I have a "Smart Phone", it is supposed to be backed up on my computer (which, by the way, had just crashed!) Whatever happened to those old fashioned, hand written address books?

I purchased an external hard drive and have backed up my computer. It was not difficult nor excessively time consuming. I have backed up my smart phone on my computer, but still have not learned how to check the contents of the backup. It's a work in progress! I am learning, however, that backups must be created, a huge lesson learned in 2009!

What will the new year and decade hold? More lessons and change can be guaranteed. For any of us who have tried to travel back into the past to catch a glimpse of some meaningful moment, special event, or magical place, the lesson is invariably received that you can't go back. Somehow things are not the same. Perhaps the lesson is not so much that you can't go back. Maybe we are supposed to learn to enjoy each moment as it occurs.

Here's to a new year and a new decade!!!