January 16 2014

Well, I've dropped the ball and haven't posted anything since my birthday. Oops. But today changed all that. Today is one of my favorite days of the year. I got the year-end letter from my friend Michelle Fike!!!!!
Now, this is one of the most open-hearted, inspiring, amazing, life-embracing women I've ever (not) met. Michelle is an old school mate of my husband's. He was reunited with her over facebook (good old facebook.) She is such a kindred spirit! Every year since being reunited, we get her year end letter, and every year when I read it, I shed tears of joy and happiness. Her words are so raw and heartfelt. She is open and inspiring. Today I am so grateful for her inspiring life and for her friendship and for being on her mailing list. She is truly living her best life and she makes me want to do the same! I've been really dragging my feet on writing today and this letter was a godsend. Reading about the work she has put into her life, and the trust in the universe, just makes me want to do the same so that I can live my best life too! Thanks Michelle!!!! Love you hon!!

January 7 2014

My Birthday. I'm glad to have made it another year. On my facebook I had around 100 well wishes from friends. Wow. It was a little overwhelming to think that I've touched all these lives in some way. I feel grateful that my time on earth has been noticed by such a good crowd of people, and that I must mean enough to them for them to send along some birthday wishes. I feel very grateful to be alive and have touched the life of others.

January 6 2014

Running Water. In most of the developed world people have had this in their homes for at least 100 years. I think this is one of the easiest things to take for granted. You need to wash your hands, you turn it on, and it's there. Need to clean a spot off the floor? Need to do your laundry? Need to water a plant? Need to flush away your excrement? Yep, its there, 99.99% of the time. Maybe that's why its all too easy to waste it. Easy come easy go, right? Remember the last time the city or your apartment or townhouse complex had to work on the pipes, and they warned you that your water would be shut off? What did you do? Well you stocked up of course. You filled your water jug for drinking, a couple of pails for flushing the toilet. Maybe you filled the bathtub so you could have enough water to wash the dishes later. How did you fare for just one day without running water? Could you go two days? A week? A life time? 

I couldn't help thinking today about how different life would be if we didn't have running water in our homes. Imagine if a large part of your day was spent in walking to a communal water pump, waiting in line and then pumping water into a jug or two that you had to carry or balance on your back, shoulders or head? How much water would you waste if you had to carry it each day? How many times would you wash your hands if you had to haul water to your home? How many times would you shower or bathe under these circumstances? 

Scientists tell us that one of the first lines against preventing the flu or other illness is good hygiene. Wash your hands often to prevent transfer and ingestion of germs. This is something I do every time I come home from being out. Last time I had the flu was about 9 years ago. Imagine how much sicker we'd be without running water. Would we be as diligent about washing our food? Our hands? Our children's hands? 

Running water. It's a given for most homes. What though, of the people who have none? The third world notwithstanding, there are people right here in Canada or the US who,for one reason or another, have had their water shut off. Maybe the pipes froze and burst. Maybe they lost their job and couldn't pay the water bill. Maybe there was a storm that broke the water pipe. Suddenly a good life becomes an extreme hardship. 

Today I appreciate running water. Out of that appreciation comes respect. I try hard not to waste water. Maybe one day I will be without water. So today I appreciate it and give my gratitude for it. 

January 5 2014

Today I got a good chunk of time to myself to work on my short story collection. It was so quiet and I just blissed right out with my coffee and my tangerine scented candle. This year I'm focusing on writing and actually getting my work out there. I am so grateful for this writing time in my beautiful, yet humble home.

January 4 2014

Laughter. I'm talking about everything from a tiny explosion that escapes from tightly clamped lips and makes that airy, snorty "pfft" sound, to belly-aching, chest-heaving, shoulder-shaking, face-stretching unbridled paroxysms of passionate hilarity. Laughter causes a rush through the body, mind and spirit that would rival any drug or alcoholic potable. Laughter offers an escape that is better than any fantasy the mind can think up. When you break into bales of laughter, there is something that happens to the spirit. It lifts off. It looses its ties to things grounded in heaviness like stress, worry and depression. Maybe, if we keyed right into this, rather than prescription drugs such as anti-depressants to get us out of our fog, in the future doctors would be prescribing things like "get out and  play Cards Against Humanity with your friends for at least four hours a week." 

This is exactly what I did last night. I swear I haven't laughed this long, hard or heartily in a VERY long time. Funny thing I noticed about laughter is, it is more contagious than yawning. (Oops did I just make you yawn?) If you've never played CAH, part of the game involves keeping your choice of card--that is used to create a hilarious sentence--hidden until reveal time. So during the game while you are carefully considering your next play, you are laughing to yourself over your possible choices. I noticed each time I would laugh out loud while scheming, that inevitably someone else would join in my laughter, or I them, although we had no idea what the other was laughing about. This kind of curious sympathetic laughter got me thinking about the power of laughter to affect others around us.  Why was I, (or they) laughing at something unknown? I mused that it was a kind of joyful glee at anticipating the gift of something funny to come. The promise of more laughter, kept those giggle fires burning away. Also, another observation was that we did not want to stop playing the game as though we were addicted to laughter and needed the next hit, and the next and the next. Soon we were planning more trips to the "Opium" Laughter Den. My oh my what a powerful drug! 

I am reading a book right now about the different ways people mourn. Some cultures use laughter as a coping mechanism to get them through the mourning process. (Who says jokes at a funeral are in bad taste?) I think laughter is  under-rated in our culture. We have to be serious more often than not. I think that needs to be re-examined, studied and laughter needs to be integrated more as a healing module. Its power is not to be underestimated. 

My gratitude is for this great gift of laughter. Cheers to you. May you continue to be a huge part of my life in 2014. Also may I spread it around. Let's keep the people laughing and then maybe life would seem hugely better! 

January 3 2014

My body challenges me. Daily. I have chronic pain. I have Insulin Resistance. The chronic pain started when I was in my mid twenties. I worked as a dog groomer and one day I was carrying a 60 lb husky across a wet floor and the dog started struggling in my arms which caused me to lose my balance and slip. Down I went, with the dog on top of me and in a split second I had an injury that would haunt me for the rest of my life. 

That's not all. Besides a tricky lower lumbar/sciatica, I also carry a lot of body tension that usually concentrates in my shoulders, neck and jaw and behind my eyes. Some days I am trapped in this pain all day. It's become a part of me. 

Then there is the IR. For years I couldn't get a diagnosis because my fasting blood sugar was "normal." So the doctors just patted my head and said "it's all in your head, nothing wrong here." Then I read an amazing book by Mark Hyman about Insulin Resistance and how the test for it is NOT a fasting glucose test, but a glucose tolerance test. I found out last year that there was something wrong with me and I was not crazy. Every crappy way I was feeling was because of something real going on in my body.  

So this brings me to today's gratitude. I am grateful that my body talks to me. It tells me when it is not happy. It tells me when I'm doing something wrong. Something not good for me. This pain, these hypoglycemic symptoms are important messages for me. They will save my life. Do you know that some people don't get blood sugar crash symptoms. They go from feeling normal one minute to falling into a coma the next. When I get my awful symptoms I have to find food fast. Each time I go through this I thank my body for sending me emergency signals. I am also thankful that I have food to feed myself. Maybe that won't always be the case, so with every meal I am thankful that my body has what it needs to survive the moment. 

Today I am having a pain day. My shoulders feel like there is a 50 lb weight on each. There is pain in my neck, my head and behind both eyes. Sometimes it makes it hard to concentrate, but not today. I'm OK enough to do my daily tasks. Since I've been on my IR diet, my pain episodes have been less frequent. So when I'm having a bad day, it causes me to reflect and realize that its been quite some time since I felt bad. Up until a year or so ago, I would go for weeks on end in pain every day. I'm grateful I haven't lived that life for a while. 

When I'm having a pain day, it reminds me to get some exercise, for stretching helps. When I have a bad insulin resistance day, it reminds me to get back on track with my health. So this is why, even though I'm in pain, my gratitude attitude is to thank my body for sending me its lessons. My body journey is a process. Bad days remind me of that. They remind me that I am making process because they cause me to reflect that I have had good days. Whatever my body throws at me, painful, scary, out of control... it always reminds me that I need to direct compassion, patience, care, and love towards myself. This is always a blessing. A challenge, but also a blessing. So today I thank my body for its pain signals and its hypoglycemic signals and for reminding me to love myself enough to care for myself. I'm grateful for my body. <3 <3

January 2 2014

Today, as usual, I had a lot to be grateful and thankful for. I met with a friend and we shared a mutual birthday celebration lunch and gift exchange. (Our birthdays are mere days apart.) Oddly though, it was this little window of "me time" in the early morning hours, between Greg leaving for work and my kids getting up that I felt the most at peace and in the moment. 

It was a very dark and rainy morning today. I had woken up early shortly after my husband got up, and I had a feeling of unexplained fear. Now to explain, in the past I've had issues with my blood sugar and have had to completely change my diet. This resulted in a strange balance period where I would have wild blood sugar crashes and swings. Sometimes these would happen first thing in the morning and other times throughout the day. These can be scary as I experienced (sometimes very extreme) hypoglycemic episodes. I'm much better now but there is still a left over feeling of fear that I'm going head into one of these episodes at any moment. So I got up. It was only 6:15 am. Turned out I was fine. Totally fine. 

After my husband left, I was sitting on the couch surfing facebook when I just stopped, leaned back on the couch and listened to the rain. I listened to the darkness, the quiet and the outside noises of cars swishing their way to work, the dog breathing, the cat making little mewy sleepy stretchy noises and I just felt a sense of peace and gladness come over me. 

It was far too early for the risk of anything disturbing my thoughts. It was too early for anyone or any thing to make a demand on me. (I work at home in an "on call" type situation for my various jobs and so I constantly live under the threat of "anything can disturb my thoughts, actions, intentions and peace at any time.") But this moment was 100% mine. So I welcomed it as my little window of peace. I embraced it. I let it be mine. 

I can't tell you how fantastic it felt not to have to be anything to anyone just in that brief moment. Not having to entertain anyone, feed anyone, help anyone or think about how I'd better get up in one second or three or five because I needed to get ready for something going down, or I "should" be doing this task. Nope Nope Nope. All I had to do was sit and enjoy the moment in my natural state. Pure and fully awake aware and present. 

I could write 10,000 words about the blessings of today alone but this silent moment all to myself is what really felt 100% where my soul needed to go to be nourished.