moments of revelation by sharon

Dad came with me on a short journey to the Isle of Wight. We went via Sherborne where Simon used to live. Stopped off at a farmhouse cafe for a jacket potato with beans and cheese. Scrumptious!! 😊

We continued on to the ferry where we sat on the top deck basking in the sun.

Got to our hotel on the beach front. Went for a long walk through the village of Yarmouth. Then sat on the beach watching the boats. There was a war ship anchored there. Sitting by itself with no activity aboard. We walked back to the hotel after watching the sunset.

Today we took the steam train from Havenstreet. We sat in the first class box to spend some quality time together. It was lovely to be on a steam train with him again. We reminisced about the days gone by.

Then he turned to me as if to say it’s time for me to go, you’re going to be alright. And off he went as he always does quite content. 😌

My Dad passed away on Sunday 28/07/2024

If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished? RUMI

I found the quote above something to ponder. We tend to think of ourselves being rubbed the wrong way. What if all that time you were being rubbed the right way?

When we’re feeling rubbed the wrong way by a person or an event we become irritated with the negative movement. Or what appears to be a negative movement. Because when something happens we usually go to the negative of it rather than the positive. It’s just our human nature.

This irritated rub which tends to make us angry, frustrated or even sad really makes us stop. The emotions associated with the rub give us a chance to think about the why of it all. But usually we get angry and most times take it out on who ever is around.

Let’s try to redirect ourselves when we see and feel the irritated rub. For example my boyfriend and I sit down to watch TV. Of course he has the remote! He proceeds to flip through all the stations, if nothing there he flips through what’s been recorded. He does ask what I want to watch. So after 10 minutes of flipping, watching something briefly then he flips to Netflix or Prime. He flips through the movies so fast I have a hard time keeping up. So I occupy my time with writing or playing a game on my phone until he finds something he likes. Then I ask, what are we watching? He usually finds something we both like! 😊

I have redirected myself from what would be an irritated rub. Although, I think we have irritated rubs in order to bring out feelings we need to deal with especially anger and frustration.

I say, let the rubs keep coming so I can be polished and shine brightly!

This is a word I feel we all need to get acquainted with. Mainly because we often have to adjust our lives for things which are happening around us. Over the last two years we have had a lot of adjustments, especially losing people we love way too soon. One afternoon at the hospital where I worked as a chaplain, I visited a man whose wife was dying of cancer. He said, “I like to think of this time as becoming acclimated, not accepting, of living without my wife”. I listened intently to what he was saying. What if all of us tried to become acclimated with the things that happen to us in life instead of going with the flow, adjusting and fighting our way through.

To become acclimated we are adapting a new attitude, creating a new climate, or working with a situation. In other words, we need to change to suit different conditions of our life, or to cause a change in someone else. We are adapting and modifying our surrounding to move forward with our lives.

Sounds great, right. So how does one become acclimated? It’s a gradual process. As the man above, each day as he visited his wife in the hospital he thought about his wife’s passing and how he would feel once she was gone. He processed his thoughts of life without her in a slow deliberate manner.

A good example is a runner preparing for a marathon. A runner trains each day either in the gym or on a track. Once in the gym the runner increases weights and repetitions to acclimate his body for endurance. On the track the runner will acclimate his body to run at a steady pace for a long distance. This is something which will be done in increments over several months or even a year.

I know sometimes we need to become acclimated in a short period of time. Our resilience and stamina will kick in during this time but we will become acclimated and adjust to our new or difference situation.

I think most of the time we need faith and trust in ourselves to get through certain things in life. I often reflect on what I have had to become acclimated to in my life. Two years ago I came to England and have been here because of COVID. Did I want to move here permanently will yes but not this soon. So I spent a year in sabbatical to transition/acclimate myself to my new situation. It’s been through a lot of adjustments, compromise and accommodations to bring myself to a form of acclimation.

You can get there but with everything we need time to process and have patients with ourselves.

Footnotes: definitions/explanations are from the dictionary.cambridge.org and http://www.meriam-webster.com.

There comes a time in your life, when you walk away from all the drama
and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make
you laugh. Forget the bad and focus on the good. Love the people who
treat you well, pray for the ones who don’t. Life is too short to be
anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is
living.

Quote: “Today may there be peace within. May you trust that you are
exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite
possibilities that are born in yourself and others. May you use the
gifts that you have received and pass on the love that has been given
to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let
this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom
to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of
us.” (author unknown)

My daughter once told me she wanted to focus on the positive relationships in her life.  I agree but it is the relationships that have gone bad that we learn from in order to have that great relationship with someone.  It is easy for us to treat the people who treat us well with respect and love.  It is the difficult people who shape us to the person that we are today.  Be grateful for the people who are hard to get along with, who challenge you to be a better person and who don’t love you.

We all earn for a peaceful life but we don’t appreciate the peace unless we have gone through the hell.  And yes, hell can be a state of mind, a black cloud around us.  Mostly a black cloud we have created.  So as my daughter says “I just want to concentrate on the positive relationships” remember it was all the bad relationships which got her to this point.

Embrace the bad with the good to bring you the peace to walk away from the drama. Or better yet doesn’t let you be part of the drama.  We are all meant to be where we are however difficult or peaceful.  Be content with who you are and where you are going.  However, we don’t always know where we are going.  Sometimes we just find ourselves in a very special place.  Appreciate it, enjoy the moment and love yourself.

I love the way you hold me, O Great Spirit

When I’ve had a long day, and am too busy

for my friends, having problems at my job,

just wondering what to do

My mind wonders to you to help pull me through

this crazy life I lead. I know I should be

praying for a better life and then I feel your smile,

it’s crazy how you lift me up out of the blue.

O Spirit, by my side you’ll always be

you take each and every day, make it special

in some way there are no words in my head which

can express the way you make me feel.

Even when I think I have it all figured out,

you take my day and you flip it around,

you calm the tidal wave and put my feet on the ground,

forever in my heart, always on my mind

I want to sing and shout about the joy in my heart

that you bring, I have no worries, no anxiety, no fear

because you, O Spirit, are going before me all the time.

I’m so grateful and thankful for all you’ve done for me,

and how each day is so special with you by my side.

O Great Spirit, I love the way you hold me, in your arms I’ll always be.

Have you ever thought of your own recovery, whether it be from additions, sickness, or spiritually.  We all go through hardships it’s just a part of life.  The idea of using spiritual practices to help us stay on track is nothing new. For people of addiction we usually use the 12 step program to get back on track so what about sickness or if you are suffering spiritually.  The tools we use for sickness are coming to the hospital to receive care, going to the doctors or going to the store for a wonderful home remedy.  What about the tools for the lack of spirituality?  I was recently with a group about spirituality when one young man piped up and said I don’t know about being spiritual so I don’t think I am.  I started to explain to him what spirituality is.

“Spirituality can be defined as an inner path enabling a person to discover his/her being. Spiritual practices then might be described as those that help the individual discover who they really are. These practices can be tools that allow the individual to develop within their religion or the person can follow a more personal journey. There are some people who use these spiritual tools almost purely for the way in which it can benefit their life today rather than trying to achieve some type of transcendence.”

There are many benefits to engulfing on a spiritual self-discovery because our spirituality or faith helps us better cope with trials and tribulations in our lives.  It gives us the ability to control our emotions and fears during sickness or recovery. Spiritual exercises can give us a boost each day to set us in a positive motion err regardless of what happens during the day.  Some tools we can use are meditation, prayer, breathing exercises, inspirational readings, art work, helping others and mindfulness.

I’d like to focus on mindfulness which is an ancient Japanese custom.  “It is a spiritual practice that involves purposely paying attention to the present moment. This means that the individual is completely focused on what they are doing now and not thinking about the past or worrying about the future. When the person is doing something they really enjoy they will be naturally mindful. The problem is that for the rest of the time people can be lost in their heads. It is not necessary to sit in a certain position or learn any mantras to be mindful. The individual can be mindful no matter what they’re doing so long as they remember to focus on what is there right now. By doing this the individual will be able to turn almost any activity into a spiritual one.”

Why is spirituality important? Why is recovery important?  What do people mean when someone is soulful? Discovering our own spirituality we are decreasing our stress levels, we are decreasing sickness, we are leveling our temperament.  We will have in increase in happiness and contentment.  Being spiritual or mindful can cure insomnia.  Some people find it gives them clarity and make better decisions. There is a sense of contentment even when we are faced with the worst situations. In essence we become a better mother, father, child, friend, or a better person in society.  When we add a faith community to our spiritual practices we tend to become soulful as spiritual paths can lead to feelings of transcendence and enlightenment.  Getting in touch with our spirituality gives us meaning and purpose in life.

(Resource: http://alcoholrehab.com/addiction-recovery/daily-spiritual-practices-are-helpful-in-recovery/)

Today my reflection is on efficiency. Sounds strange right? Most of us think of making our life, our day more efficient. How can I get from A to Z in an efficient manor? How can I manage my time to get everything done that I need to do? If only I was more efficient.

This is an excerpt from The Awakening Heart Book by Gerald G May, MD on Opening Yourself to the love you need because it’s not about efficiency.

“…bear the beams of love. There are three meanings of bearing love: to endure it, to carry it, and to bring it forth. We are to be the birthers of love.

Yet “We have difficulty just being: we think we must get on with more important things. We have to be efficient. In becoming adults, we have been conditioned to believe that efficiency is more important than love.”

Through our journeys in the hospital and through hospice we have discovered certain aspects of each other. “You have your own personality, your own addictions, and aspirations, your own conditioning. In other words, you have your own ways of being dysfunctional. Similarly, you have your own ways of experiencing love and appreciating grace. Nevertheless, I am willing to bet that when you have your wits about you, you know that love is far more important than efficiency.”

We really do know the importance of love when our wits are about us. So how do we keep love in the forefront of our lives?

One way is to share yourself with another. Share something about you that someone might not now. Be vulnerable. Let others in. Share your time with someone you care about. Help someone in need. Be empathetic. Empathy is a component of love. It is a time when we go beyond ourselves and put ourselves in other people’s shoes. In order to truly love we need to feel what another is feeling. See empathy is the experience of understanding another person’s condition from their perspective. If we are concentrating on how efficient we need to be we are lacking focus in others. It is truly through others that we learn to love.

Today let us pray for learning to love more and less need for efficiency. Let us pray that we try to understand others and feel another’s feeling so we can deepen our awareness of others. Let us be willing to hear other’s stories so we can journey with them. Let us be open to our ability to empathize and to let other be empathic as well. For is in journeying with each other that we find true love.

Recently, I was thinking about our energy,  how negative energy affects your life and how to clear it. We’ve all been around negative people who zap our energy and in essence zapping their own energy because it takes far more energy to be negative than it does to be positive.

People with positive energy are drawn to positive people and people with negative energy are drawn to negative people. We tend to think others are negative, it is never us. Sometimes we feel negative if we’ve had a hard day and we want people to leave us alone.  Did you know a lot of negative energy goes unnoticed in us? It’s because sometimes negativity is disguised as ‘reality’. It’s easy to rationalize that you’re ‘just being realistic’ in not daring to act on a dream – and believe it! Sometimes we think people who are overly positive and optimistic are naïve or not being realistic.  The person is in denial, their head is in the sand; all sound familiar. Are they really happy idiots or is there something to their positivity?

Being realistic can sound like negativity but is it? When you view the world from a ‘realistic’ standpoint, you can’t help but be negative IF your version of reality is negative. So if your vision of reality is negative, you can be conditioned to believe whatever can go wrong, will go wrong and whatever can go right, will probably go wrong too. Your unconsciously held beliefs make you into a negative person without your being aware of it! Boy this is deep, if our negativity is so ingrained in us, how do we see it in ourselves and how do we change it around to draw on the positive, thus attracting other positive people to be around us.

Here are some quick questions to ask yourself: Do you complain? Do you often discuss what’s wrong in the world? Do you criticize and judge? Do you dramatize? Do you blame? Do you feel like a victim? Are you grateful for what is?
If you’re not grateful except when things go right, you are negative. Gratitude is positive. If you are grateful for what is including the unpleasant school of life lessons, then you can invite more and more positive energy into your life. Just another thought who do we blame when things are going well and who do we thank?
Do you thank yourself when you’ve done something good.  See I’m a big fan of being proactive and in generating positive energy.  We have the option and the know how to choose a positive attitude.  We can get up each day and say: I’m going to be positive today. Here’s something interesting, positive people seem to get what they want out of life, and even if things don’t go their way, they still enjoy their lives even with the bumps in the road.  They have a positive attitude towards sickness and suffering.  It’s something that happens to everyone yet they seem to get through it with ease.  Most positive people do not whine and moan about their misfortunes. To clear our negative energy, we need to do three things.  Take ownership and stop blaming.  “When you think everything is someone else’s fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.” – the Dalai Lama Change negative thoughts into positive thoughts. It takes practice, patience with yourself and a decision to choose the good, positive energy we all have.

Change your heart to love and find your spiritual energy.  Try to bring more light and love into your life; visualize the positive; overcome your past; think with your heart.  So choose to change your inner light and let it burn brighter.  Find people who support your positive energy and your spirit; trust your gut more and spread the love.

What happens now is your positive energy permeates to others and all things become better.  There is a great happiness and inner peace which you will feel.

And when someone is being negative, let them know, hit the high road, find commonality and don’t ignite the fire of negativity.  Spread the joy and smile. (Resources: Beliefnet; Signs of Positive and Negative Energy and Social Consciousness.com; How Negative Energy Affects Your Life and How to Clear It, 2013)

Let us prayer for all those who are negative, may we show by our example of positive energy how one is to live.  Live in harmony with each other because of our love for each other.  Let us help others to change their light so they can shine brighter and have inner peace.  Amen.