Growth

Sometimes, when we are growing, evolving, transforming and coming into a new stage of our life, we can feel stuck, lost, alone.

It is in this stage, what we know as who we are is being challenged or changed.  Growth often happens in the silence of the unknown.

I find myself feeling lost because what I used to do [and enjoyed doing] is not giving me the enjoyment it once did.   I was okay being in the silence of the unknown believing in and trusting the process of life; divine order and guidance.  I have become very good at 'just being'.  I now want to be 'doing'.

I am now finding myself antsy with this way of being.  I find myself wanting change and, yet, not being fully aware and mindfully involved in this knowing by having a definite plan and stepping forward with said plan.  I wonder what is happening to me.  I wonder which direction life is taking me.  I wonder what I will allow myself to do.  Will I like it...

I find myself stuck wanting to share and to reach out less and less.  It is a feeling that I currently have nothing new to offer up.  How do I try to share understanding when I, myself, do not understand...

And, yet, I believe that I am being prepped for the next 'leg' of my life.  I am being prepped and prepared to move on forward and triumphantly.  I am being asked to let go of the old and let a new way of life in.

It feels unsettling.  It feels exciting.  It feels new.

Wherever you are; whatever you are doing; whatever you want to become is all being taken into consideration and your innate inner knowing and the divine connection that is within us all is being bred.

It may look like I am doing very little, when in fact, there is so much changing on a cellular level.

I do not know anything for sure other than wanting to be true to what is going on within me, around me and for me.

You may not have all the answers.  We probably don't even have all the questions.

May you choose to be true to what is going on within you, around you and for you.  Being stillness in the chaos just may be one of the hardest lessons a human can learn.  Being true to one's self and each other may be right up there with the difficulty of allowing stillness.

And, this is what the universe just may be asking of some of you just now.

Breathe.  Connect to your heart, soul and mind.  Let them work as a team for your life.  Give yourself the freedom to feel, listen and respond to your innermost self.

May we let love lead us.  May we believe in ease.  May we allow and accept what is being shown to us just now.  May we individually, together create a world that is joyful and desirable to live in.  It is right here for us.  All we have to do is believe, allow and participate from our most genuine self.

Life goes on.

May you open up to this moment and meet yourself where you are.  

It is your choice what to do about it.  It is your life that you are living.  Own what is yours.  Care.  Let others own what is theirs.  Care.

In this caring and acceptance of truth, we empower the best of ourselves to thrive.

Beauty Sleep/Rest

Today is 1/11/2018 with the numbers of 2018 equaling to 11 - so 1/11/11. Some say it is a portal that the Universe has open for us to expand and grow into the best version of who we really are. It is a great opportunity for new beginnings.  

I think we always have this opportunity and I say what you believe is important to you and your life.   If it benefits and enhances the best in you, go for it.  We are the only ones that know what is really going on internally.  And, sometimes, we are not even sure..  or are we...

I know that I have been extremely tired.  Rest is what my body and mind beg for.  I know I found myself taking a nap today and when I woke up, I was feeling rather good.  I wasn't all there right away.  It took me a while to wake up.  Some call this beauty sleep.  All I know is that when you really want to sleep/rest and you are able to give yourself permission to do so, it is a very positive thing.  Listening to our bodies is one of the best things that we can do.  I'd say having a loving relationship with yourself and your body is probably one of the best and empowering relationships we could know.

I also find myself very lost in time.  I'm usually excellent at knowing what time it is.  Waking up right before an alarm clock; knowing closely to what time it is before I check.  Not so right now.  I'm not sure if I talked to a person today or yesterday.  I find myself questioning if I put the cat out on the patio or brought her back in.  When I have something in the oven, I lose complete track of time.  Time eludes me just now.  Time speeds by me just now.

I woke up this morning stating to myself that I will walk in joy today.  I am going to let joy walk with me.  Everything I do, I am going to allow joy into it.  Instead of fear, joy.  I have to say I had a joyful day and it was only because I chose to.   How awesome and wonderful crazy is this!?   Ha!

What kind of day are you having...  May you choose the kind of day you want to have and let it in.  It and YOU are certainly worth giving it a try.  I hope you succeed if it feels right for you to try it.

May you let your day be full of what you choose for it to be full of.  May you carry it in your heart.  May you carry it with you.   May you carry it into every experience that you are able.

I wish you what you wish for.  I believe that if it is meant to be, nothing will get in its way.  It may be in its own timing and in a different way than you would think, but, if it is meant for you, there is nothing stopping it.

Flow on.  Flow in the joy of you.  Flow in the _____ of you.  Flow in the truth of what is.  Flow and experience everything through your own way of 'being'.

And, please, if it feels possible to you, give your body the attention and kindness that it deserves.  It deserves full throttle.  It is the only one you get for this entire lifetime.

May you be able to experience miracles.  May you know what you need and be open to achieving it.

It is time to be your own best support.  As we support ourselves and feel fulfilled, we are [much] more able to support others.  Always save a reserve of love and energy for yourself.  It is, perhaps, the greatest gift we can give to our loved ones.

It is my guess that you like seeing your loved ones happy.  May you give your loved ones the gift of you being happy or whatever adjective you would like to put here.  It's all about YOU choosing you; growing into the best version of you and sharing this best of self out into the world.   This is, what I believe, is our purpose here and now.

Namaste'.  May you be beautifully wild.

Go Time

I am learning that when I find myself feeling pretty low, lost and/or unhappy, it is Go Time.

Allowing myself to feel this - even when it doesn't feel inviting or fun - propels me through to another part of me; another way for me.

Perhaps, we need to feel sadness, trials, a strong sensitivity to the unknown to make a bold move.  To change outside of our comfort zone and/or it can even feel like it can be about changing into my comfort zone.

When I find myself uncomfortable, this is when I look or, perhaps, am most open to a better way; a new way; a different way.

When we are happy and being triumphant, there is no need for us to want something different; to create something different.

So, in our uncomfortableness is where our greatest of self may emerge.

May you allow yourself to go there when prompted by life; an outer situation or an inner feeling.

May you allow yourself to feel whatever feelings come up for you.  Don't push them down or do something to run from certain feelings.  Stand right in it and look at/feel it exactly as it is being delivered to you.

This takes phenomenal courage, at times.  This takes gentle strength.  This takes trust.  Luckily, we were born with all of these things.  Sometimes, we have to learn/relearn how to tap into the magnificence of our own self.

May you do just that.  Tap into the magnificence of your own true self.  Allow, embrace, and, [sometimes we even need to] express the truth of what we are experiencing.  Express it to our own self and feel it and let it go.  Let it go as [simply] energy.  

We can choose kindness to participate; as much and as often as possible.

It seems like the valleys may feel extra low and the mountain peaks extra high.  And everything in between is showing itself to many of us just now.

Walk on and through.  Perhaps, look at it as your Go Time.  It just may be.

Go on my lovely human friends.  Go on as only you can.  

You matter exactly where you are at.  Perhaps, we even matter more out loud when we allow ourselves to experience the truth of where we are through the truth of who we are.

May you meet yourself where you are at.  May you be open to your Go Time(s).

The Heart

"Silence is a woman's loudest cry.  If she's speechless, her heart is too tired for words." Moonlit Mystics

These words feel true to me.  As I have noticed an unease [within myself] to come and blog, I am realizing it is because I feel like I am speaking the same words and feelings over and over.  I certainly know I am tired of talking about scleroderma and the pain and great discomfort it shows me.  I am tired of not feeling energized and ready to take on anything.  To just live (take on) the day with how I often feel is a great feat and an even greater accomplishment when I make it through.  And, I always make it through.  And, I believe and hope that you do too and you are aware of same.

I am tired of not having a workable answer to a more thriving me.  

I keep hearing myself say that I can still love.  I can always choose love.  And, after reading this quote, I do believe that my heart is tired.  Yet, loving is who I am and what I want to be.  It lets me feel and be the grandest of me.

Perhaps, it is time to really stay internal and let the love that I talk about spread and grow throughout my being.  Perhaps, it is time to dwell in my own love and not give it away just now.  Perhaps, my heart is begging for me to use it on myself.  Perhaps, it is time to build a reservoir of love so that I can feel it, live it, be it, know it and then share it.

I know I feel best when I am helping another and deeply connected to our individual experiences.

I do believe that, through our divine connection, we have an unlimited source of love and everything good.  I do believe that when I lose my awareness of connection to this divine source (that is within us all) that I can become depleted.  I have been depleted before.  I am depleted now.  I may be depleted again.

And, in between these depletions, I have known magic, miracles, sustenance, awe, enthrallment and love.

It doesn't feel fun to feel depleted.  It feels 'less than' to me.  But, is it...  Is it just a part of the journey.  How would we know what fulfillment feels like if we do not know the feeling of depletion...

Healing and Healthy

What if being healed and being healthy isn't about always feeling up, able, at the ready and/or charged up.  What if healing and healthy meant to allow whatever comes up for us to be and to allow and entertain it even.

What if not judging, not fighting, not labeling is healing and healthy...  What if being love through it all is the most healing and healthiest thing we can do...

Perhaps, health is not about feeling good all the time.  Perhaps, it is about not screaming and freaking and losing it; not letting anger lead.  What if it was about peace and harmony with what is...

I am willing to try this on/out and see where it takes me and how it makes me feel.

Sleeping, resting, sharing and supporting are healthy to me.  Living in our loving truth is healthy.  Trusting the process of life is healthy.  Being thankful for what we do have in our lives that make it easy and enjoyable is healthy.

May you ask yourself who is the most healthy...  the person angry and fighting or the person experiencing peace and love through what is...

Being human gives us all these options.  You CAN and DO choose what route between these two scenarios you take.

Perhaps, it can be different in each scenario.  Is there such a thing as peaceful anger.  I think there is.

May you be open to all that you are.  Stand in awareness.  Live in awareness.

May you choose the best available option for you.  May you always let your heart be present.  May you be aware if and how you are using your heart.  

In this choosing, perhaps, we invite people and life in or push people and life away and out...

Let what you feel speak to you.  May you speak back by choosing the best route to love for yourself.  In loving yourself, your ability to love others is strengthened.

Let It Be So

It is snowing in many parts of the United States.  Lots of blizzardly, windy, cold northern air is hitting the land.  Cold, ice, and inches of the white stuff has closed schools, businesses, roads and stopped outdoor activities.

I remember there being a tranquility in the air when this happens.  I remember the beautiful scene of ice covered bare tree branches and untouched fallen snow.

Here in Florida, USA, it is cold.  Colder (way colder) than usual.  37 degree F.  This is brrr weather for me.  I feel my body clamping down on itself as I breathe deep and do my best to expand and stay open.  It is easier knowing that this weather is short lived here.  I know it will be warm in a day or two; or soon anyway.  This brings me great comfort.

While I enjoy the freshness of the brisk air, my body responds with purple hands, nose and toes.  My circulation slows down.  My body aches and cries for warmth; for cover(s).

I am living in Florida.  Something I have wanted to do since I was 19 years old.  Something I have done since I was 40 when we purchased our first house here.  We always kept the house up north and would travel back and forth each year.

We no longer have the house up north and this is the only home we own.  I am grateful for living here and it is not as I envisioned.  I am not thriving.  I am letting myself be held back.  I had a doctor up north for 30 years who was helpful and informed (as best as a doctor can be regarding scleroderma).  Pain medication was given to me.  I had to be talked into not feeling guilty about it.  Times have changed.  Only pain doctors give out pain pills now and they are not versed in scleroderma.  I have to prove to them each month that I am not an addict and that I am 'playing' by the rules.  I know for certain that my least favorite day of each month is the day I visit the pain management place.  They count my pills.  I sign a form that says I am not selling or getting pain medicine elsewhere.  They take random drug tests.  I find myself wishing that I could somehow be deemed 'medically necessary' and not have to go through this (what feels like) shame and distrust every month for as long as I am taking/needing pain medicine.  I do know that I am choosing to continue feeling this way.   I do know that I am the only one that can change my thinking regarding this.

I hurt more when it is cold.  I function less when it is cold.  My performance is decreased in the cold.  I feel more battered.

I understand that the new rules are to help people that are taking these medicines in ways that are hurting them quickly; in ways that are actually killing people.  I don't understand that there is not a better way for people that have chronic pain.

I guess it is in the journey.  It is now being addressed.  This issue that narcotics kill, harm and make us addicted/dependent.

So much is being uncovered.  With awareness, truth and openness comes light being shone on what is dark.

We are 'shifting' and while this is a good thing, it is not an easy thing.

For me, it comes back to trusting myself, trusting the process of life and loving one's self and one another through.  It is the best 'feel good' way that I know.  I like the feel good ways over the stress, chaos and fighting.

When we can speak, share and live our truth from a place of love, we win.  We win as best we can.  We know fulfillment because we are standing in our truth; in our own love.

So, while currently, this isn't the Florida I pictured, I am grateful for the Florida weather.  The liveliness of nature and the warmth and ease of not having to wear so many layers and big winter coats (usually).  I love the ocean.  I love the vastness of it; the sound of it.  I love taking in the rolling blue waves with white tips closing in on the shore.  I love the warmer air caressing me.

We all have our good and not so good.  May you let the good of what you see, know and feel be more powerful than the not so good.  May you know the blessings and beauty in your life.

Everything changes.  May we meet life where it is at and from where we are at.  May you love yourself through.  Accept what is as you stay open to change.

May you create peace from within knowing that everything always works out.  We are okay even when we do not feel so.  We handle it.  We live through it.  We can always choose love.

As I open up to the day just as I am and just as it is... I notice what it is that I think South Florida snow looks like.  I share it with you.

May you see the upside, goodness, peace, joy and love in your day.  It is yours to see.  It is always there.  Sometimes, we just have to look a bit harder.

What Florida snow looks like to me... Ha!

Just Do It

It has been cold here in warm, sunny Florida, USA since yesterday.  I see how it is extra cold in many places.  It is extra hot in others.

I want to share what is inside of me through the experience of me and I feel frozen; unable; scared; tired and uncertain as I am learning and connecting to more and more people who read what I write.

It is much easier for me to write to you, my unknown friend.  It is much easier to bare my soul when I don't have to be accountable or questioned.

I stopped taking the medical marijuana for several days now.  I am back to taking more of the pain medicine that the doctor gives me.  I really don't like how I feel on either.  I just know that I don't love how I feel and I am running out of options.

I am wishing for professional help.  I have learned that there is not much help with the dis-ease of scleroderma and not much documented in the field of pain medicine vs. medical marijuana.  I find myself at the forefront of the unknown again.

I can look at it as exciting and there are many possibilities.  I can look at it as tiring and 'egad'.  I seem to go back and forth.  I seem to be lost.  I seem to be stuck.  I am at a large crossing and I'm not feeling great or ecstatic of any of the options (and non-options) front and center.

This has been a long road.  I am grateful for all that I have learned and the empowerment from so many lessons.  I am tired of the struggle and the stand alone places that I find myself.

I am sorry for the people that love me.  I am grateful for the people that love me.

I trust the process of life.  I don't always love the process of life.

This is a new day.  I want to feel it, look at it and live it as such.  This was the first new year that new hope wasn't in me.  Just because the calendar shows a new date doesn't mean that there are new possibilities readily and easily available as changing our calendars.

I find myself in tired despair.  I find myself not knowing what step to take next.  I find myself open to learning more.  I find myself not knowing where this 'more' is.

So, I feel the moments go by; the days go by.  They seem to be going by so fast.  I am grateful for the people that connect to me.  I am grateful for what is inside of me.

I want to live what is inside of me out.  This is a great first start.  And, I know there is more for me.

May I stop being fearful and go after certain moments that arise.  May I open up to courage and be true to what is and who is present.  May I live me fully.

May you stop being whatever is holding you back to letting the full You live out loud. Live as you are until you know how to live differently.  Live yourself fully as much and as often as possible.

We all have something that we think we'd rather not have.  'Have' whatever it is you 'have' and still let the blessing of you out.  Share your gifts.  Be your gifts.  Live your gifts.

In this, your life and, most likely, others' lives will be greater fulfilled.

Amen.  So it is.  Bring it on.  Let's do this.

I simply post this picture because I like it.  I think it is cool, rad, bad, sick and awesome.  May you do something just because you like it.  May you connect to your cool, rad, bad, sick and awesome self.  Connect through love.  Connect through vitality.  Connect to what makes you the most you.

May you just do it because there is something in you that wants you to.

Just Because

The calendar tells me that 2017 is behind us and 2018 is upon us.  The clock tells me what hour of the day it is.  The weather tells me what season it is.  Noise tells me how much is going on.  Silence tells me there are many pathways to discover.  My breath tells me that I am alive.

How I choose to interpret and react to all of the above tells me who I am.

How I feel depends on how I choose to interpret what is present in each moment.

The awareness of all of this can have me believing that I am the 'watcher' along with the one who experiences.

Oh, this being human is a very interesting thing.

We can be alive and love it.  We can wade our way through.  We can participate fully.  We can embrace what is.  We can fight what is.  Regardless of what we bring to the table, life happens.

I want to choose to participate in it.  I choose to connect to the joy in it.  I choose to let love be my partner in it.  I choose to let myself feel my feelings and support myself during it.

I believe that what touches us and how it touches us can be our guidance to where we go; where we want to go and where we do not want to go.

As we live in the awareness of the moment, it can lead us past the fork in the road; to the upside of life or into the downsizing of moments.  In this awareness, our future roads are created and open.  Our own awareness can carry us high or bring us down.  What we pay attention to is what we experience the most.

Just because, may you choose the happy side of your beliefs.  Just because, may you let ease walk with you.  Just because, may you let love walk you through.  Just because, may you choose what thoughts and feelings feel best to you.  Just because, may you fully experience yourself.  Just because, may you support the bright side of you.

And, in the moments, when this doesn't feel possible, may you choose peace within your truth knowing everything changes; everything is temporary; everything happens with the opportunity to be the best version of you.

May you watch, live in and experience the best version of you even when it doesn't feel so and you wish you were experiencing a different breath, season, hour and/or year.

You are the only one that can live your life...  just because that is the way it is supposed to be.

I support you in living you.