Practice the Pause

Spring seems to be showing itself around here, unseasonably early. Most are welcoming the weather with great joy! I like it too, but am somewhat apprehensive that winter is over just yet. However, today is fabulous so I'll get out there and give my car some much needed attention. :) 

I claimed this year to be the year of de-clutter for me. When Cliff was in addiction, I probably really needed to do this mundane task but my mind couldn't make a solid decision on what to keep and what to toss. Some people are true taskmasters and relish the opportunity to dig in deep when their plate is loaded with family struggles. They find healing and clarity through the process ~ it's quite cathartic. Me? I was looking for love in all the wrong places - through food and a comfy chair with a blanket. I simply sank deeper into my personal world of woe and twisted my mind all around the challenge and life of my son. An unhealthy reality for me really had nothing to do with Cliff. I didn't have any skills in life care. And I didn't pursue them well. It was just easier for me to place the blame on everything else going on around me only I didn't notice that I was doing life that way. All of my statements began with "some day, I'm going to ..." or "some day, I'm going to be..." or "some day, my prince will come...".   You get the idea. 

Now, it's years later and thankfully Cliff is in a healthier place, but so am I. And my healthier choices are unrelated to Cliff's life choices. They are my own.  

The years can be helpful or hateful. I am happy to see that in my life, recovery has brought me to a place of well being and hopefully wisdom. I find that I've been able to learn to pause and listen to what God, my Higher Power, would like me to know. It comes slowly at times and often through prayer and meditation but sometimes through the affirmations of others in conversation. They don't even know they are being used by God to tell me something He wants me to know!

Learning to pause allows you to take a breath. Sit back and process what's really going on. Don't let others ever push you into something you aren't willing to say yes to.  The person that's trying to rush your decision  making process is usually out for one thing. Themselves.  

Pause often through the day. Let your spirit be at ease. Sometimes you have to practice the pause every hour just to get through the current reality.  Pause and pray.  

You've got nothing to lose but your own peace of mind. 

*Picture googled*

A Promise is A Promise

Tis' the season following Christmas when many folks are struggling with one heartbreak after another. I'm not typically affected by an event or calendar date once a trauma has passed me by. I know many folks who almost seem to plan that once something has affected a holiday, that forevermore that same holiday is tainted. I think perhaps a person is pre-planning their mindset and scheduling the affect as a bondage or being held hostage by the thing they cannot change.   

I must admit however that this year, right now,  I've been struggling with the loss of my mom 10 years ago this June and during a mid-day snooze the other day I had a disturbing dream. My healthy mother was in it.  She visits me now and again in dreams and mostly never says anything or comes near, but often is just smiling at me.  This time though I was feeling so saddened by her absence that when she suddenly appeared I was sobbing and telling her how much I've missed her. My mother was hugging me so tightly that I'm sure I sensed her spirit with me.  It brought me peace yet I awoke with tears still brimming in my eyes and running down my cheeks. Ah, mom some days I want you here so badly, but believing what I do, you're not really longing to be here. Why would she long to leave a perfect place with the loving presence of her Savior to come back to a world wrought with pain, suffering and sorrow?  I don't think she is. 

Today would have been my parents 63rd anniversary had it not been for the dreaded PSP or at least that's what  I'd like to believe. Very possibly something else could have occurred but we hang our hats on the disease that took our lovely mother prematurely away. Can you imagine being married sixty-three years to the same person?  It's a remarkable journey and I applaud any couple that lands on each marking point still standing together by choice.  I remember so many little tidbits of Mom and Dad's marriage and in the last 3 years of their life together I was privileged to be there daily. While I've mentioned it before in my writings, one of my fondest memories is my dad feeding the first line of a song that he and my mother knew from their era of music, and my mom would dutifully sing the next line. A pattern that was put in place long before mom was ill carried into a time when they longed for some routine and normalcy.  I loved hearing mom sing when I was younger and now waited with bated breath to hear her utter her part loud and clear.  This went on day after day and it was one of the little ways that dad kept mom engaged in life when she might rather have been left quietly alone. It was a complete effort for mom to put together any sentence let alone sing a line of a song, but she would muster up all the energy she could and take her part, delighting us each time.  It was my parents love language and I was a voyeur in their inner sanctum. 

As mom's disease progressed she needed help with absolutely everything and so at bedtime we developed a routine together.  Dad was tired by the end of the day and on the nights I was available I would walk mom back to the bedroom and help her do all the things necessary to tuck her in at night. On one occasion we began our two-step when suddenly 85 pounds of nothingness stopped dead in her tracks ~ Mom may as well have been 1000 lbs.  I said "Mom, whats up?"  She had paused next to my father's chair and he answered, "Oh, I almost forgot. Earlier today your mother threatened to kiss me goodnight".  Mom giggled and bent over as best she could to kiss my dad and when she stood up again he said "I want you to know that you are the finest person I have ever known in my life and you have done far more for me than I could have ever done for you."   I was frozen in place as I heard this intimate exchange of love so unexpected, even by my mother.  Not to be anything other than a human male, the next phrase from my dad was "now, why are you crying?" :)

I tucked my mom in bed that night, put her eye drops in and kissed her on the cheek. An action with my mom that I never imagined I would be doing but cherished as each day went by. Sometimes I went right back to what I was doing before I walked her to bed, and other nights I went to my room and sobbed. 

Fifty-three years didn't come easy, I'm sure.  But as my dad said at a memorial luncheon for mom, "Everyone keeps saying to me what an honorable man I've been, but in my day when you said I do, that meant for better or worse. A promise is a promise." Thank you mom and dad, for the memory and the legacy. 

2012, We Bid Adieu!

As the end of another year draws to a close what are your thoughts?  Are you thinking "good riddance" or "wow, what a great year this was and I can't wait to see what 2013 will bring!" ?  For a long time option  number one was my choice and turning the page of another calendar year meant nothing to me. Nothing was going to change, I thought.  I was sooooo wrong!

Change your thoughts, change your life is a great and popular motto to live by today.  With recovery I would add, "change your thoughts, change your actions, change your life."  I have to add that middle step because you and I both know how we can live out our thoughts in our mind but still do nothing about it. Faith and recovery has allowed me to garner up the courage and strength to take my productive thoughts, put them into steps and receive a positive result of a changed life. That is followed by a changed heart.  Lighter, freer and more joyful.

So, what about you?  I quit doing resolutions long ago because as you know most resolutions aren't kept.  However, I am choosing to make some life changes even today going into the new year.  I attend church just about every week and am in touch with my faith family regularly.  Those you surround yourself with have the greatest impact on your life.  Yesterday the pastor was talking about a couple of things, but one of the things he referred to was how important it is to have remembrances of the changes and blessings that have come into your life through each year. You know there were events or situations that have come along and you felt overwhelmed or lost and wondered how you were going to get through it.   Time ticks by and soon it's weeks or months down the road and you find that you've survived or overcome that thing that tried to trip you up.  But oh, how easy it is to have these memories walk away quietly. Oh, you might never forget the major blessings and good fortunes that came your way, but what about the smaller players?  I was with my little family yesterday, all of us together, in the most healthy get together in years.  My heart was at peace and full of joy when "I lay my head down now to sleep."  I can now recall that my life hasn't always been full of sad addiction stories or sagas of enabling mishaps that ruled or dictated my life. No,  in fact I must call to mind all the ways that the Lord has walked me through the most tumultuous days of my life and has even blessed me through it. I want to remember how he placed people I had never met, into my path for the purpose of finding my way back to a healthy life no longer held hostage by addiction and step into the promises He has beckoned me too. 

So going into the new year, my cousin Leslie Hamp, posted a great suggestion that backs up yesterday's message about filling your new year with joy.   Here's the link to a great suggestion and I'm off to find myself a LARGE empty jar! I know at the end of  2013 I'm going to love to review all my love and joy notes!

Happy New Year! Expect something big!