Love has always been the answer...but what does it mean to love yourself?

What if we could change this world we see?

What if we could think something new?

Would that be too scary?

What if we could change me and you?

Our thoughts have the power to make it all look gray

Our words have the power to to take it all away

Our actions have the power to hurt or to heal

Nothing really matters 'cept how we feel

There is a way to change the story

There is an idea for us to ponder

Reach inside for all the answers

If you can imagine you must wonder

The world we see right now

Isn't the only reality

We can think new thoughts and make it better

A better world for you and me

It will take a lot to make this work

There are no more prophets to hear

We are the ones that have come

To save us from a world of fear

Love has always been the answer

We must be our own best friends

Love ourselves to love another

Then the cycle of hate will end

I wrote this poem last week and will likely turn it into a song as I am long to do these days. But I questioned myself this morning about what it means to love ourselves. I have given this advice to two people I love recently and both of them were hurting at the time. It didn't exactly fall on deaf ears but I could feel the question...how do I do that exactly when I feel so bad right now??

Does it mean that you try your best to fall in love with the human characteristics that make up what we appear to be on the outside? I think not. I think it means that we come to a place where we are in touch with the LOVE that IS us. To love ourselves means that we go inside and get acquainted with the LOVE that is always there, always present, because it cannot not be. That is what my friend Noelle is referring to when she tells someone they are "magnificent". It doesn't mean the art you just created or the song I just wrote nor how shiny your hair is nor how bright your smile may be. And yet it does because it also refers to the LOVE within you that is shining outward because you tapped into it and allowed it to be shared. That is when we are loving yourselves. 

We don't always feel good about life. We have good days and bad days but that love is always there inside ready to guide us to be at peace in this moment no matter what is going on in our outside world. 
But how to access this wondrous balm we are all ARE? I suppose it is different for each of us. I don't know anything for sure. There are lots of books that have been written, lots of songs that have been sung about love and how to find it. For me, it is to go inside and notice that inner silence, the still small voice and sit with her, get to know the LOVE there. Sometimes it comes to me when journaling and a poem just comes out of nowhere (just like the one I wrote on this page). This is when I feel connected and at peace. It is as if a muscle because the more I go there the easier it becomes to hear and feel this true self, the inner voice that is this energy I call LOVE. Others call it God and I don't mind that at all. It is what we are, what we have always been and what we will forever be. 
So, on those bad days when someone tells you to love yourself more, before we hit them or walk away in disgust, maybe we could remember who and what we really are and feel that love for ourselves. I like to think of it as the love I knowingly give to my grandchildren with that really sincere smile on my face going inward as a gift to myself. It feels really good when I remember to do that when I am otherwise feeling bad. That is what it means to be your own best friend. Allow yourself to give to you what you give to others. Like praise and patience, time and tenderness. We so easily give it to the ones we love...hmm. Ones we love but not ourselves...
Love has always been the answer and maybe THAT is what is means to love ourselves. 

We can change the way we see the world
We can think something new
We can love ourselves and each other
We can change me and you

Reflections

Is it a lake full of clouds or a sky full of water

Are we bodies with a soul or souls with bodies

Does life happen while we are awake during the day 

or dreaming at night

Is one person wrong and the other one right

Who are we really and why are we here

What is real and what is only perception

I see the clouds in the lake and the lake in the sky

Am I the only one having this misconception

So many questions running through my head

While I have been distracted by pain and lying in my bed

Meditating and pondering on what has been said

Thinking of the future and where I have been led

Going within...I get comfortable here

Slowly making connection to Source

It is undeniably there

I can find all the answers inside if I dare

To slow down and listen to my Inner Being

The wise, calming Presence

The life force that gently guides me

This is my Eternal Essence

But seldom do I hear it

When there's too much noise inside my head 
 Over the years that seems to be changing
I am allowing and opening instead

Just breathe, in and out

Get quiet and very still

Remember and feel the Divine

I can Be that if I will

Mother Nature, a song

I sort of challenged my self  to write a new song the other day while watching the sun set and here it is...
The sun is setting...pinks and gold
Color the sky, beautiful and bold

Mother Nature has a way of making me feel small
The problems of this world
Aren't Her problems at all.

Sun and moon, stars and sky
Never fail to make me wonder why

The rain has fallen on the desert land
The smell reminds me that my senses can
Appreciate the wonder and awe
That life begins again and again

Mother nature has a way of making me feel small
And the problems of this world aren't Her problems at all

Sun and moon, stars and sky never fail to make me wonder why

The sun is setting, the day is nearly done
The trials and tribulations...they could never have won..cuz

Mother Nature has a way of making me feel small
And the problems of this world, aren't Her problems at all.

Sun and moon, stars and sky never fail to make me wonder why...wonder why.

September Skies at Night

The milky Way
September skies
At night
Makes me think
Of times gone by
When first I laid eyes on them
Searching for something else
Ever since that moment
So small in the Universe
The millions of eyes in the
Night glow of the September
Night skies stare back at me
All knowing
Even in the daylight
When those skies are brilliant blue
They spy, those knowing skies
They spy and wonder who
Who am I to stare beyond my universe,
My world and wonder what
What it is I came here for
And what it is I should do
Maybe there is someone there
There beyond the clouds
staring back down at me
And wondering
Wondering how
How it is that they are there
There beyond my view
Viewing their world
Their universe
And never wondering who.

Picture Perfect

"The perfect outcomes are already selected. The right path will be revealed and perfectly shown." I am becoming "one who peacefully trusts this process."

Those first two sentences came from a prayer I read today written to welcome in the new moon tomorrow. The third sentence I changed up just a bit  because I AM changing and becoming more accepting of who I am and how I got to be this person that I am today. 

I am not perfect to anyone else but me. Unless you have the ability to see others as perfect exactly as they are in this moment. That is what I am birthing with this new moon. Not perfection but birthing the ability to see things, people, situations as perfect in their respective moments. 

"Change me O Divine Beloved into one who can breathe and relax into this holy birth...allowing all to open and unfold just as it needs."

Everything happens for a reason. 

I have always believed these words to be true. Sometimes it is hard to find or see the reason but that doesn't mean that it isn't there right in front of us. Sometimes we don't want to see the reason. Sometimes we just want to be angry or hurt or let our ego run amok so that if we saw the reason we would be forced to reason with the logic of the everything that has happened. Read that one again if you need to because that my friends is what I have learned from my life in the last week. 

I was forced to reason with logic (and my heart and soul) and find the real reason that a simple phone call had upset me so. What a gift!! 

Triggers. You have heard of trigger points in the body...those little tight balls of pain in your neck and shoulders? Yes? 

Well, our emotions and feelings have trigger points as well. They are there for a reason. They are there for us to go inside...way deep down inside at times and press even harder on those points until they tell us why it is they are there. Patterns. Usually you have developed a pattern in relation to how you cope with certain stimuli in your life. These patterns can be very helpful in times of stress but can also be very hurtful if they are not allowing you to feel the emotions you need to feel...and release.

Feel and release. Have you ever been too afraid to feel something? Have you known that maybe you have stuffed some emotion in your past because at the time you weren't ready to deal with it? Later, maybe you thought now, now I can let that come up for me and get it out. But as soon as you start to reflect on the occasion it feels pretty painful again so you just stuff it back down there for a better day. Try to just feel and release instead of stuffing it back down again. Feeling it for the moment doesn't mean dwelling in it. It doesn't mean reliving it. It only means that you recognize that the event caused you some pain, anger, fear, whatever and that you now release it from your being. That way the trigger gets released and you move on. You begin to feel lighter and more confident that you could just possibly start to feel and release even more and deeper trigger points in your emotional body. 

Another revelation I had this week is that as caregivers...many of us are walking around as wounded healers. We are constantly in search for better cures, better methodologies and better outcomes for the ones we are caring for. As healthcare professionals we are usually in search of these things for our patients, clients, family and friends. But let's go back to the wounded healer because that is where we get off track. In search of these new treatments we forget that it is us that is really needing them and we neglect our own healing. We go to seminars, learn new skills, go off on tangents of new age, alternative health so that our knowledge base will increase. What we don't remember though is that the knowledge is within us. Everything we need to know to heal ourselves is inside us right now. You don't have to be a healthcare professional or alternative healer to be in this scenario but if you are you may, if your anger, hurts and ego will step aside, see yourself here. Ask yourself why do I keep learning and learning, giving and giving and still I have unresolved issues that I cannot seem to be done with. 

I think it is because we are trying to help others before we help ourselves and that in doing so we can never get to a place of healing. I have now been a nurse half my life. I am only now finding the healing that I have so desperately needed and I did not find it by learning new healing skills other than what I already had inside me. I am learning acceptance. I am learning forgiveness. I am learning unconditional love. For me, those are the skills that I can use for myself to feel and release, to become the best version of me that I can be.

I have to acknowledge that there are people in my life that I am very blessed to have that help me help myself. Some are family and some are not but they are all my best friends in the very sense of those two words. They don't just tell me what I want to hear. They challenge me to think and feel and become the best version of me that I can be. I want to thank each and every one of you. You make me smile on the inside! And I love you so...

Sunshine on a cloudy day

There is a 30% chance of snow today. It is supposed to be cloudy out there...how else would we get snow if not for clouds but there are none. The land is very dry. We had a wonderful Monsoon season this year but once that faucet dried up so did everything else. Do I care what the weather brings? Does it matter if the forecasters are wrong in their predictions and we don't get that blessed moisture the mesa so dearly desires? Maybe not. If everything happens for a reason then there is a reason that the sun is shining when it is supposed to be cloudy. Maybe somewhere in these west central mountains of New Mexico someone is sitting sadly in their home unable to face a day of clouds. Maybe the sunshine is just what they need to make it through another day.It is supposed to get colder here as well. High of 44 they say...it is 10:30 in the morning and my thermometer reads 47. Maybe that same person might be able to go outside and take a little walkabout because it isn't cloudy and oh-so cold. Who of us knows what we each need in this very moment? Is there really a little voice in our heads or hearts that we could listen to and know exactly in each in every moment what we need? I would say yes. I would say that if we could get quiet and listen we would hear that soothing voice inside telling us what to do or where to be or to just breathe. I listened to that voice inside me this past week and wrote a letter that needed to be written to someone I have never met. I mailed that letter too and it felt good. I did what I said I was going to do and that alone felt good, empowering. I might never know if the letter will have any effect on the person(s) it was intended for but that is okay too. My voice inside told me that what mattered most was that I wrote it and I sent it and for me my work was done. It is up to the receiver to listen to their own voice, or not. That is a good lesson for me as well. I can only listen to my inner voice and I cannot make anyone else listen to theirs...no matter how loud I might want to speak I am not their inner voice now am I? 
So, it isn't looking like snow today. It is creeping toward the middle of December already. Many people have decorated for the holidays and are going to parties to celebrate the season. My husband and I were guests of my parents last night at the Historical Society's annual Christmas party. It was nice to go and see so many people taking part in the community that we live in out here in this vast land with more elk per square mile than humans. There was a lovely harpist playing in the background...music is food for the soul. Music is what sustains us in so many instances. I have been learning to play the guitar for the last couple of years and have found my singing voice in the process. What I have learned is that if I am playing and singing for my own enjoyment then it is food for MY soul but if I am worried about how I sound to others then it is depleting instead of nourishing. I cannot have my soul starving so I play for me. Doing the things that bring us joy whether musically related or not may be the most important things we can do for ourselves while we are here...in this life. If you aren't doing the things that bring you joy what are you doing? I think I might be very blessed to have gleaned this little tidbit and therefore I am going to endeavor to remember to do the things, or at least one of them, every day. Today, I am writing...this brings me joy. The thermometer continues to rise...the sky is still blue...it brings me joy to be outside and take a walk so before those clouds decide to materialize I am going to get out there and breathe in the sunshine and relative warmth while it lasts! May we all do something that bring us joy. What a happy world we would have...many blessings to you this day!

Black Friday...has a new meaning for me now

I met a beautiful, artistic, and firecracker of a woman in April of this year in a town about an hour away. My husband met her before I did and remarked to me that I would certainly find in her a friend...he said we were cut from the same cloth. We hit it off immediately and had an opportunity in May to spend some time together as we drove four hours for an all day workshop the next day. We talked the entire trip, on breaks from the class and all the way home and found lots in common. Except for one thing. She had breast cancer. She, after being treated harshly and "like a number", by a surgeon in the biggest city in our rural state, decided to go the natural path to wellness. She was seeing a Naturopath doctor and eating only whole foods, drinking teas, taking lots of supplements and other alternative treatments. I, being a nurse, had slightly mixed feelings about her choice but was convinced by her enthusiasm that she was doing the 
right thing for herself. In fact, I grew to admire her decision and applauded her commitment to the strict regimen of her natural treatments. Her husband, who I have not yet met (but sounded a bit like my own), supported her in her decision. Her sisters however, gave her quite the hard time over it and attempted to change her mind at every opportunity. She came from a big family and was the baby so that must have been somewhat intimidating for her. Time went by as it always does and I hadn't seen her since July. I knew at that time that she was having tests done to check the progress of the cancer and make sure things were on track. I never found out the outcome of those tests as they were being put off at the time. In early November I learned that things had gotten much worse for her and that she was in hospital in and that the town was having a benefit to help raise money for her hospital bills. One person told me..."at least she is now getting treatment", which I took to mean 
chemotherapy. She must have been feeling so defeated. I prayed for her but did not make the three hour journey to visit her in hospital as our time together was so brief I felt like it was a time for family and not a passing (if not friendly) stranger. Last night I heard at my own dinner table that she passed away on Friday...BLACK Friday to be exact. She left behind her husband and one son, in his early to mid 20's who was attending university. I am so saddened by this news. No, we didn't have a long history together but there was certainly a connection. One of those connections where, when you meet, you feel like you had known them your whole life.

I am still proud of my friend for making the decision she made in treating her body of this horrid disease. She didn't fail. She succumbed in the end but not without taking a journey that she might never had taken otherwise. She found that life is more than mean people, more than being a number, and more than just doing what you are told to do by those who consider themselves the authority. I will miss her, I already do.