What you see is What you Get

I am all of the above. I am my gifts and my strengths and my light. I am also my weaknesses and my liabilities. I am my darkness and I'm not ashamed of an ounce of it. What you see is what you get - Parker Palmer-

I was reading a conversation between Rabbi Ariel Burger and Parker Palmer.  Both have written books on suffering, healing and joy.  The above quote I felt was so powerful.  Embracing yourself exactly as you are is a process.  It is an ever evolving journey.  How can we look at ourselves and not be ashamed of the light and dark within us? It takes courage and vulnerability to see ourselves exactly as we are.  Sometimes seeing the dark can lead to a state of depression.  The suffering we feel can make us become brittle, angry and cynical.   Years of shame and doubt have been embedded in our psyche and we don't know what to do with.  

A helping hand that you can lean on across the way is often the gateway to even look at your darkness.  The hand could be in the form of a spiritual teacher, a therapist, an energy worker, a personal trainer,  a friend.  That hand is non-judgmental, ever loving and a supportive person.  It allows you to face the negative and make small steps to get to the other side.  But our darkness never goes away.  What we learn to do is manage it, and with the help of someone,  find tools to keep it from shutting down.   

We all have experienced suffering in some form or the other.  How does it affect us?  What do we do with that suffering?  Do we use that as a blessing knowing that it can have the potential to heal another.  

Take for example, my experience as as breast cancer survivor.  It was a form of physical suffering in terms of what the body goes through - but it was also a time of really looking at my darkness and accepting it.  Whether it was eating habits, or lack of exercise, or not knowing how to say no - all of these takes honesty and vulnerability to admit "I need help."  

And Help is not bad.  It puts you in contact with others who have gone through similar situations and provides you with that extra support to embrace yourself.   And now that I am okay with the "all of me" - how can I be a source of support to someone else who may need that.  

Imagine a world if it was filled with that kind of healing - and we use it as a blessing.  How wonderful would that be?   

Journaling Prompt:   Begin with "What you see is What you get" - and write for 2-5 minutes.   

Happy Journaling!

Healing - A Work in Progress

Writing is like exercising. The more you do it, the stronger you are with flexibility, with muscle development and endurance. But if you stop, then it takes everything from you to get back into the game. I believe something like this happened to me. I haven't written in the last four years. Every time I try to pinpoint why, I can't find an answer. I find excuses- not enough time, too tired, too much work, and then at the final excuse is "who am I doing this for." For myself or to get some type of feedback. These excuses are all valid. Work consumed me, stress got the best of me, and then I got sick. I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in fall of 2018. This is when everything came tumbling down. Questions of "how" and "why" and focusing on treatment was the priority. Writing was at the bottom of my list. I felt like a hypocrite because I knew that writing is a way to healing -and I have written about it but this time - it was an intentional resistance. I refused to engage. 

 

The blogs stopped and I had some serious soul work and searching to do. My treatment came first. Then came serious quality of life decisions that would change how I live my life. When I did pick up my pen, the journal entries would focus on gratitude for being alive and cancer free. I would journal but more for self- analysis resolving old wounds.  It was my private time - time for me to really heal. It has been two years that I am cancer free and not a day goes by that I am not conscious of impermanent life is. And with Covid, the reality was greater. Life can be snatched at any second.  It brought that reality to the surface.  And what is the result - you either retreat or move forward.   

 My healing these past couple of years came from other sources - and I was okay with it. Writing wasn't the way for me at that time, but instead it was movement. As humans we hold so many emotions in our body - and how conscious are we of them? During my cancer treatment, I had to focus on release of emotions - such as fear, anger, shame, regret, and loss.  I found that no matter how much I wrote, it did not give me the same kind of release that I needed.  I found joy in yoga and I found release. I learned to let go and be fluid. It taught me to be comfortable with my body - something that I have struggled with all my life. It taught me acceptance. The other form of healing came through nature. Walking in nature left me feeling refreshed and renewed. The very act of walking by having your feet touch the ground and your arms move up and down was a form of letting go. Cold crisp air, solid giant trees, the sounds of the birds, the sun shining down all let to a sense of wonder. Every time I went on a walk, it was like a ritual. It involved choosing different spots where I could walk. It would involve challenging myself to walk in areas that were difficult to do (climbing up hill) and I would always come out of there feeling refreshed and renewed. I began an obsession with sunrises and sunsets. I loved watching the sun set - and seeing the colors that covered through the sky. It was watching the beauty of grace unfold before you.   What a wonderful thing Grace is when you see it scatter in various aspects of your life.  And last but not least meditation. Meditation took me inward so I could be strong to face the day ahead with poise.  Healing never stops.  

And then something happened in 2020.  We all were struck by the pandemic.    This pandemic has created something in each of us that will take a long time for all of us to heal. Lockdowns meant that I could only do walks that were in my close by vicinity. My outside trips, like many, have been limited to the grocery shops and my close by family. Like many our household has been completely remote for the last couple of months. It has been difficult to tell the difference between days at times. Cooking is our new past time. And although I hear about how wonderful of a time it is to begin a new hobby, I am honestly exhausted to even try anything. We are working but in a different way - from the confines of our home - where boundaries have to be set, expectations that have to be met at work, and rest and renewal in the beginning seemed impossible. Having come into a year into this pandemic (it will be a year March 16th) I can truly say that all those modalities that I undertook during my cancer treatment came in handy.  This pandemic has made everyone a mixed bag of emotions.  The constant information that we were being bombarded with in the news was overwhelming and we needed to each find our own ways to work this this world trauma.  And writing was not one of the ways - because it was too overwhelming to write about the feelings.  Sometimes words doesn't do it justice.  And you need to release those feelings in other forms.  

And so here I am writing after the last couple of years - hoping to continue to write some more - from a survivor perspective.  Whether we suffer a personal loss, or like the pandemic we have all suffered some type of loss - and it takes courage, strength and perseverance and resiliency to come out alive through it all.  We are all survivors of some kind and in some way we have all held onto to some type of hope - because hope is what gives us the courage to move through the process. 

A writing prompt to help close this...

I have lost ......

I have survived .....

Happy Journaling!!