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Integrity

 

I’ve been thinking about integrity.

It is interesting to me because I keep being curious about what I am to get from this experience of MS.   It is my nature and belief to sense the probability that the challenge I am dealing with here is not random and is here for a reason.   At least this way of looking at it keeps me entertained if nothing else.

Thus,  my looking at  ’integrity’.   In my youth I used to be a champion gymnast.   I took first place in floor exercise when I was 14 at the state finals in Michigan.  I also competed in the balance beam and uneven parallel bars.  I know what integrity in a human body feels like.  What I experience today is not that.

So… it makes me think:   “Where in my life am I out of integrity?   What can I do about it?”   And will doing something about it help my body feel more integrated?

Intuitively,  I know the answer is yes.

So..  I am going to make this month about integrity,  which is defined in the dictionary as ‘an unimpaired condition, undivided.”

Too Small For You

 

 TOO SMALL FOR YOU

 

You must learn one thing:

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds

Except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes the darkness and the sweet

Confinement of your aloneness

To learn

Anything or anyone

That does not bring you alive

Is too small for you.

 

-David Whyte

***************************

As someone who’s  ’tucked herself in’  energetically most of her life,  I really wonder if alot of this whole MS adventure is some of the effect of that very act of making myself smaller.   I spend so much time alone because it is in my own company I get the sweetness of my natural self.  By that,  I mean the energetic gymnastics I am prone to do around others is forgotten and I feel wide,  soft,  purposeful,  perfect,  light,  funny,  awestruck by the smallest things,  sexy,  creative and grateful most of all.  Now, understand that I love people and am certainly not the monastic type yet that life has had it’s appeal when most of my game was gone… but I am too feisty and all those pesky rules would kill me.

With the advent of my slower,  more careful body,  it gives me time to choose more consciously how I spend my time.  I dated a man awhile back and felt awkward at my inability to just pace walking according to how fast my spirit wanted to go;  quicker with impending rain and flirty female behavior.  I told him and his response was that he liked the slower pace as we always seem to feel we have to get places fast and so we miss good stuff.

I am continually surprised by the addition of treasures to my pile as I empty out,  slow down,  refine more,  talk less.  The cultural grip is gritty and strong and if I were to choose one gift above all others that MS has given me it would be the enforced shove through the glittery cultural gates into nothingness,  which seems to be everything,  after all.

5:30 am Tuesday

 

 

I woke up this morning wondering where my inner ballast was?

I feel sort of cast out to sea, out of my body.

Then I remembered my beautiful teenage friend,  Jena,  is in the hospital.  She is made of the brightest light and I love her.

I often feel things that are not generated by me,  in particular,  but perhaps by someone whose presence I’m in or,  in this case,  someone I love.

Part of my healing is to recognize that I am a sensitive person and to learn to discriminate what is mine and what energies I am picking up from others.   There is too much chaos out there and I have enough of my own so it behooves me to be able to claim mine and leave the rest.

The things that help me do this are silence,  meditation,  careful choices regarding time spent with others and a periodic scan of my energy.

Today,  as my friend lies in the hospital and deals with all the anesthetic strangeness,  healing and trauma her precious body has been through,  I will let myself feel her as fully as I can and send her as much strength and clarity and love I can muster and know,  without a doubt that if I can wake to feeling her- she most surely can register my love.

Tribe

 

I set the table for my dinner party the other night with white linen,  white flowers in tiny vases all down the center of the table,  candles and a hundred chips of mirror sprinkled throughout.    The whole effect was very white and shimmery; bordering on wedding-like but I just let it be because it made me feel good.

I have not had enough energy or the impetus to give a dinner for two years at least.  It is a fine sign indeed, that the evening even happened.

I am so watchful as I heal,  of the experiences and people I invite into my inner circle.  I want nothing that does not contribute to a thriving life.    For someone not dealing with a challenging body,   this attitude could sound juvenile and ‘pie-in-the-sky’.    After all – aren’t we supposed to suffer through and hold our heads up high with the pride of an ancestral value system that is so ingrained in us that it feels irresponsible when it gets the boot?

I invited 7 people because those were the people I wanted to be around;  no ‘duty invitations’,   just pure and selfish enjoyment on my part.  I made the main dish and asked others to bring salad,  dessert,  etc.    Right there, the scent of guilt peeked around the corner because asking people to bring things signifies NEED….  In my family,   we were supposed to be seem as capable,   energetic,   charming and well- heeled at all times.  NEVER EVER be caught needing anything.

Well,   the tribe I assembled around my table didn’t care what I wore;  only that I was happy.  I was.    Infinitely so.    Because I sat at a table of truth- tellers;  compassionate,  fun,  funny,  courageous,  naturally human in the best sense;  no performance and a respectful sense of something larger than themselves at work.

My tribe has certainly shifted in personalities,  number and values held over the last few years.  There is certainly grief in the witnessing of my boat pulling out of the harbor in search of new shores.  But today…   I am happy.    I feel healthy and at peace with my life,   my loves,  my choices.    When I was a teenager the thought of peace and serenity as values to shoot for was just plain laughable!    We wanted ECSTASY!  Full-tilt consciousness bloating;   electric and glittering.    Don’t get me wrong- I hunger for ecstatic,   heightened aliveness.  It just wears different clothes;  surprising me that they never seem to come from Saks Fifth Avenue and happen most often when I am in my own skin instead of hankering after another’s.

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