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Power Tool For Change #2- “THE VACUUM”

Within the intensity of this schoolroom of moving to a new home, I am tested and thrown to my knees (literally).

Last night, as I got up to let my dog out, I fell.

Nothing damaged and I am fine but I speak with more authority this morning as I talk about what needs to happen in my life to keep living, essentially.

Not just that, but to thrive while doing so.

Today, we’ll visit THE VACUUM.

Here’s a story:

A good friend is smack in the middle of a divorce following years of what seemed a solid and vital partnership.

She has good taste and found herself test driving a yellow mercedes convertible.

Every cell in her body was thanking her for the wind in her hair and the identity-enhancement of the whole thing..

It was blessed peace to be transported to something ELSE..

The point here, is that the filling up and shifting into anything OTHER THAN the subject at hand will turn around and bite you.

If my wise friend had allowed herself to write a check for that yellow panacea, she’d be LESS THAN, not MORE.

She would have filled her very emptiness with an attention-grabbing experience that would have left her soul dry and hungry at some point.

Closer to home, in my own personal experience, my nervous system is overloaded with the worry and concern regarding the progression of the weakness in my body.

An antidote to the overload is an emptying out of EVERYTHING THAT IS NOT SERVING ME IN SOME WAY.

Creating a vacuum where there once was STUFF and TIRED OUT PRACTICES and ANNOYING PILES OF UNDONE TASKS and MEDICATIONS TAKEN OUT OF FEAR AND NOT PROOF OF EFFICACY and CLOTHES WITH BUTTONS I CAN NO LONGER FASTEN and TOLERATIONS OF ALL COLORS AND SHAPES which I am no longer willing or able to address.

I MUST HAVE ROOM!

Funny, how downsizing allows a manageable peek into what is stealing energy.

You take what works and leave the rest.

Turns out, I actually need very little.

PEACE OF MIND is my goal as the efforts toward healing cannot happen in any other garden, no matter how sexy or fast or yellow.

How much can you take away before you lose the essence of a thing?

The power is in the laying down of what used to be called ‘The American Dream’ and the active waiting for what wants to be taken up.

This is hard-going, this segueing into the truth of authentic need and desire.

It looks funny and awkward to others and may be unpopular at best.

But people will watch you out of the corner of their eye and see the shift you are making toward a very palpable peace.

Shake It Up

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Forever enchanted with new horizons, I tend toward what might look like a life steeped in insecurity.

I often hanker after a hundred year-old porch swing on a veranda attached to a family-held estate with kids playing bad clarinet and an old yellow lab keeping my feet warm.

But that’s another life….

Certainly not this one.

Recently, I completed a seminar in public speaking for professionals.

One of my homework assignments included creating a 7 minute talk which would be videotaped.

The topic I chose was CHANGE.

Not just change, but how to thrive (or just be ok) within it.

This past month has brought the sale of my home, two weeks to find a new place to live, packing and the physical and emotional tumult that goes along with all that multiplied by 10 as my nervous system tried to keep it’s fragile boundaries intact.

I was so out of it that I totally forgot my own advice I had presented in the seminar.

For the next few days here, on my blog, I’d like to take some time to remind myself and share with you some of the key points I came up with regarding THRIVING IN THE FACE OF CHANGE.

The first of these I call POINT OF VIEW.

Here’s an example:

Cathy moves into a little doll’s house of an apartment.

She chooses it because it is filled with light and it feels like a safe retreat for her to do some needed healing.

In her health challenge, the value system she holds keeps changing.

Right now, her need for light and security and an energetic sense of support prompt the choice of this postage stamp sized home.

Here, she sits amidst boxes and gritty floors from the movers and no dog door for the chihuahua, Olivia, and passageways only just accommodating her walker.

This is a great place but she is mired in self-doubt in her exhaustion.

Possibility is a far-away country at this point.

She is challenged and starts to spiral down.. and down..

But WAIT!

Hold on a second, here.

Wasn’t there hope and inspiration and clarity and an eagerness to meet the unfamiliarity of the place just a day or two ago?

And isn’t she a resilient and creative human being intent on adventure and opening to new territory?

And isn’t there light pouring through the bay window and a dog curled at her back; peaceful in the midst of all this chaos?

I’m not professing any pithy new age aphorisms that leave one cold and empty of a good reality check.

Shifting ones’ point of view is extremely good medicine if you happen to find living well an attractive concept.

Can’t walk today? Lost your job? Burned the dinner?

Cry a bit if you must then remember all we can count on is change and enjoy the time in
between.

It is at times like these that I hobble to the mirror and put on my favorite pink lipstick, blot my lips and begin again..

Usually works every time.

I’m pretty sure tomorrow is in the not too distant future.

It’s all in your point of view..

Further

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I’m reading a book right now in which they talk about the mantra of “FURTHER.”

I like it.

Not in a running- away -from- something kind of way.

But more like moving ever toward the sense of something larger than we know.

“The core of goodness,” a wise man named Erich Schiffmann once said.

What I have learned for myself is that when I move from one point to another; either physically as in the relocation I am in the process of making now, or trying out new behaviors or making new marks in an art piece; if I do that from an inner prompting instead of pure rationality, stuff works.

‘Further’ feels awkward at first.

The familiar is giving way to the ‘call.’

Unknown, untested territory.

But what, I ask you, is better than THAT?

Yes, things don’t always work out the way we have decided they should.

If I always got every thing (read: Tom, Dick and Harry..) that I was so SURE were right for me, well… I’d likely be cavorting around in an apron with my mouth duct taped shut and the tires slashed on my car.. (no bitterness, just noticing..)

Because I now have a solid sense of myself as an authentic being, I can trust the the whispers that urge me further.

This trust is an earned thing.. not a given.

Most of the time it’s fun to watch the unfolding of my life into something tuned beautifully to my nature.

Except when it’s not and then, if I have my wits about me at all, I laugh and decide again.

Or cry..and decide again.

Really, it is all about the stretch.

It excites me even in this bone-weariness of moving.

Further, further..into the wild.

Power vs. Force

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I am a very poor dog trainer.

Olivia is confused.

She loves me and wants to protect me from all harm.

Her giant spirit in a little, little package pulls out all the warrior paraphernalia when men approach my door.

If the man wears a cap.. forget it.

Yesterday, David came by.

I met him on my first trip to New Mexico in 1989.

He loves rocks and fossils and is the perfect roadside geology man.

If dinosaur bones get you all atwitter.. he’s your guy.

We began our 20 year friendship watching the world with witness-glasses and enjoying an easy commentary together.

We still do that witnessing thing and still enjoy one another in a ‘chosen family’ sort of way.

He is a painter. Has always gone out into the wilds and moved the pleasure of his intimate connection with nature from his heart to the canvas.

Yesterday he brought me a few paintings to see.

They were spare and and ‘haiku-esque.’

So accomplished in the removal of EVERYTHING non-essential.

The two of us had not seen one another in quite awhile.

So the movement within us both was apparent.

He is far less than I remember.

I am emptying out as well.

What I SAW yesterday, was a man approaching my door.

My friend.

He looked quite the same.

But he was less.

Olivia sensed him and knew he was good.

I had prepared him to be patient as I had my dog at the door, on the lead and ready to make the corrections I am learning to train her away from barking and nipping at strangers.

She wagged and squeaked and wriggled as I opened the door.

No barking…

She had no need or desire to protect me from this person.

I just stood there as he came in and watched the two of them enjoy the recognition of a mutual ’something-or-otherness.’

My sense is that she noticed his pure heart, emptiness and lack of type A ‘I want a particular outcome and I’ll do anything to get it’ kind of human tactic (read: Cathy in the dog training process).

He has POWER in this instance.  A quiet and undefended approach.

I think I see that where she is concerned, I am mistakenly going after FORCE.

Little jerk here, a push-away there..

YUK..

Something about this equation is wrong.

Today, I am going to try to translate what I learned from their interaction into my dealings with my health and well-being.

Instead of attempting to force feed my body with health enhancing activities by rote, I will court spaciousness.

I will let that innate thing come forward without the costuming of effort.

Those clothes are worn and tattered anyway.

Familiar at best, but threadbare and spent.

I am tired and bored today with the ever-so-purposeful-and-incessant-hand-on-the-tiller navigation of life.

The intelligence of emptiness .

This is intriguing territory to me.

Pressure

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Lately, my sleep pattern is broken into 3-4 segments during the night.

I seem to wake alert, and unable to soften into sleep again, I read.

In the deep of last night I stumbled upon a story about a process in which after cremation, a person’s ashes could be made into a diamond.

One could certainly see this as a tawdry gimmick unworthy of attention.

But it got mine..

The metaphor was breathtakingly overt.

If enough pressure is exerted on a bunch of carbon-based material, alchemy shows up at the door and VOILA! We have a glittering, reflective gem you can take anywhere.

I don’t mean to make light of this technology.

There is a part of me that is completely blown away by this and I see that I make it a bit trivial because it moved me so much.

On the one hand, this idea of purposely exerting pressure upon the fly away ashes of a person and coming up with a diamond seems so right..

It is a demonstration in form of what I feel happening inside myself dealing with this health challenge.

I continue to rise each morning and have an intimate conversation with a body that is stiff and weak and getting more so.

I tell her, moment by moment, that we have it in us to make the next move, with grace even, if we’re lucky.

And when we don’t, we don’t.

We stop and recalibrate.

Eat or rest or stretch or take a pill.

And then do it all over again the next hour or day.

A constant pressure toward what?

Moving forward toward life, whatever that looks like, is what I do.

I am grateful I already know my ‘diamondness’ and don’t need the ring.

Of course, I WOULD BE THE RING so the point is moot..

Inherit the Wind

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I watched an old Spencer Tracy film last night called “INHERIT THE WIND.”

From the Bible: Proverbs
11:29 “He that troubleth his own house shall INHERIT THE WIND: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.”

The theme was Evolutionism and Creationism.

I find it interesting to watch old films take on big ideas..

There is a void of the smokescreen of sophistication and we are able to see clearly and laugh at the innocence of it all.

Because NOW WE KNOW BETTER what our forefathers grappled and groped to discover.

Newness is messy.

And inconvenient.

Because we are a species which LOVES TO KNOW WHAT WE KNOW…

And PLEASE don’t have the audacity to tell us different!

Have we actually come that far from the 1960’s film spouting fundamental bible-thumping vs. heretical free thinking?

I have a lot of people in my life who care deeply for me and are rooting for my healing.

I honestly can not imagine this gritty road without the solace of their support.

My particular healing choices seem to push people’s buttons.

I sense there is the occasional backstory of: “Why can’t she just stick with western medicine?”

Or this: “Does she have to keep skipping around from one healing mode to another? Why not just pick one and stick with it?”

Or: “Her walking seems to be getting worse. She has THAT kind of MS where there is no cure. Oh dear..”

Don’t get me wrong.. I am not in judgement here.

Just noticing that there are comfort zones we prefer to stay within.

Confines that help us relax into complacency, myself included.

The fact is that we DON’T know too much.

We like to think we do because it feels good.

Religions are formed around contemporary cultural valium pills; spirituality, health and politics to name a few.

Really, do things have any chance for change if we are not DIRECTLY AFFECTED by them?

If your leg stops doing what you want it to do, previously held beliefs may be dropped in favor of possibility.

If water stops coming out of the faucet, you can bet you’d leave your complacency about the earth’s precious resources at the corner.

The thing I have come to know is the power of the very state of duality we all share on this planet.

When I am FORCED outside my comfort zone, I see that I love life so much that I kick and scratch my way toward any threads that light up for me indicating the possibility of someTHING outside my sphere of knowledge that will give me more of that thing called LIFE.

THIS IS UNTIDY TERRITORY.

And because I am putting myself first for once in my life, I have absolutely NO APOLOGIES for any mess which ensues.

The Ride

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Havin’ the ride of my life over here..

I sold my home and need to find a place to live before the end of the month, pack and move and stay OK in the midst of it all..

Funny, how part of me thrives on this terrain; unpredictable and full of all possibility.

I see that life opens up so purposefully when I get out of the way.

My attachments are few as I traverse this MS landscape.

Things once cherished drop away making way for the new, unknown, untried.

My ’stuff’ holds no elan.

I decided to have a big ‘Cathy’s Giveaway’ sale instead of expending the energy to have people tromping through my home in a moving sale.

I’ve had ssssssssoooooooo much support over the last few years that it will feel great to just say: “I want you to have this.”

The energetic difference between a desperate and tightly held fist and a soft and openly generous one is a garden I want to tend.

It interests me the things I am choosing to keep around me; favorite mugs I love the feel of in my morning rituals, my art, shells and rocks, a branch covered in white holiday lights I use all year, my grandmother’s photo at age 20.

Simple things. Beautiful things. Heart things.

‘Stuff’, BE GONE!!!!

I want clean lines.

Nothing to obstruct my gaze.

Space, light and a bit of substance.

This will be my new estate.

My new place TO BE.

To BECOME… and keep becoming the woman just now drying her wings.

She needs sun and air and horizons to seek.

To expose her underbelly to the gleam off the lake…

Learning To Speak

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I just finished up my 2-day intensive on PUBLIC SPEAKING FOR PROFESSIONALS.

I jumped at the chance to do this as I actually get a great deal of pleasure speaking to groups of people.

But I want to know how to do this WELL so I don’t waste peoples’ time.

It was an impressively conducted, jam-packed event peopled with interesting and inspiring folks.

I’ll write more on this but today, as I recover a bit, I am struck by how HEALTHY I feel!

Tired but alive, engaged and curious as to the pleasure I took in using ‘life’ muscles I had all but forgotten.

It’s been a couple years of reclusion, seclusion and ‘wrap-yourself-up-in-a-blanket’ to conserve energy for the trip to the kitchen or desk..

Fully out in the world for the past two days, I remember myself as someone who has energy enough to care for herself AND some left over!!!!!!!!!

I am reclaiming health.

The crucial medication being CONNECTION.

I’ve taken time to reconnect with myself and because of those choices I now have it in me to reintroduce myself to the world.

Often, these choices have proved unpopular.

But wait! I am voting for myself, now.

SPEAK FIRST FOR THYSELF.

Only then, turn to your neighbor.

Speak Up

______________________

This morning I am off to a professional public speaking seminar for two days.

This is how things go in my life..

Yesterday, I had no idea this was taking place.

And today, I have secured the last seat available.

I love to speak in front of people about my own story of change and resurrection.

I am interested in change.

It is common to us all.

How do we do it?

I mean, how do we change?

There are ways to negotiate this terrain with the outcome leaning toward a thriving life.

Or not.

My choice is the former and I seem to be well on my way toward that end.

Truth be told.. I’M SMACK IN IT…Thriving inside change.

And today, I will join 11 other people to practice talking about just that…

…Because it makes me happy and I want to make public speaking a big part of my life now.

But I want to do it WELL.. and EFFECTIVELY.. and HONESTLY.

So- I’ll sidle up next to those who make this their profession and see what I can learn.

She’s out in the world after a long hiatus and fairly chompin’ at the bit…

Hands Off

____________________

When I look at this painting, I see a crevice.

A free fall between two hard places.

I think when I did this it was supposed to be a landscape but things change..

I am so tired from working so damn hard to reclaim wholeness and health.

After awhile one just has to stop for awhile and do something else.

I’m noticing that when I take my hand off the tiller a very interesting thing happens.

It almost feels like another kind of intelligence kicks in and throws up it’s hands in relief.

THANK GOD SHE HAS STOPPED ALL THIS INCESSANT ‘TRYING TO MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN!’

Tool kits are exchanged and while I sleep, small but gorgeous men and women file in and begin their song-singing or nervous system whispering or color bathing.

Whatever weird and wonderful, otherworldly medication they deem appropriate.

And, lo and behold!   I wake refreshed and lively. Having DONE NOT A THING but make room for healing to happen.

Pressing into a health challenge (or any other for that matter) has it’s limits.

But do we know when to let go?

That line between the fight and taking the gloves off is a sensitive one.

I don’t want to neglect doing anything that offers support toward healing.

But working too hard toward a desired outcome is exhausting and leaves room for only narrow results.

Miracles happen when our vision gets a little fuzzy so something beyond what we know can sneak in and take it’s place at the table.

That doesn’t mean collapsing into an expected result, desired or not.

Nor does it mean armoring up in your finest chain mail suit.

The action/non-action I am trying to get to is a little bit of both, it seems.

On top of that razor’s edge it can get windy and the weather changes fast and without warning.

But it is not a malevolent weather pattern.

There is a surprising quality of support that wind has..

Balancing on the very edge and keening back and forth; the wind is at your back when you need it and to the left when you need that then it changes direction to break your fall by pushing against your right side as you lean up against it reclaiming your footing.

In that place up there NOTHING can be decided.

Surrender but avoid collapse.

It seems support is always there for me in that very moment I release the tiller.

One must drop the reigns and be moved.

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