Trust That Answers Are Coming (Blog #980)

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Today I finished reading three books–Esoterism & Symbol by R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, The Hanged Man: Psychotherapy and the Forces of Darkness by Sheldon Kopp, and The Power of Your Other Hand: A Course in Channeling the Inner Wisdom of the Right Brain by Lucia Capacchione. And whereas I only this week started the first two books, I started the third one over a year ago. Alas, it’s sat on my shelf collecting dust since last summer, just waiting for me to notice it. Well, today was the day. I can’t tell you how good it felt to finally be done. And yes, I know that I didn’t HAVE to finish it. But I genuinely wanted to, was actually interested in what it had to say.

I’ve talked about divine timing before, and I continue to be amazed by it. While reading the book I just mentioned, I noticed several things made sense to me that wouldn’t have made sense to me a year ago. Better said, several things STOOD OUT to me that wouldn’t have before. But they did stand out because of other books I’ve read over the past year. I kept thinking, Oh, there was a reason I didn’t pick you back up until today. I wasn’t ready for you yet.

This evening I had dinner with a friend (we’d planned on going out this weekend but at the last minute decided to go tonight) and told them of my recent and positive results with upper cervical care. When they asked HOW I found out about this healthcare modality, I credited a dancer friend (whom I honestly don’t talk to very often) who mentioned online their positive results with upper cervical care (that they received over ten years ago). And whereas I can’t say what’s going to happen or not happen over the next few months in terms of my healing, I can say that based on how much I’ve improved in the last two weeks (I truly feel like my innate healing powers have been given back to me), this whole setup is what I’ve been praying and waiting for.

By setup I mean–I don’t think any of this has been accidental.

Getting back to the idea of divine timing, I’m astounded by what all had to happen or not happen in order for me to find out about this form of treatment. Fifteen years ago my friend and I had to meet. Ten years ago my friend had to be sick and–God knows how–find her doctor. Earlier this year my friend and I had to reconnect. And then there’s what had to happen to get my doctor close enough that I could drive to him, since he used to be located much farther away, like the only other two people in the state who do what he does. Anyway, I could go on but won’t. I just keep thinking that answers are being lined up for us LONG before we even ask our questions. I just keep thinking that it doesn’t make much sense for me to try to tell the universe how to do its obviously complex job.

Because it’s doing just fine.

When I wasn’t reading today, I was tidying up my room. My therapist says when you’re feeling SCARCITY, one way to feel ABUNDANCE is to give something away. “It doesn’t have to be a lot,” she says. “It could be a dollar, a t-shirt, a hour of your time. Anything to get the energy flowing.” So that’s what I did, picked out stuff to donate–several shirts, a pair of shoes (the too-big ones I tore my ACL in), a handful of books I’ll either never read or never read again. Let someone else enjoy them, I thought. Then I went through my “paper pile” and threw this in the trash, filed that in a folder. Then I reorganized a few shelves in my closet. You know how one thing leads to another.

I wish I could tell you WHY I felt compelled to tidy up my room today or–as I’ve been doing recently–clean up my Facebook friends list. My therapist says any cleaning out makes room for other things to come along, so maybe that’s it. Maybe a part of me knows that this blog is coming to a close and–at the same time–my body is mending, so I just need more “room,” more health for whatever is coming next. But this is speculation. I can’t say why anything happened today, just like I can’t say why the sun rose this morning. I only know that it did, it was right on time, and it was perfect. More and more I know it’s not my job to know why. Rather, it’s my job to follow my inner guidance, that voice that says, “Check out that doctor. Read this book, not that one. Go to dinner now, not later.” It’s my job to be patient, trust that answers are coming, and enjoy the mystery of it all.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Storms don’t define us, they refine us.

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On Things I Claim to Believe (Blog #904)

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Yesterday I was supposed to be a dance gigolo, but the gig got cancelled. And whereas a part of me was like, Crap, there goes that money, most of me was like, Something else will come along. Because of this incident, I’ve thought a lot today about two things I claim to believe–1) the idea that things happen for a reason and 2) the idea of divine timing, that everything happens when it’s supposed to. Because both these ideas are easy to profess but harder to really animate when the rubber hits the road. Like, whenever I’m counting on a certain amount of income and a client says, “Let’s forget about it,” my faith in “God knows what he’s doing” starts to falter.

As if God’s primary concern were my bank account.

Another thing I claim to believe is that God works in mysterious ways. To me this means that–really–none of us know why anything happens or doesn’t happen. In terms of my plans changing last night, it could be that had I driven out of town, I would have hit a deer (or worse). Or I could have had such a miserable time that the money wouldn’t have been worth it. (As it was, I had a delightful evening.) Caroline Myss says that when you pray for things, you don’t get to tell God how to answer you. Well, I’ve asked for a body that feels as good as possible as well as for healthy relationships, and it’s possible my going out of town last night would have been out of alignment with those requests.

This must be a lesson the universe really wants me to get, since this afternoon I drove all the way to Fort Smith for an appointment only to find out that it too was cancelled. (The person whom I was meeting had sent me a message that they were sick, but I didn’t get it because my phone network was down.) Anyway, it was forty-five minutes of my day that felt completely wasted and unproductive. Again, part of me was like, This blows. But most of me was like, We are not going to complain. We’re alive and well and have been given an opportunity to relax–to NOT be productive. We are going to be grateful. And it was that simple. I wouldn’t let myself throw a fit.

My advice–don’t let yourself throw a fit.

Tonight I went to a swing dance at the studio where I tore my ACL this last December. This was my first time back since the accident. When I was getting ready I actually thought about wearing the same (slightly oversized) shoes I was wearing when the accident happened, like, I’ll show you, slippery floor, but decided against it. Instead, I wore shoes that hug my feet and have stickier bottoms. And guess what? I didn’t hurt myself.

Of course, I didn’t attempt to jump over anyone’s head either.

Y’all, dancing tonight was the best thing. I saw and danced with several people I know and, in the process, got in some serious cardio. By the time the night was over, I was sopping wet.

Here’s a video (taken by my friend Sydnie) of my friend Renee and me Lindy Hopping to Caro Emerald’s Completely.

 

Wow. So much has happened since the last time I was dancing on that floor. I remember the night of the accident. I couldn’t get out the front doors by myself. Someone had to support me. There are times when I get frustrated because my knee and I can’t do everything we used to, but–really–it’s a miracle that we’re dancing at all. Also, I keep calling it an accident, but another idea I claim to believe is that there are no accidents. In other words, at least in my best moments, I believe that my injuring my leg, on some level, needed (knee-dead) to happen. I can’t say why–that’s above my pay grade–but I do know the whole experience has given me more compassion, patience, and understanding for both myself and others, and that’s enough for me.

The way I see it, if you say you believe something, at some point you’ve got to start acting like it. “Acting like it,” indeed, is an accurate way of describing what you’ll be doing at first. That is, until you get the hang of it, you won’t feel patient or understanding when someone cancels on you, or when something terrible happens. My therapist says, “Fake it until you make it.” Now, I don’t know that any of us ever “make it.” I doubt it will ever become fun for life to throw you a curve ball. But I do think it gets easier to accept what is (gracefully) if you can slow down and remind yourself that even frustrating or “terrible” things can contribute to your growth.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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A break is no small thing to give yourself.

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On Anxiety, Myths, and Divine Timing (Blog #841)

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It’s eleven at night, and I just turned on my “blogging music.” This morning started off slowly–I slept in, ate breakfast, then read over a hundred fifty pages in The Cry for Myth by Rollo May. It’s fabulous, about the idea that life is inherently anxiety-inducing and that myths help us not only make sense of our world, but also alleviate that anxiety. Too much anxiety in your life? You need a different myth, a different viewpoint, a different psychological construct from which to see things.

A different set of glasses.

Honestly, I could have spent the entire day reading. I can’t tell you what a sense of accomplishment and joy I get when I finish an entire book in one day. Alas, this was not to be. For weeks I’ve been telling myself that I’d put down my books and finally do a few things–respond to emails, go to the bank and the post office, shit like that. Well, I finally did these things this afternoon. And whereas I started to give myself a hard time for not doing them sooner, I didn’t because recently I’ve been thinking about divine timing.

I’ll explain.

Byron Katie says that when you argue with reality, you lose–but only one hundred percent of the time. This means that if you think you SHOULD be running errands (and you aren’t) or that you SHOULD HAVE run errands sooner than you did, you’re going to experience stress. Why? Just one simple reason–it’s not the truth. The truth is you’re not running errands, or that you didn’t run them sooner than you did. This is what I mean by divine timing. Things happen when they happen. We can SHOULD and SHOULD HAVE all day long, but that just produces anxiety. This is the myth of I’m not doing things right, the myth of I did something wrong, and the myth of I’m a bad person, I’m a worm.

Going back to divine timing, I can’t tell you the number of times things have shown up in my life at just the right moment. For example, not too long ago I got an unexpected check for nearly three hundred dollars in the mail, the result of one of those silly class-action lawsuit postcards that I fill out now and then (and usually result in a check for $2.87). Well, that three hundred bucks totally saved my ass. The same thing happened over Christmas this last year when I needed to pay some bills but couldn’t work because of my knee injury. Someone bought a gift certificate for dance lessons. Of course, this miraculous timing doesn’t just apply to money. My therapist showed up at just the right time. Books and information continue to show up at just the right time.

One of my points here is–How do you know? That is, how do you know you should have said something or done something sooner–or that you should even do it at all (if you haven’t already)? Having been on the receiving end of multiple (hundreds of) perfectly timed kindnesses, it’s not a stretch for me to think that I can play a part in the producing end of perfectly timed kindnesses in someone else’s life. What I mean is that I can beat myself up for not sending a letter in the mail sooner, but maybe the person getting that letter didn’t NEED it sooner. Maybe they needed it LATER. Likewise, I can (and do) beat myself up for not working more on writing my book(s), but again, perhaps it’s just not time. How will I know it’s time to write my book(s)?

I’ll have my butt in a chair and will be writing them.

It’s that simple.

Gosh, we like to complicate things. I like to complicate things. And not that I’m encouraging procrastination or not listening to your inner nudges to act, but I am suggesting that most of our self-flagellation is just that–self-punishment. As if we won’t get things done unless we constantly berate ourselves. I’m not doing things right. I did something wrong. I’m a bad person, I’m a worm. Please, we need a new myth–the myth of I’m doing things just fine, the myth of I did something right (a lot of things right), the myth of I’m a good person, not a worm.

Living by a new myth, of course, is more than simply changing your perspective or putting on a new pair of glasses. For a myth to really make a difference in your life, you have to internalize it and you have to let it change you. May says, “We seem to think that we can be reborn without ever dying.” This means that our old personality structure must be completely torn up (or torn down) in order for a new one to be planted, take root, and grow. This is why Noah was in the Ark, Jonah was in the whale, and Christ was in the grave. Chaos always precedes order, darkness always precedes light, and death always precedes new life–and change always takes time. For me, this is where the myths are most helpful. Knowing that “destruction comes before creation,” rather than be filled with anxiety whenever my life is falling apart, I can be filled with hope. I think, It’s just a matter of time before things start coming together.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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if you're content with yourself and you're always with yourself, then what's the problem?

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