More light - Adapting to Change - Motivation

I have a new square of light on my kitchen counter tops.  It seems strange that it is there because the kitchen is pretty dark unless all the lights are on.  My neighbor had some of her limbs trimmed above her house and now there is light. More light really changes things in ways you don't expect whether that is physically because limbs have been removed or because life's circumstances alters the way you imagined things would be.

One of our youngest workers totaled their car this week a car that was paid for and now they are thinking maybe they should get a full time job instead of working part time.  I remember being that age and have one full time job and two part time jobs.  What else did I have to do I in my 20's I was poor with nothing but time on my side and I really loved being busy besides I needed the money. 

With parents having the means to support their kids even into adulthood it seems this has delayed their  motivation to find themselves. Working early at different things helps you mature and find what you like and understand yourself better.  Even more important dyou find out what you don't like.  For me I hated paperwork that involved numbers.  Being 22 and having the latest phone - computer - a roof over my head and someone cooking for you every night I might still be at home too. Probably not.  

I would never wish my past on someone else because it wasn't easy and I dreamed of coming home to someone taking care of me. I never had that once my own mother got sick when I was eight. I gave that to other people along the way because that is what I wanted for myself. I have spent a lifetime trying to find that safety and comfort on to realize in the past few year I can do that for myself. I don't have to wait for someone else to think I am worthy of love and care. 

Life is always changing and forcing you to map a different course. Like it or not when you are faced with a new normal you have to make changes. There will be a time just before you get over yourself where you are sad/mad and wish it wasn't happening .  That time will pass and if you are like me you will get sick and tired of being sick and tired.  You will decide to move on with your new reality and make the best of it.

We all do this at different paces and without outside support in my experience you don't have that much time wallow around in your own self pity. This is a good thing because life is short and being stuck is a waste of time. I have wasted a lot of time. 

Back to the trees.  We have zero lot lines here in the neighborhood and while they were trimming my neighbors limbs a big log rolled off the roof and landed on a small twin palm.  I was out there but didn't notice because the guy was holding it up. I was really mad yesterday when I saw it laying on the ground pulled up by the roots. I decided to dig the whole think up and move it. This will probably kill it. 

The truth is there is more light there now and I can plant something more colorful.  Adapting to change is a way of life and when something is removed it is an opportunity to consider our options. We never like it when it is happening but when we look back and see that with a little more light we can grow something new for ourselves.  

Eat for mental health - I am not crazy my brain is starving

I have had a pretty good week with steady work but not too overwhelming.  We work basically six days every other week and for me that means the Sunday that follows I crash to recuperate.  This week I decided to work at home one day to kind of break things up. The quiet restores me.

It is funny because I actually get in the flow and end up sitting at my desk non stop all day.  It does seem to help me gather my thoughts and focus. I wonder if it this is because I don't have the interruptions from phone calls and socializing with the people in the office.  Today I felt rested after going in for about five hours. I am ready for two more days of a full schedule.

I got my yearly blood work back this week and it looks better than ever.  I am no where close to being borderline diabetic which means the Keto diet is still working. It did show low B-12 which affects primarily mood causing anxiety depression or apathy.  I think lately I would say I was in the last category.

I should know by now when my mood slips I should look at my eating. My thyroid numbers are a little low too so when I meet with the doctor next week I can get that adjusted. My grandmother and her sister and even my aunt had huge goiters caused by thyroid dysfunction.  They all looked like they had balloons wrapped around their necks. It is the thyroid located in the neck that is enlarged.  Mostly caused by the lack of iodine or sometimes just thyroid disease. In my family the women waited too long and ultimately had to have their Thyroid removed. 

Having thyroid problems causes extreme mood problems which in women can be confused with hormones especially at menopause age.  It is all linked but most of the time the thyroid is over looked and you get estrogen and progesterone. We want to think we are dealing with one thing and it is really multiple issues.

I am a poster child for Keto and mental health. While carbs and sugar are controlling our brain we just can't imagine letting go of our childhood sweethearts like a big bowl of pasta or a loaf of garlic bread.  The sweets that mom use to make -- this is an addiction in disguise. The more you eat the more you want it. Carbs have sedation effect but it is only temporary and then you need more. Then caffeine to pick up off the floor. 

Trust me when I tell you that I am not into suffering.  I put whipping cream in my tea everyday. Yum. I am not sure why I wrote about this today but maybe because I can address the emotional slump I have been feeling with food. How nice it is that simple. 

When I finally went to the doctor after my serious bout with depression I was close to having Hashimotos disease. This is caused by physical and emotional burnout where your adrenal glans are shot and you body turns against itself. In my family you just keep going until you drop. Once my sister's blood count was so far off they thought she had leukemia. She started eating liver something she hates and in a month her blood work was normal. 

With my B-12 drop I started eating eggs yesterday. The most complete protein on the planet. I already feel better today and just spent a half of an hour on the treadmill. Your body just wants to be respected an fed what it needs to be it's best. Loving yourself enough to really make the changes your starving brain needs. 

 

What matters - Our own beliefs - Emotional un-rest

I have written a few post that for some reason I didn't post.  They must have been just for my own therapy and not for general consumption.  These are strange times and the pandemic has brought to the top emotions that have been pushed down for a long time

All our insecurities and fears plus the fact that we lost our routine and the ability to just get out and get rid of the anxiety physically has made things worse.  My sister called late one night this week and we were discussing the riots and of course we were on opposite sides. She said "all lives matter" and then began to talk about other persecuted and discriminated people. I said " you can't see their skin color from a car 30 feet away and stop them without cause" It is not the same.

Most people have felt some kind of discrimination at some point in their lives. Times when you weren't liked or didn't feel welcome in a group. Women have be discriminated against in their homes. The truth is we don't know what it feels like to be anybody but ourselves.  

We all carry emotional burdens passed down by our families. The difference is that with the African American people are the only people brought to this country against their will.  Everyone else wanted to come here or were already here. The idea that at one point your family belonged to someone else cannot ever be understood by us. No matter how long ago this was.

Everyone of us is a piece of our past. We can't solve this but we can show that we are open to listening and understanding where the pain is coming from. We all have ideas that were given to us by our families and we unfortunately believe them. Only time and ruthless evaluation of these ideas will make us see that some of our beliefs are not true in general or not true for us anymore. Asking ourselves where did this belief come from and is it serving me anymore?

We are scared because the person we believe we are today is based on out history and the history of our country. Who we think we are is built around institutions with names or statues that seemed a permanent to our lives. We want to glaze over the not so shiny parts of our past because it is easier. They aren't offensive to us so what is the big deal. Especially in the south, for some, their whole identity is wrapped up in these ideas. We lost and we have never quite got over that. Really?

It feels especially scary when the rest of our lives have already been turned upside down. Nothing seems stable right now and unless you have strong roots to keep you grounded it feels like the world is coming to and end. I imagine every generation has felt this with presidents being shot and wars. 

We got to get a grip and focus on what we can do right this moment. The thoughts and fears in our heads can cause us suffering. Life will go on like it or not we can't prepare for the unknown.  We have to look the thoughts that we are having that are hurting us and take control. 

The world and this country has always had times of unrest followed by growth. When times are good we push down all the things that we don't want to see. We are being forced to see something that has been going on forever. Nothing changes without pain and suffering.

What can we do? We can support what is right. We can force our law enforcement to protect everyone. People who don't have guns should not end up dead when in police custody. We have to make everyone accountable for their actions. This is our government and it is our responsibility to do what is right.

Personally we want to show respect for everyone. I know we will keep evolving like it or not. It will be put on the next generation to keep moving forward. I have faith that even in these difficult times we will sort this out even though we will forever be changed and that is a good thing.  

   

Signs - Weirdness - Pause

It is unusual for me to take the time in the middle of a work week to write but it has been a particularly strange week. First it has rained and rained and gloom has set in and slowed everyone down just a bit.  The other thing is that someone at worked passed away suddenly after going the emergency for an allergic reaction. He wasn't a close friend but a kind and generous person who when you met him you knew he was extraordinary.

A funeral at 7 pm on a week night about an hour outside of town. The church was filled with only 5 of us wearing mask. It is a small town and I am guessing people felt too embarrassed to wear mask. It seemed strange a lot of laughing and talking as if it was just a regular Wednesday night prayer meeting just before the preacher came to the microphone. 

In my childhood I sat through thousands of those services. The preachers words felt really hollow to me as many preachers I heard in my youth.  The words about how he was saved and we would all meet again.  How we can have the assurance that there is heaven and we will have mansions. 

No worries everybody this life  is just temporary and in the end we will all be happy together if we are on the right side. I want to believe this I really do what alternative to we have. This is what all the great religions teach us that if we strive to do what is good then we will be rewarded in the afterlife. 

Sometimes I wish I could be the child that lived in the dream that God will take care of everything so we have nothing to worry about. I do believe in something greater than ourselves more like the collective energy force of all our beliefs.  You can throw the plants and animals into that mix too.

Things are weird right now and the pandemic has made us all pause and take a look at our lives. We don't have the usual distractions that keep us unconscious. Mental illness is at all time high because we are all facing things that we have put away along time. We have had to stop running. No sports-no restaurants-classrooms-shopping.  All the things we do to not be present. 

My friend suffered another breakdown and there was no rooms available in town and she had to be sent 2 hours away to get treatment. I know this is all necessary for the evolution of the human race.  It is only in times of great crisis that we breakdown and  want to make changes. 

I feel like for myself I have been watching my daily life from a distance. I did get to see the sun for an hour this afternoon and it raised my spirits a bit. I did want to mention that coming home from the funeral service there was a huge double rainbow. We took this as a sign that someone is watching over us. 

 

Accepting the person I am now - Freedom - Always Letting Go

I had to drive out to an island to measure a job this afternoon.  It is about an hour one way and truthfully I was looking forward to just going somewhere different for a change. You can take the faster google way and cut the time down by fifteen minute using some newly built connecting highways and bridges or you can take the old route that winds around the waterways with spectacular views of the marshes and beaches.  It was raining pretty hard so I took the speedy way up and the slow way home.

I have a lot of history with this area.  During the recession and my dark time I would go to the state park out there and walk.  If I had an appointment out there I would stop afterward and sit on the beach with my business clothes on and meditate. I remember one winter day just sitting on a rock and a couple of men came up and ask me if I was okay. They thought I should be cold but my menopause furnace was burning hot. I told them I was waiting on God. 

I have a way doing things intensely until I have had enough and moving on. I spent so much time up there and when I got better and just stopped. Places can represent a time in your life and that was not a good one for me.  I have no desire to go there and be out in nature anymore.  I have walked miles and mile in the woods and now I just want to work in my yard. 

For the trip I pulled a random CD out of and old stack I keep in the car it turned out to be the Indigo Girls live CD.  I haven't heard it in years and it made me think about the person I use to be. The songs brought back a time in my life that seems like a million years ago now. It didn't make me sad it just made me think how life is constantly changing. When you are busy and running you think your life will always be just as it is in that moment.  Nothing really stays the same so why worry. 

It seemed weird to me today that I am the happiest I have ever been with myself. I am not worrying or wanting things to be different than they are right now. I can't improve on anything and I can look back at the past without wishing things had been different. I feel at peace knowing that day to day things are going to change.  Something is always shifting whether we notice or not. 

I am not the person I was before for good or bad.  I couldn't stay the person everyone expected me to be forever.  This was hard for me to accept. I was mad at myself for a long time because that person didn't exist any longer.  I thought if I just acted like she did then I could find the person I was before. I felt like I was wearing an old heavy wet coat around. I have given myself permission to be happy and celebrate the person that I am and quit trying so hard to improve. 

I enjoyed my little road trip today more than I ever have.  It was beautiful even in the rain and I was alone and content to just listen to the music and be free. 

  

We got to do something - We got to vote - finding hope

Watching history unfold on a daily basis is quite unsettling.  I got an alarm on my phone last night that there was a mandatory curfew set for the whole city.  I had spent the day outside and wasn't aware of the violence going on in the city. We have been through the whole closing down for Covid-19 and no curfew but suddenly a curfew.

You can look at this as part of the sad times we live in or you can realize that this is happening because people are getting tired of the blatant injustice towards anyone not white. Only when people get outraged and vocal do things even begin to change. Unfortunately the destruction of property gets our attention even though some might see this reaction as uncivilized and the police action as warranted. There is no winning either way. 

The truth is that people have to get mad enough to make a stand. We all have prejudice beneath our skin past down from our upbringing.  I think this is true for all colors. In our household we loved Jesus and Jesus loved everyone so I wasn't exposed to any kind of hate but we moved from the city because it was safer in the suburbs.

My uncle a deputy sheriff didn't see things the way Jesus saw them.  Besides his day job he worked at mostly gay bars as a bouncer back in the day. He also worked at the jail and was written up in the paper for apprehending with force an prisoner trying to escape. He would often say "it is either them or us".  My parents kept us away him as much as possible. Ironically he spent the last decade of his life working in Mormon Temple wearing special robes a far cry from his bouncer days.

What is happening in our country is part of the evolution that has to take place to move forward. People have to get mad enough to start to participate in choosing our leadership. Right now with the pandemic still on the move we all feel like we are waking up from a winter slumber but life goes on and things haven't really changed. 

We are a narcissistic society and if it isn't happening to us or ours we mostly sit on the sidelines and watch until someone gets truly outraged and violence erupts. Then we stop for a moment in shock and then go about our daily business. 

Things are changing with every passing year.  What we are seeing now especially in the White House is the last futile effort to hold on to what use to be when the white men ran the world and no one could do anything about it. Even at the height of that time change happened we all just kept chipping away at the status quo and things are better. 

It will never be enough as long as humans are in charge. I saw a study done where they proved instinctively we are made to trust people that look like us over people that don't. Beginning in a time where this was the only way we could protect ourselves from other tribes. Worldwide the people that are persecuted are people that can be easily identified by physical characteristics. Wars and genocide between people who once lived together peacefully.

In our country we can't seem to get through to people that voting is our most powerful tool.  The local races do mean something and minority voters have enough votes to change the outcome. Sitting on the couch watching the news makes us feel helpless and saying "what can one person do?" 

What can we do if we can't protest besides vote.  We can't treat each person we meet everyday with respect and kindness showing that one on one we are all just people wanting our best life and a good life for the people we love. We can push evolution forward one person at a time.