The Surround

Saturday, October 21, 2017

3:42 PM

Today I witnessed a man surrounded by love.  There were loved ones at his head, by his side, and at his feet.  Within the warmth of those around him, he slipped from this life into the next.  There was no anger around him.  No guilt for words not said. There were no words of hurt or misunderstandings that hadn't been resolved.  There were warm memories.  There was love.  There was so much love you could feel it -- almost palpate it with your hands.  You could certainly see it in the eyes of those in The Surround.

Live life.  Live life so that you have people who surround you while you are full of life.  Live life so that there are no regrets, no words left unsaid, no anger or hurt or misunderstandings left unresolved.  Now is the time for that type of healing.  Now is the time to seize each moment with those in your tribe who will surround you some day when your time in this life is at its end.   Invite into your circle those people who will love you, hold you, challenge you, laugh with you, be with you, sing with you, walk with you, sit with you, and dance with you even though you might not dance well.    Embrace your Surround while you are able.  Be kind and gracious and loving.  Agree to disagree and love them anyway.  Get together while your dishes are undone, and your floors are unswept, and your projects are undone, and there is only PB&J in the cupboard. 

Love them.

Embrace them.

Look them in the eye and tell them how much you care and admire them and appreciate them for walking this path with you called Life.

While you have time.  While you have breath.  While you can open your eyes on this beautiful earth.  LOVE.

-in memoriam of my friend, Jim D. Pulliam

"Raindrops keep falling on my head"......

It's raining today.  

Some days I feel like walking in the rain.  Walking in the rain can be like taking a look back at all that you have learned.  

This morning, I read through my blogs of the past three years and that's exactly what it felt like -- a walk in the rain, carrying no umbrella with raindrops "falling on my head".

My blog post on Humanness especially made me stop and ponder this morning.  This time it brought out a lesson is in a different context.  

At that time when I wrote on humanness, I was focusing on accepting my OWN humanness.  Being okay with myself as I walk along this bumpy, rocky, and sometimes hilly journey we call life.  Being okay with the fact that sometimes I don't walk "well".  Being okay with the fact that I stumble, choose the wrong footing, fall, and have to struggle to get back up again.  Being okay with the fact that I am not perfect.  It was about accepting myself and realizing that being human doesn't make me a bad person.  It helps me to accept myself as I learn and grow and make mistakes.  Accept MYSELF.

Today, as I was reading those words and walking in "the rain" of my thoughts, more realizations started forming, but this time it wasn't about my humanness.  It was about the humanness and acceptance of OTHERS.

Others = The people I love -- the ones in my tribe, my circle of acquaintances, and my family are all HUMAN!

In being human they are like me.  They stumble, and fall, and struggle, and choose words and actions unwisely, offend, and get stuck....just like me. 

They want to be accepted by their circle....just like me.

They want to be heard and loved....just like me.

They want to feel the sun on their face and feel free and at peace....just like me.

At times they might not be willing or ready to let certain things go yet....just like me.

They might need a friend to walk with....just like me.

Accepting those humans around me is just as important as accepting myself.  In fact, I found it to be harder because for some reason at times it is my nature to hold them to higher standards than I do myself.  For some reason, it's easy to believe that those humans around me should learn their lessons faster, be kinder,  struggle less, believe in themselves more, and  be this perfectly perfect person.... unlike me.  

Why should I believe that their journey of humanness is so different than mine?

It is wrong of me to think so, and when I can see my humans -- ALL humans with that frame of mind, then I believe it starts to set me free.  My spirit and mind become more open, and I start to feel more at peace within myself.  It's like giving them a "Get out of jail free" card from the Monopoly game I played long ago.  In my spirit and thoughts I extend grace to them as they live in their humanness. 

Extending grace and accepting people, however, doesn't mean the logical consequences of actions and words (positive or negative) go away.  

What it does mean is that my frame of mind in reference to them is different. 

It mean that at times it is easier to set down the "victim" hat and move forward in my own humanness.  It means that the old anxiety and strife when I think of a human that has wronged me doesn't bubble up as often...or to the same extent.  

It means that in my mind I can be healthy -- even if they are not.

The VOID

These words crossed my FB feed one day from the Healing Hugs web page.  Loss.  It comes in all sizes and packages and isn't always about people.  Sometimes we lose things that represent memories in our journey -- those tangible symbols of  a time that was memorable:  good or bad.  Feelings of loss can arrive after realizing the loss of losing something that makes us feel good, like a favorite pair of shoes or jacket.  Feelings of loss happen when connection is lost between two people or pets.  It doesn’t matter what the type of relationship.  There is a void where the connection once was and it's hard to know what in the world to do with that empty space the void creates.

Truly, I don't think the reason for the loss matters.  There could be many different reasons for losing connection.   Temporary loss of connection could be as simple as losing cell phone connection in the middle of a conversation.  It could be the loss you feel when your child goes on a weekend trip or to summer camp; or if your partner is deployed and you know it's going to be a long season of multiple months away causes feelings that connection is lost.  Maybe you stay connected occasionally with friends or family and you haven't heard from them in weeks or months -- a longer period of time than usual -- and that creates a feeling of loss.  There are many other scenarios -- fill in one that comes to your mind that you have experienced.  A temporary loss can be devastating, but one thing differs from permanent loss -- there is the hope and knowledge  that the loss of connection will end.  Your child will come home from camp or the weekend away;  your partner will come home (hopefully safely) at the end of deployment; family members or you yourself will pick up the phone and text or call or write and connection resumes again sometimes even stronger than before.

Long-term loss feels different to me.  It has an underlying foundation of hopelessness.  In terms of long-term loss -- one can hold out hope for a season and sometimes the season is long -- months, years, decades and sometimes a lifetime.  There is hopelessness, but yet a mustard-grain seed of faith keeps some spark alive that things will change and connection will be restored.  This is a hard place to be.  Connection takes two entities and if one is unwilling or unable or the connection didn't mean as much to them as it did to you,  it might be easier for them to move on ahead and fill the space that you once occupied in their mind, their heart, their spirit than for you to do so.  This particular waiting room can be a painful place to reside.  Wondering during the season of un-connectedness can be excruciating.    "What-if land" can be filled with fear, suffering, loss, mourning, and even anger.  Feelings of not being enough are ever present on the surface.   Frustration, anger, and sadness can flow in and out of your emotions when certain memories are triggered and yet, if good memories come to mind, joy and sadness coexist in a way that befuddles the mind. 

Permanent loss is devastating in that there no longer is any hope.  There is no light of reconciliation or re-connection.  Only time can blunt the sharpness of the loss and the time frame is different for everyone depending upon the deepness of your connection.  In this place of darkness, it takes great effort to acknowledge the loss and even more effort to acknowledge the permanence of it.  This path in the shadows of one's journey can change your life.  Some get stuck in this place.  Some stay stuck for awhile and then begin to take tiny shuffle-steps forward out of the darkness and into the shadows of memories gone by.  Over time, one might move forward into the sunshine even just a little bit by focusing not on the loss, but the joy of what once was -- the connection  between two beings that filled you with happiness and joy for even but a part of your journey.  To celebrate the relationship that lasted only for awhile is a gift you can give to yourself.   Acceptance of the closed door named hope is essential to moving out of the shadows and into the light.

 As the quote says above, one of the hard things about loss is what do you do about the empty space the loss of connection leaves behind?  Some people don't want to fill the emptiness.  They feel that focusing on the space that once was filled is a way of keeping the memories alive.   It might seem as though hope is there -- even though the knowledge of reality says differently.  Denial keeps your feet from moving in any direction.  The fight to keep that sacred space empty can cause physical, mental, emotional and spiritual  issues.  Other people in our lives might not be able to understand why keeping the space free of anything else is so important to you and it could wear on other relationships.  

For others, filling the space might be easier.   They just get busy.  They get busy doing whatever it is their calendar can hold.  For some, they might try and throw meds in the hole or drugs at the space or pretend it doesn’t exist.  Some try to sleep it away.  The space can be filled.  It is our choice to choose what to put into the void.  I'm not saying this is easy by any stretch.  It's not.   Sometimes we don't choose arbitrarily.  Sometimes life helps us choose.  Either way, hopefully some day we can look back on that space of connection and name it and cherish it and turn our face toward the sun and life forward in our journey.

Does filling the space mean forgetting?  Absolutely not.    One perspective is that we are lucky to have had experienced something so beautiful along our path and that is why it is so hard to say good-bye.  It is possible to celebrate the lost relationship and fill the space they once held with healthy reminders or activities or new relationships that foster taking care of yourself during this time.    Self-care while spending time in the void is critical to moving ahead into the sunlight.  There also might be others in your sphere of influence who are fellow "void-dwellers" -- those people who are experiencing loss of their own.  Together you might find a safe place to reminisce and celebrate or express the gamut of emotions loss brings.  

Our life journey will bring losses of many types.  My hope is that we can realize that we are not alone on the path.  We just might need to look around for others who have emerged in the shadows or for those who have stepped into the sunlight of their own path to help. 

COMPASS POINT:  There are community groups called Griefshare that focus on paths of loss.   Perhaps they would be of help at this time in your journey.  Here is the link for more information:  www.griefshare.org.

The Next Chapter

I have shared in my past posts that I am an avid reader.  Reading to me is like the best dessert -- an escape -- something I look forward to in my free time to open my mind to new thoughts and topics and hopefully not only escape but learn something as I read.  As I read, the more I get into the book the more I look forward to....the next chapter.  In the next chapter, the plot continues and the information I gathered in the story line culminates, furthering the journey, no matter the genre of the book. 

Today, in my life, I am very close to ending one chapter and beginning the next.  In just a couple days the transition will take place with a new Chapter Heading and life moving forward.  Am I looking forward to this chapter?  Oh yes, I definitely am.  Even so, life continues whether we want it to or not.   Alas, I am ready for the next chapter.

Thinking about the next chapter makes me think of a few things:  does looking forward to the next chapter mean that I want to totally disregard the one I am finishing?   Do I forget this chapter and all that I have lived?  No.  Not in the least.  In this chapter of my life I have made wonderful friends and positive things have happened in my family.  It has been exciting and full of changes on many levels.  I have been allowed to be a part of so many people's lives and walk alongside them.  That is a privilege I do not take lightly.   I have seen our children grow and mature and walk into their own personal next chapter.  I have experienced the love of a man who loves me deeply and I have loved him in return and known such joy for the effort.  Some of my life long dreams have come true.  There has been so much good in this chapter.  But I would not be sharing the whole story if I didn't also mention the disappointments and hurt that has been along the path.  Life doesn't come without potholes and I have experienced what seems like more than my share of them on this leg of the journey.  The lessons I have learned along the way have been priceless, however.

So that being said and remembering that the journey is a culminating one, I take those memories and lessons and joys into this next chapter.   I bring with me new connections and deep friendships that I didn't have previously.  I don't disregard the lessons learned, for hopefully I will have learned them well and  be aware of the same potholes again.  I look forward with anticipation to the next chapter, embracing the transition fully.  It's not good-bye -- it's time to live the next chapter!

Pain Scale

I found this pain scale at my orthopedic doctor's office and it made me think.  Number one, I was drawn to the little faces that try to express the words to describe how a person might feel when one is in pain.  ( I like pictures as well as words.)   Number two, it got me thinking about the pain in my own life and if I could relate to what it described.   Of course, this little scale is describing physical pain.  I have had a few experiences with physical pain....from stepping on a nail as a kid...to a having the branch of a tree puncture my eyeball...to two root canals....to a frozen shoulder...to aches and pains after physical labor...to childbirth.  I could rate all of those incidents on the scale...with childbirth (without an epidural) and the exacerbation of the frozen shoulder in certain movements right up there at a 10. 

My mind then went beyond physical pain.   In my opinion there are three categories of pain:  physical, emotional and what I would call spiritual pain.  In my own life I have experienced all three of those types of pain.  I have experience emotional injuries from relationships that have sent me down a dark spiral into depression and grief.  My faith has been severely tested and I believe I have experienced what is called the "dark night of the soul" where I have lost my hope and faith and have ached inside my soul.  In looking at the scale above and modifying it for emotional pain, I believe that I have experienced a 10 on the emotional and spiritual pain scale, too.

Having spent my whole life interacting with people of all shapes, sizes, ages and abilities in many circumstances, in work and in my personal life, I have had the opportunity to  observe people who are in pain.  I have observed all three types of pain.  Some people are able to cope with their pain and continue to live life as positively as they can.  Others I have observed are crippled by their pain - stopped in their tracks.  They can focus on nothing but the pain and life seems to stop for them.  Sometimes it stops for a short season.  For others, they are paralyzed where they once were productive.

Thinking about that leads me to questions such as:  What makes some people push through their chronic pain?  What makes some people who have chronic or intermittent pain not be able to continue to live life?  What drives each type of person and where do I fit in those two generalized categories?  I know where I WANT to fit.  I want to be a survivor.  I want to be not just one who survives, but one who lives life fully even in the midst of the pain.  I want to affect those around me positively.  I don't want to be a complainer.   I want to be someone who doesn't give up.  I want to have hope until the day I die that things will improve...the pain will lessen or even one day disappear.

I don't have the answers.  I have no idea how others cope with the pain they experience other than I observe them adapt and accept and continue to move forward.  Does moving forward mean I don't have pain?  No.  Does it mean that I downplay the emptiness or spiritual darkness I experience?  No.  It doesn't mean that I ignore the pain and pretend it doesn't exist.  It means I continue to live.  I continue to pray.  I continue to believe that God is working on my behalf and sees my struggles.  I read the Scriptures.  I read or listen to topics that bring hope.  I lean on those that come around me for support and am thankful when someone reaches out to me and calls or sends a note or text.  It means I seek help for my pain whether it be in physical, emotional or spiritual therapy.  It means that I search for something good...even if seems small and minute.  It means that I remain thankful that I am still breathing and able to see the beautiful sunrise for another day.  In doing so, I cope.  I accept.  I live - and sometimes the pain dissipates or I become strong enough to more forward IN SPITE of it.