SERVICE

    I am pleasantly exhausted. It has been an awesome week with lots of new learning opportunities. I have been blessed to be a witness to the reunion of some of our soldiers with their families after serving away from their homes for a year. For me it has been a growing experience and an affirmation of my beliefs. For although I am a pacifist at heart I do appreciate those people who are dedicated to keeping our homeland safe. They sacrifice so much for our country. It is never more evident than when I see a small child wrap their arms around a parent they have not touch for many months. The love and excitement at being with the person they love sends chills up my spine and reminds me of how many people in our country give so much of themselves for their beliefs. Not much more to say than that. I thank every person who gives of their time, talents and treasures to serve others in a selfless way and I ask God to keep them all safe.

CENTERING MYSELF IN GOD

    Change can be a wonderful thing. But no matter how wonderful it is, it can also be exhausting. That's the word for me today. Exhausted. In a good way, mind you, but still exhausted. On Tuesday I travelled to my new job and on Wednesday I hit the ground running. The people here are kind, caring and fun. But there is a lot of change and a lot of work and as a professional I'm expected to learn everything on the job. So the baptism by fire has begun. The overachiever in me kicked in immediately and I kept my eyes and ears open to what is expected of me and gave 110%. Then I realized if I keep up that pace for 30 days I will run out of gas around day 12. So I'm slowing down a little today and allowing myself to just chill out. For tomorrow morning before dawn I am out the door stepping into a new situation, that though heartfelt and exciting, will no less be very emotional and very demanding. I wish I could go into all the details for you but I can't. All I can give you are my feelings. That being said, this week I have felt worried, excited, exhausted, happy, intrigued, sad, scared, joyful, relaxed, stressed and full of anticipation. What a wonderful roller coaster ride. I hope it will continue over the next 27 days. And best of all, the one thing that keeps me sane and keeps me going, is that every morning, no matter how early or what is on my mind, I take time to meditate and center myself in my Creator. For it is my God, source of all that is, who energizes me, calms me and reminds me that all is well. As long as I remember this one tiny step each day, I know I am always safe and that I am living life to the fullest. Thank you God!

FREE FALLING

    Tomorrow I start a new adventure. I will fly to another state and work at a military installation as a family counselor for 30 days. I will not be writing about the details of the experience in this blog because of its confidential nature, but I will write about my feelings as I live and work away from home. To start with, I want to describe how I'm feeling right now as I step forward into this new life. It is as if I am free falling in the vast blue sky, floating and descending without a parachute. Tomorrow when I leave, I will have nothing to ground me in my new location, no familiar job, no friends, no home, no pets, not even my own car. It's as if I am stepping onto an airliner and jumping from 30,000 feet into a new life. I was guided by Source in this new direction, yet I feel nervous and excitement wrapped together in one delicious sensation. There is also a deja vu component mixed in because I've been here before, sort of, when I started my new job in Kazakhstan. But with that adventure I had a husband at home to ground the experience. Now, because I live alone, my dog has been adopted out and my cats are being nurtured by their new mom, I truly am unfettered. Like the fuzzy remains of a dandelion I am blowing with the breeze and landing wherever the wind takes me. Don't get me wrong, I relish this experience. If I didn't I would change the future right now by calling off the new job, remaining at home and living my life exactly as I have for the last few years. But I won't, because being a nomad is in my DNA. It is who I am and what I do. By next week I will have settled in to this flexible, adventurous life, thanking God for my big family and wonderful friends, for I'm counting on them to be my parachute. Happy Sailing!

MY NEW ANGEL, DIXIE

    Ever since I was a small girl my parents instilled in me the core belief that it is good to give back to God in gratitude for what God has given to me. I have done this in varying ways and have been blessed in meeting and becoming friends with so many people because of my volunteer activities. One of my dearest friends is a mother of a child who was on the swim team I coached and our friendship has grown and blossomed over the past 20+ years. So two years ago when I was looking for another volunteer opportunity I was guided to Bessie's Hope in Denver, which is an organization who matches volunteers with people in nursing homes. It was through them that I met Dixie. She was a sweet older lady (somewhere in her 80's I believe) who had been in the nursing home since her parents had died almost 15 years before. Because she had cerebral palsy and her brother could not care for her, she was placed in a facility for brain injury victims. It was sadly not the place for her, for her disability was completely physical and her mental capacity was better than mine.

    Every other week for almost 2 years (except for the months I was in Florida) I visited Dixie. Sometime I would come and play bingo with her, or listen to a visiting musician, but most often we just talked, and for her that seemed enough. She knew all about my family, my pets, my friends, my work, everything about my life. She loved hearing about what I was doing, especially when I played golf as that had been one of her favorite hobbies when she was younger. I learned about her life and knew that she had been married with two sons and that her husband had divorced her, left her almost penniless and taken her sons from her. She wasn't even sure where the boys lived anymore. Sad as her life was, she always had a smile on her face and a kind word to say for she was a true believer in God and read her bible regularly. She was encouraging, honest and loving, and most of all she was grateful. I would bring her flowers occasionally which she loved and once, after she'd shown me an old, raggedy purse she carried, I brought her a new purse. You'd think I'd given her a mansion with the way she went on and on about the gift for weeks afterwards. She was truly a dear, sweet, gentle woman.

    Dixie died yesterday. While eating breakfast she choked on her food and they were never able to revive her. Even though I did not know her for long and did not know her well, she made a profound impression on me and I will truly miss our visits. Tomorrow I was going to go hang out with her in the garden and right now I feel the pang of sadness for that lose. But I know Dixie is happier than she's been in years. She's hanging out with her parents, catching up with her friends who have gone before her and smiling down at all of us on earth, whispering encouragements in our ears and telling us to keep enjoying the adventure of life. I am truly blessed to have known Dixie and I look forward to her hanging around as another one of my guardian angels. I can never have too many. Thanks Dixie!

DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS

    I am spending a few days in Texas with one of my very best friends of 25+ years. We are very different in many ways yet we both have a deep belief in friendship and a deep belief in God. These small yet big connections seem to keep us coming back for more even though we live many miles away from each other. Yesterday I attended a southern Baptist church with her and learned something that was very heartening and very uplifting to me. I grew up in southern Indiana and a couple of my friends were southern Baptist. I seldom went to church with them because I was raised Catholic and I did not feel comfortable in their church. Mainly because the preacher was often spitting fire and brimstone and condemning the congregation to hell if we didn't live the straight and narrow life, but sometimes it was because I would hear disparaging words about Catholics that made me feel bad about myself and my religion. Now my days as a Catholic are long gone and my church of choice is Unity because I am more comfortable with a God who is loving and positive as well as for many other reasons I won't go into here. And I usually shy away from denominational churches because I consider myself more spiritual than religious and have thrown off the yoke of the rules and dogmas of my past. But yesterday I was pleasantly surprised as I listened to the minister teach at this particular Baptist church, deep in the heart of Texas. He spoke of a need to let go of "religion" and focus on being spiritual. His whole message was about working on a relationship with Jesus, inside and from the heart, more than following the rules and dogmas of an institution. I agreed with everything he said, and was surprised that his message was both uplifting and positive, just the way I like ministers to teach. I am glad to see that people, even in Texas who I often wrongly stereotype as fire, brimstone and negative, are listening more to their hearts and their connections to God and less to the negative and divisive messages of the religions of my past. I love it when God surprises me and yesterday Source gave me a wonderful gift, the gift of acknowledgement that we're all more alike in this world than different. Thank you Creator!

ME FORGIVING ME

    The word forgiveness has invited itself to my party lately. From my clients, from my minister, from my friends, it seems to be a word on many people's minds. Or maybe I'm picking up on it because it has been on my mind. Forgiveness means many things to many people but for me right now it is about forgiving myself for not being perfect, about forgiving myself for being human, and about forgiving myself for listening to the thoughts generated from the collective conscious, as well as the distorted beliefs that ring through my head on a regular basis. The louder the critic in my head talks the more I have to forgive myself. Not because I believe what my critic says, but for reacting to what she says. My critic loves to tell me how I'm not loving enough, or that I'm too selfish or that I don't care enough about others and the world. Her latest campaign has been to harp on me about how I am abandoning my old dog and that I am not a loving owner because I'm putting my needs above everyone else. Okay, so I know that these are distorted thoughts and if I dig deep enough I can figure out where the thoughts originate. But instead of looking too deep, I've decided to use my cognitive behavioral therapy training and head down a more present focused route. First I acknowledge the thoughts and criticisms because they exist. And next I turn my focus away from their distortions and replace them with what I really want to think and believe. And the final ingredient is to forgive me. For when I acknowledge and forgive myself for these thoughts and criticisms I am saying yes, I am human, yes, I am not perfect, and yes, I do think about myself more than I do others. Once I forgive myself for being all of these things, I can replace the distortions with what I want to believe. Such as how on the whole I'm a good person who works hard to stay aware of my thought, feelings and actions and how I work hard to do the right thing. And, how when I do make mistakes and become aware of them, I acknowledge my errors (maybe not immediately but eventually) and if possible, I put the wrong right. That's what forgiving myself is about. And when I do, it lifts the weight of worry, fear and condemnation from my shoulders and allows me to see the world through fresher eyes. For when I forgive me I feel free, free enough to find a new way of thinking.