Hello to you . Hope this finds you well. I’m struggling with creativity and medication. I’ve found that when I am on strong medication I can’t think as clearly as I normally can. My drawing and writing skills are impaired. I am having to choose between mania and sedation I guess. I choose reality – sanity and if that means sedation then that’s what has to happen.
Hello to you. Todays message from A Woman’s Spirit is really good:
What you praise you increase – Catherine Ponder
Getting trapped in negativity is far too easy. When we get stuck, we soon are overwhelmed with shame. When we’re feeling miserable, we can be certain no one else is enjoying our company either.
It may feel impossible to break out of this painful cycle. Some of us may become complacent in it, yet we recognize that some women seem to experience much more peace and joy than ourselves. What do they do that’s different? Careful observation reveals how accepting they are of others. They can be serene because they aren’t invested in how someone else lives. This is the Serenity Prayer in action.
The easiest step in becoming like these women we admire is to begin praising what we do like in others. The more we praise their positive qualities, the less we’ll focus on those parts we’d like to change. The miracle is that our inattention to the negative qualities dissipates them.
I will praise, not criticize, everyone today. It’s a decision , nothing more. My friends will benefit, but I’ll benefit even more.
Hello to you. Hope this finds you well. Today is Veterans Day. A day that exists because of great sacrifices of so many men and women living and dead. I always say the best way to thank me for my service is to try and make it so there are fewer veterans….more peace and less war. I don’t know if I will ever see that but that is my wish for the world!
Hello to you. How are you today? I hope you are doing ok. It’s been rough here but I’m doing better. Last night I tried to sleep without extra meds and was doing pretty good until I woke up after a weird dream. It started with seeing my phone and an image on it like from the group Anonymous. Then I was sitting with someone watching tv. The tv flickered and that same image appeared on the tv screen! What woke me up was hearing a scary voice saying, “no need to alert the authorities.” My brain doing weird stuff again lol!
Anyhew…. today is my Dad’s 79th birthday! Wow! It’s hard to believe but he and I used to joke that he was going to live as long as Moses! That’s like 120! If he and I were together today we would be dueling with our forks over Mom’s chocolate pudding dessert. The past couple of years have been hard on him but he is a survivor – something he and Mom always taught me to be! I’m missing him today. I miss his hugs! There is something about a hug from your Dad. I just felt so loved and safe when we hugged….the worlds noise and cares couldn’t reach me for a little bit. I love you Dad! ❤️
Many years ago, when I was still in Junior High, I was in an advanced writing program . They liked analogies I wrote. This one I wrote thinking of my Dad:
“An open window in spring is like the loving arms of a father.”
9 “As the Father has loved me,(A) so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
https://youtu.be/oCE4VWKY5YI – happy birthday from alfalfa (little rascals)
13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
I experienced this yesterday and it was very healing – a lot of tears! When I awoke in the middle of the night in excruciating pain in my right leg, it was remembering this video, using the medicine inside myself with The love of Jesus – transmuting pain with love energy, that helped make it go away. Thank you Andrea:
https://youtu.be/QY_nhXgQbtw – Receive Love Now – Full Hour Distance Reiki Session ( Reiki Master Andrea Kennedy)
Hello to you. How are you today? I hope this finds you well today. Yesterday afternoon on my walk alone I went down another street I’ve never walked down. The world is so different when you walk in it and actually look at things. I saw places people are living that are in really rough shape. It reminded me of the town I left, Alvarado Texas. In the midst of prosperity were a lot of people living in structures barely in habitable condition. I look at these places knowing people live there and just hope they are ok….pray for them. There for the grace of God am I! After this Jesus and I found our way to the water and just sat quietly in gratitude.
A song I recently heard that is really beautiful. May be you will like it too:
https://youtu.be/6XzhlOiKaT0 – Prayer of Healing Josie Wildgoose
I don’t know if you remember but I had asked God about orange flowers and they showed up in a spot I like to visit. The color Orange has been on my mind. Energy flow in the body and how it can get blocked by emotional pain has been on my mind. I have had this stubborn pain in my lower back and that is on the “orange” area of our energy centers in the body. This area is very stubborn to unblock the bodies energy flow in…at least for me. It’s interesting to be thinking of a particular color and find out it might be related to a particular energy center in the body.
Message from A Woman’s Spirit today: I will look for opportunities to encourage another person today. My own strength and courage will be enhanced in the process.
Here are some other pictures and messages from yesterday:
Hello to you. How are you today? Well Link and my day began with a knock on the door!
I have been asking God to heal me and there has been relief from the pain but I think there hasn’t been complete healing because he’s trying to get me to slow down – to accept help!
The message from A Woman’s Spirit seems to speak to what I’ve been reading about with young people of today and the concept of joining the work force. A lot of places that employ entry level people or places that pay low wages are really having trouble getting young people to work for them. I think there is a growing awareness that being happy and fulfilled in life is important! Working in some dead end job with toxic people and employment practices just isn’t worth it:
Many of us think that attaining status and financial success will make us happy. – Helene Lerner-Robbins
May be we have to attain status and material wealth before we realize that it doesn’t fulfill us. If we grew up in unhappy homes, we may have thought that material objects would change our lives. To discover otherwise takes wisdom, and we are only now seeking that.
The attainment of wisdom gives us the happiness we have sought everywhere else in our past. All that we longed for comes to us when we stop the rush to attain things and focus instead on the miracle of our spiritual being. Life is full of wonderful paradoxes; utilizing the tools of this program helps us discover them.
Let’s not mislead ourselves. Having status and financial success doesn’t preclude happiness; it just won’t guarantee it. Finding God and settling for wisdom does.
I don’t need anything special to be happy. My reliance on my Higher Power will give me lasting happiness.
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I wasn’t able to get on a walk yesterday so I focused on other things that make me feel close to God:
The phrase is referenced with a reversal of the usual meaning in J.R.R. Tolkien‘s poem, “The Riddle of Strider”, originally written for The Fellowship of the Ring:
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Riddle of Strider, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Hello to you. It’s Sunday morning as I write to you. I’m sitting here with some coffee, two sweet boy doggies and my thoughts….a question for myself and you. Why do you help others? After reading Matthew 6 yesterday I am reminded to not blow my own horn when it comes to service and helping others which is hard to do in a modern world. So much of social media is “see what I did?” I guess it just comes down to making sure our motives are pure when we do things. It’s not about what’s in it for me or what am I going to get by doing things. No strings must be attached and that can be hard with how valuable time is to most people. Like my deciding to help set up church is my way of showing I care about the church I’m going to. It’s a small way I share with God and other people who care too. I’m not looking for praise or thanks:
6 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.(A) If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.(B)
Yesterday I kind of scaled back the walks a bit as I was real sore and grumpy lol. The boys and I did manage to find a few things to share with you. Something beautiful I saw was a woman in a scooter out with her daughter. She couldn’t walk but at least she made an effort to go with her daughter and enjoy the beautiful day! I love seeing parents sharing time with their children like that. I thought of the phrase I say to myself when I saw the woman in the scooter, “it’s not what I can’t do, it’s what I can do.”
Let’s go for a short walk together:
Hello to you. How are you doing in your where and when? I’m getting a really late start. It took a lot of coaxing to get up today. Last night was another battle of trying to sleep. The lower part of my body has been experiencing a lot of pain and trying to sleep through that pain can be difficult.
What came to me is thinking about old dogs like my Sam and older people in my life both living and passed on. They didn’t complain about their aches and pains. The message of “it’s not what you can’t do but what you can do” came to my mind. I realized I could do some cleaning up this morning – it hurt but I did it!
When Sam and I used to go for walks without Kyle in Delaware he did something with me that he didn’t do when the three of us would walk. He occasionally would just stop, sit down and look at me with those eyes…”can we stop for a minute? I need a rest…” he seemed to say. Getting older in all our forms kind of forces us to slow down even though inside we want to go like we are still 20 year olds! Today I will remind myself that it’s ok when I am hurting. I will focus on the things I am capable of still doing even though I’m feeling this way – not focus on all the things I can’t do.
41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.(A) The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Todays message from A Woman’s Spirit is about approaching life with gentleness:
Our own gentleness is a powerful force in our lives. It is like the gentle flower that grows through granite. – Patricia Hoolihan
We are attracted to women and men who have cultivated a gentle spirit. Their softness nurtured all of us who come into their space. We are soothed and made whole by their caring spirit. Let’s allow our caring spirit to develop too.
The aggression we may have grown accustomed to in our families and neighborhoods need not claim us for all time. We have the power within us to chart a new course. We have examples of gentleness all around us; they are our guides and are here by divine appointment.
Whatever task we are destined to perform in this clean and sober life can best be accomplished if directed by a heart that cares. Being gentle promises each of us the same comfort it offers others. Each gentle act heals our heart and lovingly nurtured the future.
Being gentle today is much easier than being mean-spirited. My gentle side will nurture my inner child and remove my fears.
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Pictures from yesterdays adventures:
To be 