Learning The Lessons Well

I re-learned an old lesson today. Perhaps I needed a reminder to keep my perspective of my tiny place within the grand scheme of All There Is.

A friend was supposed to come over this afternoon for afternoon tea. I arranged my whole day around this so I'd have time to just sit and chat. She didn't arrive. She didn't even send a message to say she wasn't coming. Eventually I sent a message to her to ask if she'd forgotten. She had. We'll meet in town tomorrow instead.

I felt a little let down. This friend has a habit of forgetting me. I wasn't surprised - given her track history, but it did illustrate to me that I should not expect consideration and reliability from other people when they have repeatedly shown that they do not hold these values as being important.

Of course, I have other friends who are very considerate when they are late or can't come, and that reminds me that there are qualities about my friends and myself that I hold highly.

So why do I still persevere with this friend? Because, basically she's a nice person, and because she teaches me a lot about friendship and a lot about myself. These lessons often come with a sting, but that sting reminds me that I have a gentle, caring nature and I should be aware of how I feel when rejected or forgotten, and not become something I'm not.

What I mean is: just because my friend is inconsiderate, I am not to feel or react in the same way out of a sense of wounded ego. I do not retaliate with sharp words or do the same thing to her to "teach her a lesson". I know my friend is like this and I have accepted her as she is. Unconditional love is the lesson.

Today I learned that unconditional love is not always easy, but it brings a wonderful inner peace and acceptance along with it.

The other lesson I was reminded of today is that although I am an important part of my own day, I am not important to others. I have my place in the grand scheme of life, but I am not important to anyone but myself and those whose lives I am supposed to have an impact upon.

Sometimes friends have their minds on many other things that are important to them. This is as it should be. I am not important to everybody all the time. Nor is anyone else important to me all the time. Making time for each other and being able to get together is a blessing. It is not something to be expected and demanded. If other things have to be done during our day, then we do them in the time we are supposed to do them. Then, if there is a time we're free of other obligations, we can enjoy each others company. A blessing indeed.

I thank God and the Universe for my wonderful lessons today. I feel at peace and whole because of them.

Love and Light!

Change

Change

I’ve been thinking about change lately and how I deal with it. It’s strange how “change” has become a regular part of my life.

I thought back to my childhood, to a time when I thought change was rare. I tended to believe that things would always go on the way they were. For example: each year I thought summer would last forever, that my friends would be with me forever, that we’d always live where we lived.

That didn’t happen, of course. Summer always turned to autumn, my friends moved away and we shifted to a new house on the other side of town. To a child with no control over life, any kind of change was devastating. I’d cry and grieve for months. I never wanted anything to change, and of course everything did. I couldn’t handle it at all.

I was still a bit like that as an adult. I’d cling to what was comfortable and familiar – even if it was bad. I feared change so much that I’d stay within whatever boundaries I’d set for myself. Like a man clinging to his sinking boat, I would not let go of the rail. No, I’d sit on the bottom of the ocean with the vessel that was familiar, and mourn the loss of the sunlight on the surface.

This new entity that is me, has transformed. Change flows through me and around me all the time. It has become the one constant in my life. My life is not chaotic, though. Far from it. Having embraced change, I have a new sense of inner peace. Change itself has become familiar. Dealing with it has become natural.

It’s an acceptance from within. I have learned that nothing stays the same and I have learned to embrace that fact.

Change can be a challenge, but it also brings new possibilities. All this has come from a change of perspective, a decision to look at life a different way. Instead of change being the big black monster that could take my life away, it has become the wind that stirs the imagination, the current that carries me from one learning experience to another.

Through all this I have learnt a very valuable lesson: the more things change around me, the more I am myself.

Profound Thoughts

Profound Thoughts

for a Wednesday Morning

I was just thinking about the time before I was born into this lifetime and wondering what sort of conversations I had with those souls around me when I asked them to play certain roles in this coming life in order help me learn the lessons I needed to learn from physically living this life.

The veil of forgetfulness that covers our past lives and our spiritual lives does not lift just because you're aware that it is there. It is there for a good reason - so we can make the most of our physical lives and learn all that we can from each life we lead.

So...thinking back to that time before I'd finally made the decision to actually live this life physically, I wonder how I asked someone to play the role of my psychopathic adopted mother?

If you think about this for a moment in terms of actors playing a part, not just anyone can play a twisted role like that. It is highly specialized. If you want an example of great psychopathic acting, look at Heath Ledger as the Joker. Yikes!

Seriously, though, for a soul to inhabit an entire physical lifetime in which they are trapped inside a psychopathic mind - it's a big ask. It would take a very strong, very loving and giving soul to put themselves into such a position just to teach a few other souls a lesson they needed.

This puts me in awe of the role my adopted mother played in my life. I'm not sure I'd be strong enough to agree to spend almost 100 years trapped in a physical body with a demented mind. It's almost unthinkable to me. That's a huge sacrifice. A huge gift.

The lessons I learnt were unique. I know there are many people like me who grew up with one or both parents as psychopaths. You can't help but learn from that. You learn from it and grow strong, or you are broken by it. I wonder how many people are broken by it?

Now that I have released my adopted mother from the need to play the role of the psychopath to my victim role, I wonder if that is why dementia is setting in on her so swiftly? When I come to think of it, at the time of my absolute acceptance of her role and my forgiveness of her as a person, dementia began to creep in to her daily life in very noticeable ways. Is the physical energy of a lifetime of twisted thinking and constant planning of nastiness too much to bear when her time for playing that role is over?

If that is the case, then the more advanced her dementia becomes, the more of a blessing for her it will be.

Looking back on my life in this way puts a whole new perspective on it. I can't help but be humbled by the sacrifices and roles different people have played for me to reach a certain level of enlightenment in this lifetime. Yes, I know it would be a lot more complicated than that. They would also be learning lessons for themselves as well as teaching lessons to others. But just to think about something like that... Awesome!

The love these souls must have for me and others around them to agree to make such a sacrifice...! It's unfathomable, but totally awesome!

That's what my life has been so far - insignificant and ordinary, but awesome! I can't wait to see what the next phase of my life will bring. Or... as I should say: I can't wait to bring the next phase of my life into being.

Yeah! Now that's awesome!

Goodbye Rambo

I said goodbye to my dear old cat friend, Rambo on December 13 at 2.45pm. He was very old physically - a good 21 years that we knew of, possibly ten more - and has slowly been declining over the last couple of weeks.

Every morning I've been expecting to find him curled up somewhere having died in his sleep. Rambo wasn't suffering, he was just old and tired. His body was wearing out. He lost a lot of weight and was just a skeleton with fur for the last few days.

So how did I know it was time to call the vet?

I knew. He told me. We didn't need words. I knew today that he was ready to leave this life. I didn't want his last moments to be a painful struggle, so I called the vet. I wish it didn't have to be so.

Rambo left this life the way he lived it - with quiet dignity, on his own terms, in his own time, with love in his heart and me by his side.

I'm sure going to miss my big purry furry tiger-eyes boy. I'm so proud to have been his friend.

I have peace in my mind and soul, but my heart is aching. I know his gentle old spirit and mine will meet again, but until then I can't help but grieve for the loss of my little friend.

On the way home from the Bon Jovi concert. Bus seats uncomfortable.

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End of the Radiation

These past few days have certainly shown me that I am definitely resilient.

I've finally gotten to the end of my radiation treatment. It was a bit of an anticlimax to be honest. I'd made such a positive, and at times social, occasion out of having to travel an hour each day to another town for my treatment, that in some ways I was actually sorry that I no longer needed to travel there any more.

However, the treatment has really kicked in now and my leg is in a terrible state. It is all burned from the inside out. The scars from my various cancer operations have turned into pork crackling and have actually opened up. So, with weeping, open sores, tight, swollen skin and a leg that won't work, I'm in a sorry state physically.

I certainly have plenty to complain about, or even cry about, if I felt so inclined. I'm actually a bit annoyed with myself for agreeing to have this treatment as a preventative. In the end, nobody could give me a definitive answer to the question of whether this would actually prevent more cancer or not. I decided it was probably worth a go. Now that the pain is at its worst, I'm inclined to kick my own butt over that decision.

But...

I'm not going there. I'm sitting here journaling, editing, and even getting some of my own writing done. I'm enjoying watching the transition from autumn to spring and soaking in all that wonderful, joyous, manic, spring energy. I'm counting my blessings and looking back on the past year and a half as one incredible learning experience.

I could never have foreseen that I would go through so much within a year or so, see so many wonderful new medical advances, meet so many truly wonderful and inspiring people, and learn so much about myself and others.

This experience is nearly over. I'm at the other end of the tunnel and the bright light is shining its way for me to step into. Wow! What a ride this has been. It's not something I ever want to do again, thanks very much, but I am so much more enlightened than I was before.

All I can do is thank God and the universe for all this learning and the opportunity to come out the other side - as I will - relatively unscathed.

And... I'm certain that without my experience with YOU University and Maia as a guide, I'd never have learned so much from those experiences. Life sure is a wonderful teacher, but if you don't know how to look upon all those nasty things that happen to you, and if you don't know how to see yourself grow throughout those things and know that you needed them in order to grow, then you won't ever find the true joy of being.

I have found my own joy of being. It's simple and complicated, just as I am. And, whilst at this very moment I might willingly swap a leg with you, I'd never swap lives. If I had to define one thing about my life that I've learned through all my heartache and pain, it would be that I have been lifted up high so I can look down upon my life and see its worth.

Now that's a precious gift.

Yesterday's Friends

Yesterday’s Friend

Yesterday I met a friend up the street. I hadn’t seen her nor heard a word from her since October last year when I was in hospital in Melbourne having the first secondary melanoma removed from my leg.

D was as friendly as ever and as enthusiastic as ever about the venture we had started way back the year before last.

D had hired a nice sized building up the street where we were going to set up our co-operative healing and life coaching centre. We invited four others with similar businesses to go in with us to share the rent.

I did all the advertising, publishing, graphic designing of stationery, etc. We all put a lot of time and effort into our space and things were going along really well. The building was a bit run down so we all put in heaps of effort making it look the way we wanted. We painted, decorated, scrounged office equipment and whatever else we needed, all at our own expense.

Then I ended up in hospital for ten days. When I got home there was an email from D. I opened it, happy to be hearing from her at last. It read along the lines of: “...the other girls and I don’t think you’re putting enough effort into your part of the business so we’ve asked someone else to take your place...”

That was it. I was out. I tried to call her on the phone, but she never returned my calls, and didn’t answer my emails.

I felt betrayed. Sad. Alone. I was angry that I’d put so much effort, time and money into something I’d never be able to be a part of. I was angry at D and wondered if she’d had this in mind all along and had only used me to get certain things done. I was devastated that she’d used my misfortune as an opportunity to get rid of me. I thought that was really low. She could have at least waited until I had recovered, or ousted me before it happened. It seemed to me that she’d waited until I was out of town – it didn’t matter what the reason was – to kick me out.

However, I didn’t allow myself to dwell on this for too long. I was getting more involved in YOU University at the time and enjoying my lessons and the work I was doing through that, so I let the incident go. I put it down to D’s fickleness and forgave myself for being such a fool and not seeing that coming. D had a history of doing this to me, and I had a history of allowing it to happen. An old pattern of behavior I’d been trying to stamp out.

Then I ran into her yesterday. And guess what? She asked how I was going with my life coaching course and asked if I’d be interested in renting a space in their building!

I think I was speechless for a full minute or two. I told her that for the moment I was too busy. I told her that I was almost through YOU Uni and was still studying, I had just started my five weeks of radiation, and I was involved in a play for the next month in Beechworth, so I would be far too busy to think about her offer. I thanked her for thinking of me and hurried on my way.

When I thought about it later on, I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry. Had she forgotten how she treated me? Obviously what she did had not bothered her one bit. It bothered me. It bothered me for the rest of the day. Why? After analysing the situation, I decided it was the trust issue that rankled the most. I had trusted her and she betrayed me - again.

These feelings took me back to my childhood. That feeling of building up to something I was promised, only to have my hopes dashed cruelly. It happened over and over, and built within me an inherent mistrust of all people.

It has taken me a long time to get over this instant mistrust. I thought I was over it a couple of years ago. When D came to me and outlined what she intended to do with her business, and asked me to be a part of it, I squashed my feelings of mistrust and became involved. I was really enjoying being involved. Then I had my hopes dashed by her again.

Only, something had changed within me by that time. Although I was devastated and felt sick at the way she’d dumped me, I didn’t take it all deep within myself and let it fester there as I once would have.

I grieved for the loss of my friend and for the loss of the opportunity of the building from which to start my life coaching business. I treated what I’d already given as a donation that I gave freely from my heart. I let go of the material things.

I’d just learned about Love Letters at that stage. I wrote some to D and to myself over it, and I eventually came out the other side of my sadness with a spirit of gratitude for what I’d learned from this incident.

D has always been the same. I knew that. She was like this right back in school. She is not likely to change now. I had hoped that she’d learned as much from life as I had, but clearly she either hasn’t learned her lessons deeply, or she just doesn’t care about how she treats people. Either way, that is her path. This is mine.

I continued with YOU University, and now, I’m enjoying being very close to the end of the formal part of the learning. Not that you ever stop learning from life – but I’m looking forward to new beginnings. D closed a door on me last year, but I opened another one. I walked through that door, and now I’m going in a new direction.

I was determined not to allow that experience to taint my trust of everybody else. I did not internalize those feelings or use them as a means of self-torture. Once, I would have mentally flailed myself for months over something like that.

The big lesson I learned from all that, was that I needed to be more careful of whom I trusted. I needed, and still need, to listen carefully to my inner voice about people and not blindly trust them because I’ve known them all my life. The opposite is also true. I should not blindly mistrust people just because I’ve known them for years either. Sometimes people change. Sometimes they don’t.

It’s a big effort for me, but I have to allow people to earn my trust. I have to take that leap of faith and extend the offer of trust. If it is not taken with the spirit with which it is given, then it will not be through my own past conditioning that things fall apart. But I have to be wise about where I offer that trust. D showed me that.

There is no use in kicking myself up the bum about it now. It all happened a year ago. I will not allow all the hard work I’ve done through YOU Uni to be undone because seeing D brought  back all those memories. Like I said, I knew what D was like. We grew up together. I didn’t listen to my inner voice. I wanted to believe she had grown up and was a different person. I wanted to move beyond our childhood relationship and have an adult relationship.

That is the key to the whole situation: I WANTED to believe in my friend, so I closed my eyes to the truth.

Whatever her real reasons for kicking me out of her building were, they matter not. She did me a favor. She freed me so I could go on doing what I truly loved, in the way I enjoyed it, in the time frame that suited me.

Seeing D again also reminded me that Yesterday’s Friends are not Today’s Friends for a reason.

From now on, I will trust in myself first and listen to my inner wisdom.

Radiation Treatment Begins

Yesterday was my fourth visit to the radiation clinic and my first real treatment. The first three visits were for measuring. The main difficulty in treating my leg is that they have to radiate right down to the bone, but somehow not shoot right through my knee. Apparently knees are sensitive and the radiation would destroy all the fine ligaments and cartilage. Hence all the careful measuring.

I laid myself down onto the slab yesterday and envisioned myself inside my crystal pyramid of power on the fifth plane of existence. I visualized that the machine hovering above me was a giant healing crystal of power. During the treatment, which is only about 6 minutes for one zap and 4 for another, I meditated. I invoked the violet light of the Masters and asked for a whole body healing.

I immediately felt sharp, almost unbearable, pain in my right kidney. I had to remain still, so I didn't move. The pain quickly went away and was replaced by a gentle tingling which faded to nothing. I knew something within me had been healed. I have IgAN which is a kidney disease that destroys the nephrons (filters) in the kidneys. I also know that my kidneys haven't been enjoying all my cancer treatments over the past year and have been suffering. (I have 40% function left in both kidneys.)

Anyway, something has been put right, or balanced within. I felt nothing around my knee area that was being treated by radiation. Later, I could feel that the inner temperature of that leg is hotter than the other one, but apart from that, no side affects so far. It's early days yet.

When the radiation was finished, I floated off that hard slab feeling refreshed, calm, totally recharged and at peace with the universe.

I'm going to use my pyramid of power and meditation each time I'm on that slab. It was such a wonderful experience, I'm actually looking forward to today's visit.

By the time the technicians finish positioning my leg and then do the radiation, I'm on that slab for about 15 minutes all up. The thought of spending 15 minutes every day meditating and connecting with the higher realms is actually quite an uplifting thought.

It sounds rather insane, I know, but I'm looking forward to five weeks of that.

Update:

Today was the same. I meditated in my pyramid during the treatment.This time the pain in my right kidney was only short and sharp before disappearing. There is obviously something there to be healed and it is being "zapped" by the violet healing of the ascended Masters while I meditate.

At the end of my treatment, I was calm, relaxed and happy.

Boundaries - Again!

Boundaries again. I know I've written about them before, but I've been struggling to maintain personal boundaries I've set. I've allowed others to bully me into doing things I didn't want to do - things I knew were too much for me.

I wanted to know why I couldn't seem to maintain my boundaries, so I took a look back through my early life. I discovered that my fear of setting and keeping boundaries all stemmed from long ago when I first overstepped a friend's boundaries and was rejected on those grounds.

My feelings of hurt, fear, humiliation, rejection, devastation, shame, were all felt so keenly way back then, that I have allowed that to undermine what I've been working so hard to do right now in the present time.

I have been so conscious of not inflicting those emotions on other people, that I've allowed them to walk all over me rather than set respectful, realistic personal boundaries.

Now that I know the source of my "weakness" for want of a better term, I can now face it and deal with it.

To deal with this problem, I've used the Love Letter, which has become a favorite tool of mine. Below is the letter I wrote to myself:

Boundaries Love Letter To Me

Dear Self;

I'm angry with you because I discovered that you were holding on to old beliefs that were sabotaging your ability to set realistic boundaries for yourself and keep those boundaries.

You were allowing old hurts and wounds to make you feel bad about setting boundaries.

This makes me sad. It is great that you don't want to hurt other people's feelings, but you are also worthy of not being hurt.

I am afraid that you are going to allow people to bully you into letting them break down your barriers and step over your personal boundaries.

I am afraid that you will allow your own fear of hurting others to enable them to hurt you.

I am sorry that, in the past, you felt so bad about stepping over someone else's boundaries that you have been afraid to set your own and keep them up right now in the present time.

I want you to know that you are worthy of setting boundaries of your own. I want you to set those boundaries and not feel guilty if you have to enforce them.

I understand your great love and compassion for others, but you must also have great, if not greater, compassion for yourself. You need these boundaries and you need to show others that you will not be forced into letting them walk all over you.

Thank you for listening to me. You are learning to listen to me, your inner self, so much more these days. Thank you for trusting in me to guide you.

I understand how hard it is for you to enforce your own personal boundaries. I see you struggle every day with your conscience about this.

I am sorry that your experiences in your childhood have left you feeling as though you are not strong enough and confident enough to keep enforcing your boundaries, but I know that you are strong enough to do this.

You deserve respect from other people, and you deserve respect from yourself. You are worthy of setting boundaries and you should set them and keep them.

I want you to know that you can trust yourself with the setting of these personal boundaries. I know that you are always considerate of others' needs as well as your own. You need not fear that in the setting of your own boundaries that you are stepping upon anyone else's. You know that you will never do this. I will not allow it.

I love your compassionate nature, and I love how you always consider others in everything you do. Most of all, I love your new love of me. I will always be with you to help and guide you. And I will always love you.

Love Self.

Now that I've written that letter to myself and I've read it over a few times to reinforce it in my mind, I feel much more confident and able to deal with people who want to push me around.

Takes One to Know One

I can spot a victim a mile away.

I see them everywhere and meet them almost every day. To the untrained eye, a victim looks just like everybody else. So what is it that gives them away? The expression on their faces? Their downcast visage? Yes, those things do count, but to really tell a victim from a non-victim, you only have to talk to them. They'll give themselves away in the first five minutes.

How did I become so good at spotting these people?

I used to be one of them. Not just one of them - the Queen of all Victims. Damn I was good! Even when nobody else was around to victimize me, I could do a great number on myself. I'd put my 'poor little me' mask on as I got out of bed in the morning and leave it on until I went to bed at night. And I never could see why people were always mean to me, why they used and abused me, set me up mercilessly, etc. I just couldn't see it.

I was a nice, gentle, well-meaning and kind person. But I was a victim. It was in my demeanor. It was in my conversations. I might as well have had it tattooed across my forehead.

I felt like my life was never my own. Nothing I did ever worked out. Other people always got the jobs I went for. I was never chosen to do anything, be anything, or go anywhere. People were always pushing me around and telling me what to do. I felt powerless and ineffectual.

So what changed?

I did.

I changed. I discovered a new way of looking at the world. I opened my eyes to what my life was really like  and I didn't like what I saw. I didn't like the person I had become. I wanted to be me. I wanted to take charge of my life and live it the way I desired.

No longer was I content to live in the shadows. I wanted to step right out into the sunlight, to spread my wings and fly. And that's exactly what I did!

How did I do this?

Well, it wasn't easy. I had to get real. By that I mean really real. I had to face myself and be honest about who and what I was. I had to be totally honest about all the things in my past and learn to look at them openly and with a different point of view.

Help wasn't something I'd ever reached out for, but in this case, I did reach out. And my hand was grasped firmly by Maia Berens, my mentor and coach. I'd never had anyone come to my rescue before, and suddenly I had a fairy godmother who was willing to stand beside me and show me how to find myself and get my life back in order.

All those years, I thought I knew myself fairly well, but Maia started to ask me questions I couldn't answer unless I took a fresh look. I had to learn to look back at my life with a spirit of forgiveness, love and willingness to see things as they really were. No excuses.

Do you think that's easy? Try it. Go on, I dare you.

It wasn't easy at all. There were many tears along the way, many stumbles and falls, many times I wanted to hide from myself. Maia encouraged me to stick with it, and I did.

I learned to view life with a Life is a School attitude and a renewed love for myself and strong respect for my life. I started to take charge of my life and make choices. Not only that, but I started to direct my life, change directions, and even begin a new career as a Spiritual Life Coach.

The self-confident person you meet today is far from the downcast victim of yesterday. I learned how to turn my whole life around and really live.

I love my life now. I love making choices and exploring my limitless options. It's a wonderful way to be.

You know something... You can do the same thing I did. You can learn to stop seeing everything that happens in your life as a disaster and start learning from  your mistakes. You can start finding the blessings in everything that happens in your daily life. You can take charge of your life and become who you were always meant to be.

If you're interested, and you want to follow my story, I journal at: All About Life Coaching. You can begin a journal there too if you like. It's a great first step towards the new you. Our journal community is an honest, caring place where many of us share our darkest fears and ask for advice from others who have been through similar circumstances. And, guess what? It's completely free.

It's a great place to take that first all-important step on the road to becoming who you really are. 

See you there!