Happy New Year!

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year! This year is starting out with a new book to celebrate and some old challenges to contend with. Doesn’t everything start as a mixed bag of old and new? It has been said, “where ever you go, you take ‘you’ with you.”

Well, I’m starting another year taking ‘me’ with me. I’m currently on medical leave from my job of 18 years. I need to decide if I have the strength to continue with full time work or not. Truthfully, I never planned on leaving work on disability. Winning the lottery, starting my own business, finding an oil well all seemed like good alternatives to full time employment but not disability. But my body and Universal wisdom may have other plans for me. Between fatigue, weakness and periodic bouts of trigeminal nerve pain I seem to be running out of steam.
Anyone with a disability grapples with their plans being trumped by the Universe’s (or the Divine) plan. There is fear, sometimes terror in this process. I’ve been experiencing bouts of this myself. Yesterday when weakness (related to medication I took for the nerve pain) made me question whether or not I could put my dog’s dinner dish on the floor safely without falling, I had an impossible wave of terror. My ego was panicking and screaming “Oh my God, am I falling apart?”

That was my cue to stop!! Stop panicking, stop thinking, and stop my head from running foolishly in energy wasting circles that only deplete what energy I do have. I got on my exer-cycle and repeated my daily affirmation to busy my silly brain with something productive! I’ve been repeating this affirmation: “I am whole, healed, healthy and strong. My arms and legs are strong and I walk with ease, and grace and joy!” This affirmation helps me to calm down.
Then today I had an insight into the fact that I am lacking in love and compassion for my physical body. Judgment and fear come so readily when my body doesn’t respond the way I want it to but I realized nothing is healed by judgment. When we want to “grow” something whether it’s a plant, a project or a person, love is the only thing that nurtures growth. Have you ever seen a person respond favorably to criticism? So why would our bodies? I’ve known this at a surface level for years but today something clicked at a deeper level. Today I realized I had to do more than SAY I loved my body. I have to really DO IT!!! I have to love my body when I don’t feel good, when I don’t feel strong, when I question my own abilities….If I really want to be whole and healed I have to love first!!!!

So I’m taking ‘me’ into this new year but my goal is to do it with love. I want to love first and leave judgment and panic behind. For all of us life and healing are journeys that are taken a step at a time. Perhaps this journey will enable me take a healthier path and learn to have love and kindness be my ‘default’ thought toward my body and toward everything else life has to offer.
I hope you’ll consider being more loving toward yourself and your own healing path as well. Try it and see what grows for you too.

Until next time…

In the light

Dinah