Moving While Still

The longer I lay around my house the more I think. The more I think the more I understand. The more I understand the clearer things become.

1) I am beginning to become clear on how important consultation is as I take in what is happening in the American political arena. The virtues and attitudes that consultation that we are expected to come to the table with, as outlined by the Sacred Writings of the Baha'i Faith, insure only one outcome...unity and the advancement of all. We have to become so well versed in the language and actions of true consultation that it becomes second nature. The Baha'i World has to become the example of words finding action because our current governmental agencies are trying to make decisions using a broken system.

2) I am beginning to realize that this time was given to me for a reason. I have been putting off creating, planning the conference in Myrtle Beach, sponsor package, writing poetry, developing my educational program for schools as a visiting artist. Lots on my plate that I have not been doing. Not sure why but I think it is time to start.

3) It has become clear to me that involvement in the core activities is essential in combating the hopelessness I am feeling. The despair I am feeling about my country and the things that are happening.

Life is so much more than the look of being busy and involved. Here I am, being tested, and I am starting to move though, by outward looking, I am still.

Damn-it Do The Work

I woke up this morning really early with a tight chest and heavy burdens on my mind. I have not been able to get back to sleep. It is the same stuff that I was feeling anxiety over in my last post and I figured out what I needed to do. Now is the tine to do it!!!! I have to stop wallowing in this space. It is not helping the situation and I am getting better quicker than I am actually acknowledging. This tendency to dwell is something that I really need to be more vigilant about overcoming. Nothing in my life is really that bad off, I am just allowing myself to spiral into my own mental and emotional hell cause I feel I have nothing better to do. Somehow the only way to be useful is outside of the home but apparently I am going to be useful to myself and give myself some breathing room. Allow this hiatus to run its course. Calmly accept stillness. Stillness is not being useless.

Time to start doing....
1) Pray and Meditate for calm and guidance
- Choose a prayer. Use the meditation cd.
- Practice the virtue Trust
2) Focus on the chakras where these pains are centered and change the energy.
- Start reading the sections and doing the body scan.
3) It isn't easy to let someone take care of me because I think I owe them something and they may think I owe them something too.
- Time to resolve this. I am married, not single.
4) When I am not creating, I am not happy and I feel less energized and useful.
- Start creating. I keep stopping myself. Need to release energy. "Artists Way?"
5) Breathe...
- Use the meditation to remind me to breathe. Be more aware of when I am holding my breath.

Needing to Breathe

I began to notice recently that I have not been breathing. It really hit me tonight when I went to take a deeper breath and found it difficult. I have been holding my breath for I don't know how long. I have only been breathing as far as my chest and sometimes not even that far.

I don't think I realized how much this no job, no money to contribute, no creative endeavors situation has really been affecting me. The entire lower half of my body has decided to stage a strike. My lower back, hips, knees and even my ankles have gotten in on it. I have been shuffling about for a couple of weeks and had to be literally, practically carried by my husband to get to the bathroom yesterday. It all got worse yesterday when it seems that everything dysfunctional and painful moved down to my ankles. Where there used to be a protruding bone, is now weirdly inflated skin. I could not stand for very long and I am amazed that I even made it through a shower. I looked through a book of mine that I studied awhile ago that connects problems in the body to certain energy centers in our bodies that revolve around specific issues or concerns. All of my current problems are in the very lowest chakras dealing with money, creativity, sex, security and more.

At the heart of it I feel like a burden. I feel useless. I apply to jobs nearly every day. My mobility has been limited so getting out there and pounding the concrete is not a viable option, unless I have to call in sick right after getting hired. I also was provided the amazing opportunity to teach two dance classes that could also be a means of some amount of income. Now, with these injuries, it seems that I am bound to be inside this apartment for a lot longer. Right when we get settled in a place long enough for me to pursue work I am forced to focus on healing at home.

I feel bad for Ryan because he is away all week working and he gets to be home this week, which is rare. Instead of getting to relax and maybe get out to see the city we have moved to, he is stuck inside with me doing EVERYTHING....cooking, cleaning, moving things, icing my ankles, helping me get to and from the bathroom, grocery shopping and washing the clothes I haven't been able to wash because it is too painful to walk down and back up the stairs to the laundry center. To top it all off I am not in the mood to have sex and although he doesn't make a big deal out of it, I feel like I should be in the mood. To make all of this worse, I now have a tooth ache. It is almost comical and I do laugh because it is so absurd. The thing is, all of these physical problems may feel less like a burden if we had insurance. If I had some way to pay someone to look at my tooth and get it fixed without it costing an arm and a leg. I don't have a job and we are being able to live fairly comfortably but we don't have anything for extras like doctors or dentists visits.

It is so hard to let go when you are used to doing for others at your own expense at times. I just wish I had a job. Maybe I need to learn the lesson of what it means to be taken care of by someone. That this is what Abdu'l-Baha did for others. Maybe the lesson is that I still need to learn to pray and mediate...which I have not been doing. Maybe the lesson is that I have spent so many years underestimating my abilities that this just might the opportunity to start flexing some spiritual and mental muscles. Here I am, learning more about myself and trying to lay aside old practices.

I am learning:
1) Pray and Meditate for calm and guidance
2) Focus on the chakras where these pains are centered and change the energy.
3) It isn't easy to let someone take care of me because I think I owe them something and they think I owe them something too.
4) When I am not creating, I am not happy and I feel less energized and useful.
5) Breathe...

When Sadness Comes Around

I have been thinking about this sadness that bubbles up every once in awhile. It is not sadness that I dwell on or feel on a daily basis. I sense it at no definite time or in no particular location. It feels like regrets I didn't realize I had. It feels like I am missing things that were taken long ago. It feels like what I would imagine "han" would be. That old sadness that is passed from generation to generation through our cellular make up. I am beginning to realize that at some point in my healing I accepted the existence of this sad space. There are some hurts that cannot be healed. There are violations of the soul that leave scars. What I have learned to do is to be at peace with this. In the same way that the physical body sustains marks and scars from injuries so does the spirit. You learn to enbrace them, put them in their place, honor your resilience and then step forward into the present towards the future.