The answers are inside of me



Visiting with family



Recently, I've been feeling so grateful and excited each morning when I wake up. Right now I'm in a pretty unique situation. My typical day is spent alone at my house. When the weather is nice, I go for a half hour walk or spend time outside on the patio or in the garden. I thrive being outside, so I like to be out as much as possible. I see Karl in the evenings, and that's about it. I don't yet have friends in real life other than family members. And family members come by very infrequently. 

 

The thought occurred to me the other day, "I like my set up. I really do! I'm so blessed!" I've been feeling quite healthy and just magnificent the last week or so. I've been focusing on doing the things that bring me enjoyment. I do enjoy being alone, and it suits me quite well. I wake up to a sunny day, and I talk to my cat. I go out on the patio and check on some sprouts in the garden. I get my breakfast and eat it slowly. Then I do some meditation, either out on the patio in the sun or relaxing on the couch. I go on a walk and soak up energy from the breeze, the trees, plant, and life in the neighborhood. I fill up my lungs and breath and feel so alive walking. I listen to audio sessions where I learn about topics like allowing spirit into your life, opening up to your own divinity, and honoring and valuing yourself. Every day I feel like I learn something new about life and myself, and it is quite refreshing. I'm always walking around with a stack of paper and a pencil jotting notes down. Then I just sit and meditate out in the sun, usually doing my Bio Tuner to help me relax. I feel like I am expanding on the inside, and becoming aware of so much after being in a spiritual coma for some time. It really makes waking up each day such an exciting event. Especially now that it's June, and the weather is warm. I don't know why the sun and warmth have such an invigorating effect on me. To wake up and feel the sun warming my skin, with a warm breeze blowing in and the smell of warm earth and plants in the air...as I switch from sleep to realization that I'm awake. It's really such a gift!

 

I've been focusing on accepting where I am in my health without analyzing it, and that's been giving me joy. Thalia was explaining to me a month or so ago how freeing it is to live in the present moment. Because in the present moment, you are always OK and always safe. So I ask myself, in this present moment, how am I doing? Well, right now I am fine. I am safe, I have enough food and water, I'm comfortable, I'm surviving. Because my present moment is fine, I can live in it, not yesterday or how I expect the afternoon to be. Truth be told, with the Nutritional Balancing Hair Analysis program I'm on, my health has resembled a marble zipping around in a ping pong game. It bounces around so much, that it is never the same from one day to the next, from morning to afternoon, sometimes from one hour to the next. It would be exhausting to study it and try to manage or control it, so I just let go and let it be. Before I started the NB program, my health was definitely a roller coaster and quite unpredictable from one day to the next, from one hour to the next. So that is no big change. What is different now is that the highs and lows change more often and are more of a contrast. The lows are just as low as they were pre-NB, but the highs are higher and last longer. And symptoms shift around a lot more now than before. Musical chairs, anyone? To put it mildly, practicing flexibility is making my life much easier right now.

 

When I was in fourth grade in elementary school, I went through this phase where I wanted to switch places with my mom. She was a stay at home mom and we lived in this old farm house sort of out in the country. My mom would basically just cook, clean, do laundry and work in her garden. I didn't like school because that year my teacher had resigned and we had a string of substitute teachers. I didn't like the unpredictability that year and longed for safety and routine. I would beg my mom to switch bodies with me so that she could go to fourth grade for me, and I could do her chores at home. I lived in some kind of fantasy in my childhood (and beyond) and believed that if my mom gave her verbal consent, the switch would easily occur. She laughed and said her work would be too hard for me, and that what I would end of doing was spending my day in the garden instead of cooking dinner. There was some truth in her words, but I smile now at how intensely I wanted to just stay at home in a safe, quiet setting.

 

And now I have my wish. I just realized this the other week. I have the life my mom had that I coveted. I don't have to be anywhere, ever. I don't have to worry about paper work, running errands, deadlines, cars, insurance, meetings. Every day stretches into the next infinitely with no one demanding anything from me. I have less responsibility right now than my mother did then, actually. She had to go get groceries each week, and she had six kids to cook and care for. I don't have a car and don't have to drive anywhere. I can wake up and spend my day soaking up the sun, meditating, zoning out, recharging my batteries, getting more centered and grounded, caring for myself taking long baths or showers, luxuriating in any way, eating breakfast as slowly as I want to, cleaning or not cleaning the house whenever I want or don't want to. I am really grateful for my set up. It wasn't this good a year or more ago. 

 

I have shifted into quite a slow mode, compared to how I was four years ago. I used to be a whirlwind of perpetual thought and motion, with a to-do list that branched out into infinity. I thrived on that adrenaline, and I lived in constant fight or flight.  I was completely unable just to sit and be. I never sat down with nothing to do, I always had to be incredibly busy doing many things at once. Eventually, I got stuck in overactive mode, but it took a very long time for it to finally set in. And, even though I started "resting" myself three years ago, it hasn't been until the last year or so that I've been able to get to the point that I am feeling rested in the mind and spirit.

 

So, wow. I got my wish! I am free to entertain myself exactly as I want. I'm finally getting in touch with myself and listening to my intuition. I'm finally honoring what my inner self has been trying to tell me my whole life, but I never listened. I can paint fairies, think up magical stories, daydream on the patio, hold extensive conversations with my cat, and be as odd as I want to be. Karl thinks I'm completely sane, which is music to my ears. I ask him if he thinks I'm whimsical, odd, strange, off beat, or special in a not so positive way? He looks right at me and says I am very normal, and why do I ask? Ha ha! That is really healing to me, as I used to be looked at as a weirdo, so that is why I hid my personality and tried to be normal.

 

Nothing is expected of me, and I expect nothing of myself, except to just simply be and to enjoy the present moment. If I just spent the rest of my life achieving no greater accomplishment than simply growing and pruning plants, that really is OK. There is no rush for me to make this major transformation in health so that I can get a job and function like "normal" people do. I used to feel a strong push to get better in a certain framework of time, when I first took off work and was on a year long leave of absence, then a two year leave. I've left that deadline behind some time ago, and am not in a rush to go anywhere or do anything now. As long as I am happy in the moment, that is what is important.
 

 I've been feeling quite content, and grateful beyond words the last few weeks. Everything I need is inside of me now. Any answer I will ever need is inside of me. I have everything right now that I need to be happy. I am one with my body and spirit. I didn't know I was actually doing this, but my whole life I cut myself off from who I was. I grew up in a family of artists. The relatives on my father's side are visually artistic, very musically talented, poetic, and quirky. But to the degree that my father's family is artistic, they are also just as tortured. As many generations as I can go back, most of my relatives have sunk in huge quagmires of depression, anxiety, mental illness and isolation. Alcoholism, drug abuse, living in half way homes, in and out of jail, suicide, you name it. My dad tried to purge these tendencies out of himself, my mom, and my siblings and I through very strict religious legalism, and separating himself completely from anything not of God. God was in the Bible and church, but he wasn't in every day life, in art, in intuition, in joy, laughter, freedom, flexibility, in yourself, in music, in your spirit, in other people, in the world itself. Basically, you had to cut yourself off from yourself to be truly Godly. My family did it's best to purge themselves. Other than my dad, I tried the most, since I was trying to win my dad's approval the most. He disliked me the most, so I made it my life mission to get him to approve of me. I grew up trying to control myself and suppress my intuition, my inner voice, and my artistic side. I felt like not suppressing these areas would lead down the devil's road and would open up a door to irresponsibility and mental illness. I was so afraid of trusting myself, that I cut myself off from my inner self completely. And I wonder now why my body has cut itself off from me. Clearly, I would have done the same if I was one of my own body parts.

 

When I would get sick as a child, I would refuse to listen to the voice telling me I was sick, and I would cover it up because being sick was an inconvenience in my father's work day, and his paycheck was more important than picking me up from school. My inconvenience was highly desired over the rage and disgust he would explode into when I made a small need of mine known to him. When he said or did things that made me uncomfortable, I refused to listen to my inner voice that screamed it didn't like those things, and I listened to a voice of fear that he instilled in me, that told me he wouldn't love me if I didn't do those things. Not that he ever did love me, but I sure did keep hoping. I suppressed my body's needs, and I didn't honor my body since I was about 6 years old and onwards till about last year. I believed my body was a worldly inconvenience that I was saddled with in this world, and that it was a thorn in my flesh. It was full of sin and wild desires that I could only manage through much suppression and control. I separated myself from my body at a very early age. I didn't listen to it at all. I have had a fear of vomiting, for example, that really confuses me. I don't know why I'm so afraid of it. I think it has something to do with being deathly afraid of letting my body do what it wants, about letting go and trusting my body.

 

I haven't had clear boundaries pretty much... ever. I've been an empath who has covered up her true identity, and that's led to a lot of pain on my side. I've attracted emotional vampires, narcissists, people who can smell people like me from miles away. They feed on females who have scant emotional boundaries.  I've tended to attract people who are draining. My compassion draws them in, and when they go overboard and suck the life energy from me, I've let them. They end up stealing my energy and going along in life without thinking about it, swimming happily in their pools of stollen energy while I'm left drained.

 

The other day, I had a quite pleasant interaction with someone who was recently expressing that they were trapped, and that life sucked. I had been encouraging and uplifting this person in this area quite regularly, as I believe no one is ever trapped. No one is really a victim unless they want to be. We all create our own reality whether we know it or not. This person had gone into a rapid negative spiral, and I was quick and ready with one of my tailored pep talks, even though I had given an identical version of this talk multiple times. But this time, this person went on and on like they didn't hear me at all and wanted to stay in a depressed mode. I felt a sudden departure of energy, like I was being drained. So I sat up and said calmly, "I am more than happy to talk with you if you are open to positive suggestions. But until you are open to encouragement, I can not interact in this conversation." And I got up and went into another room for a glass of water. Then I went upstairs and listened to an audio book by myself. I felt unruffled, calm. I sensed that I was responding in ways I had never done before, and my body thanked me for it. My energy had immediately come back, and I felt serene, quite healthy. Although I know that this adrenal burnout illness I've been experiencing is hereditary, I know also that it is highly excacerbated or eased by the way I honor or don't honor myself.

 

In a way, I think that this health condition is a result of my own body's inner longings for a long time. I tuned my body out even when it got to the point it was screaming at me. So when screaming didn't work, different parts of me just simply stopped working when I wanted them to. This forced me into this life of isolation I now live. This forced existance where I have no one to talk to for years on end but myself. A forced situation where I must listen to myself or go completely bored. So finally I started listening. I'm still quite new at listening. But at least I know it's something I'm able to do, and I can work at it so that it becomes more and more natural.

 

I plan to sometime soon get into a meditative state so I can ask my body why I got sick. I'll set a timer for a set time and just talk nonstop until the timer beeps. Or I'll lift my pencil and write. Maybe I'll use another method. I want to know more about who my guides are, because I could ask them also. There could be some karmic reason also why I chose this particular life with this illness. I'd like to get a reading done, or go into regression.

 

When my body is ready and I am ready, the answers will come to me. The answers are coming to me even in this moment. I'm not in any rush to head out and be in the real world again. I'm content where I am, and I'm actually enjoying my current set up, out of contact with most of the world and society. It's pretty neat to know that I don't have to strive for the answers anymore. I don't have to lay awake at night worrying what my next step will be. I don't have to research desperately all day long on the computer trying to figure out answers to relief from this condition. I don't have to worry about anything. What I need comes to me easily, it's already in me, it's already mine.

 

I remember being frustrated two years ago when I first moved from NYC to my small town. I was taking a walk with Thalia, and we were talking about ways to prevent adrenal burnout. At this point in time, Thalia hadn't yet gotten AF, and we didn't know my mom had it. We assumed there was no genetic component in our family, and that nutritional, emotional, physical and psychological stressers were the reasons I got sick. I remember fuming and venting to Thalia. I kept wondering out loud WHY somebody or some organization didn't warn me about the dangers of life and how to avoid AF. Why didn't my parents know to tell me, and why wasn't this taught in schools and churches. Why didn't every bookstore have a set of books on this topic hanging from a string over the main entry into the shop, so that everybody could be warned? Why are people allowed to be born without this warning? How fair is it that  we are not born with a chip in our wrists, full of vital information on how to live life without getting AF? Why weren't we born with a downloadable user manual somewhere in our bodies? In other words, why weren't the answers inside of us.

 

Back then I was so clueless. I was still under the assumption that the answers to life were outside of us, in a book, a school, an organization. Now that I know that the answers are inside of me, I feel so incredibly relieved. I feel less driven. I don't feel like a victim anymore. I feel more complete and relaxed.

 

I know why many of my family members are miserable. Most of them are depressed, mentally ill, abusive, on the verge of suicide, frustrated and quite difficult to be around. They still believe the answers are outside of them. They think that God is outside of them. They are continually under pressure to find the answers in church, in their Bible, in seminary classes. They feel pushed and hounded, never able to rest, because if they rest a little, they might miss a sermon point or a lesson on Christian radio that could push them higher on the ladder of spirituality. They can never rest. They will never be complete, ever. They are fighting a loosing battle, and somewhat realize this, but they cover it up because it's too scary a thought to ponder. Why look at something you can't fix? Religion is the ultimate authority, not their inner self. Plus, the inner self is not to be trusted.  "The heart is deceitfully wicked, above all things." So they are afraid to even look at how miserable they are. So they close the doors to their inner world and purge themselves of sin with religious zeal. Love is their true inner nature, but they don't know this. Because they are not in touch with who they really are. Because they think they are really horrible and sinful at the core. So they see others through eyes of hate and judgement, thinking this is God's way. And yet they are just hating and judging themselves, since we are all one. They go about hurting themselves and wondering why they are so miserable.

 

I have sensed the disconnect between religion and myself ever since I was little. But I never had the courage to look inside myself and honor my questions. Being a highly sensitive person, I was slightly aware that something in my family's religious cult and way of life was out of tune. But I could never put my thumb on exactly where the disconnect was. I was way too scared and repressed to look inside myself to find out. So I buried this disconnect my whole life. Although I didn't realize it, this was probably pretty stressful. I was subconsciously maintaining this delicate balancing act since I was 6 years old. I was slightly aware of and very unhappy with the disconnect, while working very hard to hide it away so I didn't know it existed.  Thinking and feeling were too painful. So I tried to become very busy in life so that I didn't have time to think or feel. I was drawn towards people who lived on the surface of life and never went below the surface. People who were out of touch with themselves. I wanted to be very out of touch with myself. I figured that's what normal, healthy people did in order to stay afloat in this world.

Since most of my family members are not as highly sensitive as I am, I have a feeling that they have not been as bothered by the toxicity in my family as I have been. What was highly painful for me possibly doesn't even register in their day to day thoughts, ever. So this explains why I have struggled with this more than my siblings. I'm the only one who got majorly sick, I'm the only one super sensitive to things like this.

 

I see my intuitive perception now as a strength, not a weakness. I have been given the gift of sight, and it isn't a curse to be the one not able to stand up under toxicity. It is a sign of strength. It is not a gift for a person to be able to thrive under toxic, harmful circumstances and be OK with it their entire lives.

Grateful. I'm so grateful. I am exactly where I need to be right now. On my kitchen table I stuck a post it note to remind me of a doctor's appointment I have this coming Monday. Usually, the sight of a note like that would put me into a tailspin for a week prior to the event. In the past, I wasn't well enough to leave the house even for a dr. appointment. And yet, I would occasionally make appointments or agree ahead of time to go to family events when I wasn't able to.  I would try to force my body out the door, despite near passing out and myriads of other body parts screaming at me to lie down.  Now things aren't so dramatic. I stopped forcing myself to go out, and I stood up to people who were trying to force me to go out. For the last few months, I've had several weeks on end of better health. When I look at my post it note, I know that this appointment is do-able. Just that simple knowledge is like gold to me. I walk past my post it note, and move it around so that it is within my line of vision easily any time I'm in the kitchen. I'm so grateful because I know now that things around me are in my favor. The universe, my body and life itself is on my side, not against me. Even I am on my side, now. It's OK to stand up for myself and my body's needs. It's definitely OK to listen to my inner voice. It's OK to tell people 'no' when they want to force me to do things that aren't right for me. My body is honoring me back when I stand up for it and myself.