A day of gratitude

Yesterday I began thinking about Easter and Good Friday in particular. I spent many years as a Catholic mostly to support a spouse. In recent years I have realized I have always had a strong personal relationship with my Creator and have no need for man made traditions; including a building or a man behind a pulpit interpreting what that means to me.

I never quite got the "Jesus died for your sins" idea. I know that God the father did not make junk and that includes me.I do believe in the Holy Trinity and after recently reading The Shack I have a better understanding of those entities.

I read a friend's Facebook post this morning that put new meaning into good Friday and perhaps the whole Easter weekend. She suggested that today be a day for gratitude and appreciation and I agree. When I look back on my 80 years of life I am very grateful for where I am today and the struggles I have faced to get here. I look with appreciation not only for the guidance I have had but at myself for where I have landed on this Good Friday 2018.

On Easter Sunday I won't be celebrating in a fancy building wearing new clothes, but I will be wearing a new attitude which began today with a day of gratitude and appreciation. 

Have fun!

Monday I had a short make up session with my new councilor, Monica. It's difficult to squeeze much into 30 minutes, but we used it to catch up. I left with the instructions to spend the next week having fun. Easy for her to say!

W hat does that word fun mean I wonder?

I remember years ago someone asked me what I did for fun and I had no answer. Apparently I mostly take things much too seriously. Thinking back on my life that is probably true. I have always been the responsible one. Responsible for things that were no doubt not my responsibility to be responsible for. That was a mouthful!

That job probably began as a young child when I took responsibility for my parents having to get married because my mother was pregnant with me. A few years ago I read somewhere that babies in the womb can pick up vibrations from those close to them. I wouldn't be at all surprised if I did that. I've always been an observer. Then came my brother thirteen months later and I took responsibility for him too. Nobody asked me to, I just did. It was something he didn't appreciate very much and as adults we were never very close. He died in 2008.

My life moved on to wifehood and motherhood and I never realized I was not having fun in the roles.

Now that I am on my own due to divorce, spousal deaths etc. I am free to find things that are fun. My ego is saying, "Good luck with that lady!"

The two things that I really love doing are cooking and writing. Getting together with my grandson is also right up there on top, but being a teenager he has other priorities now.

This week I have tried to come up with some new recipes. The other night we had a tuna casserole, using instead of tuna some smoked salmon. It turned out really tasty. Well except for the fact it had a few bones I didn't notice. It was fun picking them out! Tonight I am attempting to make shrimp tacos with instructions from a friend. I've never had them before and it will be fun finding out if we like them. I'm betting we will!

Today I have been thinking of things in the past that I have enjoyed doing. I noticed that next  month there is a local talent show scheduled at the college and I put it on my calendar. I really need to start getting out more, perhaps meeting some new people.

I also thought back a few years to when I formed an adult writing group I began thinking of what worked and what didn't. I also made a list of places that might work, free of course, because I don't want to charge the participants. The idea of starting another group is actually appealing to me and I just might make it a reality in a month or so.

Oh and I almost forgot that my son put Netflix on my computer and I have been having fun watching some movies. That counts right?

So that is the start I am making to try and put some fun in my life. I'll let you know how that goes.

Until the end

Following my strong intuition I just watched the movie, Irreplaceable You. I found I could relate to the main character.The movie was about a thirty something woman who was diagnosed with cancer. I had the same diagnosis in 1989. I am very grateful for my positive outcome, due to an excellent surgeon and catching it early. My personal experience caused me to easily relate to this story.

Everyone faces their death in their own way. The young woman had a relationship with the love of her life and tried to program his life for the probability that she would soon leave him on his own. She also had an older friend who had terminal cancer and was trying to help her cope with the time she had left to live her life. One of his lines got my attention and made me laugh. It was, "I've been dying longer than you have". Perhaps I just have a strange sense of humor.

I watched with interest how the participants of her cancer therapy group had such different approaches to their situations. Even though their deaths were eminent they chose a variety of coping methods. 

One of the lines her boyfriend spoke was, "You can't make me okay". How right he was!

Perhaps the lesson I was supposed to get from watching this movie was, we can't live someone's life for them no matter how much we love them. We can only live our own life until the end.

Believe or not

I just finished reading The Shack by Wm. Paul Young. It was suggested by a new friend who raved about the contents. Instead of ordering the kindle version I chose to acquire a used paperback version because my intuition told me it was a book that needed to stay on my book shelf. I always try to follow my soul guidance.

Reading this book surprised me that I believe much of the same things as the author about creation. I found it amusing that he portrayed God/the Creator as a woman. Why not? That entity does not have a body so it could be anything one chooses to believe/see. Jesus was portrayed as a human, which he was and the Holy Spirit was difficult to vision. All three were/are always present in our lives.

I have always believed the bible was not written by God, but by humans just like you and me. They just lived in different times and places. I liked the author's perception that the bible is about relationships with the Creator and fellow beings. I had never thought of it that way, but he is right. It doesn't tell us what to do or how to do it, but simply offers life experiences in story form, which we can follow or not.

One of the most interesting thoughts I found in this book was that God did not create the church, which is full of rules to follow if you want to be "saved". Man created the church to gain control over humans.

 I have never believed that God/the Creator is someone to be afraid of. That's just a gut feeling. That entity does not punish or judge us, but simply offers pure everlasting love. I also think hell was created by clergy who wanted to scare us into perfection. What a joke that is! God does not create flawed humans. We are all perfect in his/her eyes.

As I finished the book yesterday I had a problem with the author's purpose of Jesus. I couldn't quite follow his train of thought. It bothered me a lot until this morning I remembered that The Shack is a work of fiction and I can believe it or not.

Are you my mother/father

Since I had my DNA tested recently I have come across the names of two relatives who were given up for adoption as babies.

The first one answered a question about what happened to a baby I had known existed for years. As it turned out he was perfectly happy with his adoptive parents and wanted nothing to do with his biological mother/family. After his death his daughter decided that she wanted to know if she had biological paternal relatives and when she found out she did she created a new family tree. She used much of the personal information I had given her. I considered it an invasion of my life. She also couldn't keep her mouth shut and couldn't resist plastering information about the situation all over Facebook. I ended the relationship by telling her I wanted nothing to do with her. She refused to accept my decision and I was forced to block her from continuing on the path she had chosen. That's the end of that story, at least I sincerely hope so!

Now for the second much nicer cousin's story. Finding a male name who was supposed to be a 3rd cousin I sent him a message. He gratefully responded saying he had been adopted as a baby. He knew his biological mother's name, but not his father's. I strongly felt I was supposed to help him. All I knew was where his father's family originated from, which gave me a clue as to the part of my family he belonged to. I began digging. To this day I have no idea how I could possibly know that his great grandfather was also my great uncle, but I did. This information finally led me to discover not only the name of his father but his grandmother, great grandparents, great great grandparents and great great great grandfather. I also found out where they are buried. His father died in 2016. I have all this information in an envelope, stamped, sealed and ready to mail.This was all done without having to involve anyone else or make the information public. I suspect that in this case I had universal help with my mission!

When I discovered the father's name I added that to my current family tree because he was my 2nd cousin. I didn't go any further because the rest of the story is not mine to share.

I  personally believe that all adopted children should be allowed to know who their biological parents were if they so desire to have that information. After all they were not dropped to earth by a stork! What they do with that information is solely up to the adopted child.

Follow the trail

Have you ever wondered why you do and say certain things. The seed could have started with your grandmother or mother.

My second therapy session touched on my need to be perfect. I have a Facebook friend who believes it is caused by an attachment to outcome, which is ego based. He believes it is a need to be validated. That very well could be as I have always felt like an invisible person to some extent. That tendency has actually improved since I began writing.

I can see where this would produce a controlling, critical, judgemental person who needs to be perfect. My next question to myself is, "Where did that come from?"

First it came from my overly critical mother whose mother was also critical of her.

Oddly, my grandmother was not critical of me. The only thing she ever criticized me for was my bad penmanship. I'm sorry to say that never improved over the years. It's probably why I use a computer to write. In her own way she helped teach me to be a perfectionist though. I can remember dusting her Hummel collection as a child. "A place for everything and everything in its place" was a watchword. She may not have always had the cleanest house on the block, but there was never any clutter. To this day my house is the same way and I know I am critical of people who live in a messy house.There are other traits I am critical of but I won't go into them here. I can certainly see where they originated from though.

Unfortunately my mother was critical of everything I did and I never felt I was able to please her no matter how hard I tried. I know this also led to my need to be a perfectionist. It also led to self esteem issues that caused me to feel invisible most of my life. There is a commercial out there for some kind of skin problem that has different people simply saying "see me". I can relate because I have tried all my life to find someone who really sees me.

I  followed the trail set up for me by at least two generations of women. As a result, I have been critical of my children, especially my youngest, who happens to be a daughter. See where I am going with this? Yup we just keep following the same trail until we finally see where we are going. At that point we can change our direction.

I would like to close with a suggestion from my Facebook friend, "When you eliminate your attachment to outcome the need to be a perfectionist will take care of itself". I'm going to try that. Thanks Kevin!

A soulmate connection

Just recently I had a conversation with a new friend about soulmates. I'm not sure how spiritual she is but she listened to what I had to say on the subject.

First one has to accept the concept of reincarnation, which I do without question.

Several years ago I thought that we only have one soulmate. After a conversation with a friend I changed my mind. I now believe we have many soulmates who appear throughout our life when we need a little extra help. I also believe it is a prearranged agreement made long before we entered this life. I can go back in my life and pick out those souls who were my soulmates, even though I didn't recognize the term at the time.

As it was explained to me by my former friend, a soulmate is a soul that was closest to us at the time we were first conceived. I have noticed lately that they are also referred to as members of our tribe. That makes total sense to me. They are the souls who enter our lives to assist us with spiritual growth and understanding.

I do believe we all have what is referred to as a twin flame soulmate. It is the closest relationship we have. These two souls do not always share a conscious connection and when they do it could produce some negative experiences to assist in the learning process. They can act as a mirror to help us recognize negative traits that we still need to work on.

I actually had that experience and it was very frustrating because the other soul did not or could not acknowledge that we were twin flame soulmates. It was eventually necessary to let the relationship go because we were never going to see eye to eye and we were hurting each other. Forgiving was possible when I realized that the experience was prearranged and meant to be.

Possibly in our next life our twin flame relationship will be more positive. Apparently I will just have to wait and see what happens.

Positive thoughts

I wanted to share this message as I really like the words. Hope you all have a great day.

What's new?

I see it has been almost a week since I wrote a new post. I haven't been just sitting around doing nothing. It was time to regroup and work on updating my life.

First I did follow through with the therapy my PA has been pushing me to do.I need to adopt new tools to deal with the lingering anxiety tendency that has been interfering with my life for years. I had my first session last week. The therapist is young but seems to be knowledgeable. She may present some strategies I had not yet tried. 

I also joined an online group called For Parents Estranged from Adult Children (When the Talking Stops).  I love this group and wish I had found it much earlier. It simply gives parents a place to share their stories on a non judgemental stage. It also offers wonderful articles on a variety of subjects to help ease the pain of loss. It is nice to know I am not alone. I see I have been looking at things from the wrong direction. The group has also given me several new Facebook friends to mix with my old ones. It's always nice to add new friends!

Congestion had been a problem for awhile so I cut down on exercising regularly. I am now back to three times a week at our family center. I feel much better. This move also gave me a couple of new friends, one of whom shares some personal concerns that I have. This may lead to a very good partnership that could help us both move on in peace.

That's pretty much what I have been doing for the last week since I stopped posting. I haven't stopped writing but now I also offer my "wisdom" in the new group, which has been getting positive responses.