Miracle Worker

Annie Sullivan: I'm counting on her. 
                          That little head is dying to know. 

James Keller: Know what? 

Annie Sullivan: Anything. Any and every crumb in God's creation.  I've got to use that appetite too. 

James Keller: Maybe she'll teach you. 

Annie Sullivan: Of course. 

James Keller: That she isn't. That there's such a thing 
                       as dullness of heart, acceptance, and letting go. 
                       Sooner or later we all give up, don't we? 

Annie Sullivan: Maybe you all do. It's my idea of the original sin. 

James Keller: What is? 

Annie Sullivan: Giving up. 

James Keller: You won't open her. 
                       Why can't you let her be 
                       and have some pity on her for bein' what she is? 

Annie Sullivan: If I'd ever once thought like that, 
                          I'd be dead. 

James Keller: You will be. Why trouble? Or will you teach me? 

Annie Sullivan:  No. No pity. I won't have it. On either of us.

Don't give up
on the miracle you were meant to make.

Hellen Keller's family didn't believe she could learn language. They fought Teacher Annie Sullivan every step of the way, but Teacher wouldn't give up on her.

How did Teacher work her miracle? She believed in her student's potential, she believed in her ability to reach her, she was relentless. She refused to give up.

Believe, believe, work hard, and never give up.

"Education

 should train the child

 to use his brains, 

to make for himself 

a place in the world 

and maintain his rights 

even when it seems that society 

would shove him 

into the scrap-heap." 

- Hellen Keller 

in Going Back to School 1934

book cover

I don't remember what the bandaid was for on my left hand, but it's not there on the cover of my book! Amazing what one can do with PhotoShop.

Nothing, I repeat, nothing about my shape or size was in any way retouched. That's all me. My skintone is all my own too.

As heavy and sick as I was in the"before" pic I sure do have a glow about me. That's me. Always full of glowing hope.

I'll never stop hoping. Please Lord, let me never stop glowing either!

And yeah, that is my book cover. It's real. It's really real.

Still have the spine and back cover to do, acknowledgements, and some incidentals.
We're waiting on two major mentors, one who's doing the back cover endorsement and one who's doing the forward. By the grace of God it will all  be done by the end of the month!

I have butterflies in my stomach.

This is scary and exciting.

One cannot hide from one's destiny.

New Year Resolution diet

The Thought in Motion family
call them "keys," those signs that show up to reinforce a magical idea or to let you know you're on the right path. I call them "coincide-ances" when the physical world is intersected by the world of wonderment and divine guidance.

This year for my New Year's resolution I am going on a Thought Diet. When/if I catch myself dwelling on the negative I'm going to think better thoughts. When/if I catch myself blaming and finger wagging in my head, thinking the worst of people, putting words in people's mouths that were never said, or imagining them chastising me, I'm going to pay attention to the Now and imagine something better.

Going on an actual weight loss diet is probably easier and you KNOW how I feel about those.

As I was driving out of the Stop n Shop parking lot yesterday I had an episode. I was hearing someone in my head putting me down, telling me I'm a bad person, scolding me for some imagined crime, and I caught myself just in time. I was in my head about to turn the tables on them, to put them down, to enumerate their crimes and I realized by thinking those thoughts I was making myself suffer needlessly.

No painful situation was ever healed by heaping more pain on it. Love conquers all, they say, so let me begin my loving myself. I heard the Thought in Motion coaches saying supportive things, complimenting my talents, telling me that I had thought-options, reminding me in a most loving way that I can put something better in my Now. Thought-to-conclusion!

Just then I looked to my right and saw this van...

...we had just been
talking about phoenix, rising from the ashes, making old things new, transforming, and this showed up at just the right moment to remind me. We do it with thought.

Sifu once said we move Qi with thought, will, and breath. Well this new "diet" of mine will require more discipline than I've ever applied to anything.

Notice how it's Phoenix INTERIORS.

Yep, it's the interior that must be transformed.

Wish me well.

I'll need plenty of keys along the way.

attachment love

Tauriel: weeping for Kili  

If this is love, 

I don't want it. 

Take it away, please! 

Why does it hurt so much? 

Thranduil:  Because it was real.

I've been told by

masters that love doesn't hurt if one loves without attachment. Thing is, none of them have ever loved without attachment, not that I've seen. So, what are they talking about?

We're human. We love with attachment. 

We want our loved ones to stay close to us and to be safe. The dark side of that can be overprotection, discouraging them from taking risks, possessiveness and jealousy, but the light side of wanting our loved ones close is closeness, bonding, unity, and security.  

We want our loved ones to love us back. The dark side of that can be show up as guilt, manipulation, resentment when they don't love us in the way or in the time we want, but the light side of that is generosity, allowing people to be who they are without judgment, forgiveness...you get the picture.

There are healthy attachments and dark attachments. 

I don't think people are capable of loving without attachment, BUT and everyone loves a big BUTT, we can love while being accountable should we see ourselves slip into the dark side. If we take responsibility for ourselves, if we're honestly self-reflecting, we can grow and allow our loved ones to grow. We can encourage each other to be authentic. 

Problem is finding those who will be accountable, honestly self-reflective, and admit when they're slipping. Everyone wants to shine their accusatory flashlights on others and not on themselves. LOVE WITHOUT ATTACHMENT they admonish with wagging fingers while applying the quick-dry crazy glue to the ones they're loving.

So, masters, please don't tell me to love without attachment. Tell me to love without slipping into darkness. Tell me to keep it in the light. Those are things I can work with. 

Also, you first.

 

B E L I E V E

I went to see a wise woman
today to help heal my heart. I do get scared sometimes. My heart hurts. They say you can die of a broken heart and I'm not ready to die yet. I have work to do. I have people who need me. I have people I haven't even met yet who need to learn from me. I've got to keep going. I've got to stay alive. My message(s) matter. They must be delivered.

I've always told my students that I will give them at least two versions of things: the scientific interpretation and the magical/spiritual interpretation. I tell them that I present options. It's their choice which interpretation applies to them.

I'll give them two options or recommend that they transcend the two options and
go through that third eye opening at the top. As a student reminded me, there's always that third option. Good things my students remind me of the lessons I've taught them!

There's a situation in my life that's pressing on my heart. The common-sense-scientific solution seems to offer a hard road of healing while the magical road seems to offer a hard road of faith. Being pulled between the two options is causing me incredible pain.

Tonight I watched The Polar Express for the first time. I know. Can you believe I'd never seen it? I cried at everything that was said about 'belief' and 'believing.' I cried when they saw the Northern Lights. I cried when they got their words punched into their tickets. I cried when the kid got the jingle bell on Christmas morning. I was a big Polar cry baby. It was quite the boo-hoo fest about belief. Sometimes I don't know what to believe, the things you can't see, the things you can, both, neither, the things that will hurt the most, the easy way that hurts the least?

The thing about trains... 

it doesn't matter where they're going. 

What matters is deciding to get on. 

- the Conductor

I went to see the wise woman today. We talked about a great many things. I have a hard time letting love in. I have a hard time letting sincere praise in. I have a hard time believing I deserve to be treated nicely. I let people who have a negative opinion of me stay too close for too long, people who don't "believe" who don't belong at my side. Have compassion for the non-believers, but they don't have to be the ones next to you.

We talked about something I'm very good at. I do try to be of service when I teach, I said, but I feel like my ego comes with me in front of the room. The wise woman corrected me. She said it's not ego, it's confidence. It takes faith in one's self to work in front of a room, faith in one's message, faith in one's abilities, and confidence that one has the talent to deliver. Later in the day the picture of Meryl Streep (above) showed up in my Instagram. I got it.

No one is accusing Meryl Streep of being egotistical. They award her for her talents, and she has the self-worth to say that no one can do what she does exactly the way she does it. I need to learn that lesson. Having self-confidence is different than having an out of balance ego. It's ok to believe that no one can do what I do exactly the way I do it. That's an uncomfortable belief, but it feels right at the same time.

As far as my beliefs about science, magic, faith, logic and all that?
The women today did some serious energy work on me.They raised my sad vibration. Right now I'm lifting my life up to the angels. I'll refer back to Into the Woods...

Everybody makes 

one another's 

terrible mistakes. 

Witches can be right. 

Giants can be good. 

You decide 

what's right. 

 You decide 

what's good.

- Cinderella and the Baker

...and hope for the best. I don't have to go it alone. I have people next to me who believe. Some believe in God. They believe in goodness. They believe in magic. They believe in options. They believe in angels. They believe in me. I have to believe in me too, not in an ego-way, but in a confident way. 

Angels, magic, transformation, a way where there seems to be none, miracles, qi, dreams, higher powers, healing, the divine, truth, light...

Seeing is believing, 

but sometimes 

the most real things

 in the world 

are the things 

we can't see. 

- the Conductor

Into the Woods

Nice 

is different 

than good.

- Little Red Riding Hood

My father's house 

was a nightmare. 

Your house 

was a dream. 

Now I want 

something 

in between.

- Cinderella

Sometimes people

leave you. 

Halfway through 

the wood...

- The Baker's Wife

People make mistakes

holding to their own 

thinking they're 

alone. 

Everybody makes 

one another's 

terrible mistakes. 

Witches can be right. 

Giants can be good. 

You decide 

what's right. 

 You decide 

what's good.

- Cinderella and the Baker

gastric bypass reversal

A lovely reader asked me for an update
on my pursuit of a gastric bypass reversal. Rather than just answer in an email, I'l blog it here so folks who have been following my progress can see what I've been up to.

I went to the office of the surgeon who performed the gastric bypass. Remember, back in 2006 when I had my RNY gastric bypass it was my 3rd weight loss surgery. I had had a lap band and a replacement lap band surgery, open, full incision prior to the bypass. The bypass itself was done laproscopically but it was complicated by the amount of adhesions and scar tissue I had from the gastric banding operations.

I've had the bypass since 2006. I lost 120 pounds my first year. I lost 20 more pounds the second year. Gained back 70 - 80 pounds over the next few years. Lost 60 - 70 pounds over the past 3 years. I call it surgically induced yo-yo dieting.

The inflammation in my esophagus is very painful. It mimics heart attack symptoms. My heart pounds like I just climbed three flights of stairs. The chest pain is alarming. The pain and clenching in my chest doesn't only occur when I eat it, it occurs when I exert myself in any way. This makes exercise of any kind a traumatic experience as I feel like I'm having a heart attack due to the crushing chest pains.

I can tolerate much less food now than when I was originally bypassed in 2006. As I type this I ate an ounce of raw Amish cheese and a nice apple. If I eat even a bite more I will experience pain and nausea. I will  have to wait an hour before having any more food. Eating this way should lead to weight loss as it is quite restricted, but that is not what's happening. Perhaps my weight plateau is due to my under-exercising or it can be a metabolic issue.

When I spoke to the surgeon he didn't feel that my symptoms were severe enough to warrant the dangers of a reversal of the gastric bypass. He prescribed Prilosec (omeprezole) for the "inflammation" although it's a medicine for GERD. Aggravation, stress, and certain fried foods cause my GERD symptoms so I keep that under control without the meds.

The surgeon was not receptive to my request for a reversal. He didn't understand why I wanted one. He insisted that I'd gain all the weight back if I had the bypass "taken down." I insisted that I deserved the chance to find out if I could heal from an eating disorder without the pain and suffering every time I try to eat more than a half a cup of food. He said that he couldn't justify a dangerous surgery for purely psychological reasons.

The surgeon said there was a 5% mortality rate associated with the surgery I was requesting, considering the amount of scar tissue and adhesions I have inside me. He said that I shouldn't make a decision about a surgery that was potentially life threatening while I was in pain. He said that being in pain was preventing me from thinking clearly on the subject.

Guess what?
He convinced me.
I don't want to go through a life-threatening surgery for esophageal inflammation that might be controlled by other means. Also, there is no guarantee that the reversal would stop the crushing chest pains. The esophageal inflammation and the associated chest pains might remain.

So, that's the end of it. I'd rather spend the last half (or how ever many years God will grant me) of my life getting plastic surgery and picking up what gravity dropped than getting a dangerous reversal. I'll use my essential oils, eat sparingly, and do my Qi Gong to knock down the pain and suffering.

Do I regret my weight loss surgery?
That's a question I'll be exploring in my books, so be prepared to read them!