Continuing the Discussion on Words

A little rambly… but here goes.

A week ago Wednesday morning, I woke up sick.  Or rather, when Wednesday morning dawned, I was sick.  Sometime during the night while I slept, my body became sick.  Very sick.  The next three days are lost to me in a dense fog of high fever and racking coughs.  I vaguely remember feeling feverish, my cheeks very hot to touch.  I don’t remember the intense coughing, but by Saturday morning, my ribs hurt desperately when I breathed, my diaphragm so bruised even turning over on my side in bed was painful, and my body was very weak and shaky when I stood up to fill my dog’s dish for breakfast.  But my brain was finally emerging from the fogginess of the previous three days.  Although the fever had subsided and the wrenching cough had lightened up to just an occasional hack, in its place my body was under attack from the ulcerative colitis I’ve had for the last several years – over the next seven days, although I had no appetite and wasn’t hungry, I attempted to find something to eat that didn’t fly through my digestive tract in a matter of minutes, losing more blood, taking what little energy I had left.  I didn’t find anything.  Recovering from the infection and the colitis was going to take more than I could have imagined; in looking back, I cannot recall a time in my life when my body has been so sick for so long.

But in those dark moments where thought was beyond me, a deep longing for something I had no name for began to take place.  A searching for something, an opening up to something, an intense looking through the opaqueness surrounding me.  A place beyond the fear and uncertainty of being alone and being sick.

Let me backtrack to a couple of days before I got sick.  The Monday before all this began, I wrote about the feeling that being in one place was killing me and I needed to get out on the road again.  Yes, those were my exact words.  Killing me.  Then the following day, I wrote about what I felt like when I wrote those words “killing me” and how I don’t normally use words like that because I believe I create my reality with my words.  And here’s the coupe de gras: that night, I went to dinner with a friend and her kids, and instead of ordering what I know my body can use for fuel, I said, “I’m going to kill myself,” – my exact words – and I proceeded to order food that I knew would kill me.  And I ate every bite.  By Wednesday morning, I was truly killing myself.

In the middle of the physical torment of being sick, I somehow took care of myself and Dinah Dog.  I got out of bed and fed her twice a day.  I got the shovel and picked up a week’s worth of dog poop.  I drove to the store and bought colloidal silver and goldenseal.  I drank Gatorade.  I took an occasional shower.  I tried to brush my teeth.  I washed a load of laundry.  I cleaned up after my “accidents.”  And I slept 18 to 20 hours a day, taking long naps after each of the things I did to take care of myself and Dinah.  Days went by without seeing another person.

I’m not an introvert.  Not in any way, shape, or form.  I thrive on the presence of other people.  I enjoy interacting with them, talking with them, eating with them, cooking for them, sitting around in the sun with them, going places with them, just being with them.  Being with people energizes me.  I enjoy being around people who are positive, upbeat, affectionate, considerate, kind, playful, creative, fun-loving, always looking for the best in one another.  Angry, rude, inconsiderate, passively aggressive – nope, not so much.

By this morning, Friday, I’m feeling much better, like I may actually be among the living human beings again.  Even though my appetite has not returned, I boiled a little red potato and made a cup of tea.  So far, so good.  Even though I’m still pretty sick, I’m content to take it easy, to slowly get my strength back, to enjoy the moment for what it is.  (During this past week and a half, my laptop also decided to be sick, so I took an unexpected break from Facebook and couldn’t read my email – and I found I missed the energy of my FB friends.  The previous paragraph about being energized by people extends to those in my cyber-world.)

Over the past few days, while in that darkness beyond the sickness and aloneness, I found a place of knowing, of being firm in that knowing, of seeing what it is I’m searching for.  In the center spot is a being who is exactly where she’s supposed to be right this moment, doing exactly what she’s supposed to be doing.  Being alone is not the same thing as being lonely.  It is the being alone that allowed me to see that I am capable of taking care of myself, the being alone that showed me I can make decisions for myself that are no reflection on anyone else.  Being alone has opened up to me that the world is indeed a benevolent, safe place to be, the universe is lined up for my benefit, the spirits, including my own higher beings, are there to guide me, support me, protect me, provide me with my heart’s desire.  I’m not lonely.  I’m alone.  I’m alone in the vastness of others surrounding me so completely I need never doubt it again.  And as hokey as it might sound, the only way I can say this is: I’m alone in what I can only call a wide-open sea of love, surrounding me as completely as if I was floating out in the middle of the blue Pacific Ocean.

And so are you.

♥ .•:*¨¨*:•. ♥ .•:*¨¨*:•. ♥

Now, I’ve got a question for you: Do you want to make the leap into the world of those positive people you see around you?

• Pay attention to your own words, the ones you say out loud and the ones you only say to yourself.  Do you berate yourself when you do something you think is stupid?  Do you complain about the person in line ahead of you slowing things down and making you late?
• Watch how you treat yourself and others.  Do you ignore people who are talking to you?  Do you pout when you don’t get your own way?  Do you stay away from people in crisis simply because you “don’t know what to do or say”?

Choose your words carefully.  Try going one whole day without complaining. Give yourself permission to just stop talking midway through the sentence if you find yourself saying something less than attractive, either to yourself or someone else.  Compliment someone you don’t know – say “nice shoes!” to someone in the grocery store.  Call a friend whose name has been on your mind, and just say “hi.”  Take a walk outside, in a garden, around the block, down the street – listen for the birds, stop and enjoy a spring flower, smile up at the sun or the clouds, watch the breeze blow the leaves in front of you.

Look around you.  Look in the mirror.  Positive people are everywhere.

“Just be an excellent example of being human.”  — Tony Robbins