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Archives for January 2012

Neck Pain, Catnip, Heating Pads, and Flying Agatha Christie Books

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When it comes to coping with pain, emotional or physical, you have to allow yourself to heal. Step back from your daily routine and do the things that promote healing. Don’t push yourself too far and don’t try to speed the healing process.  That’s just an invitation for frustration, heartache, and lots of band aids.

I am in the process of healing from an incredibly painful neck injury.  The problem is, I have no idea how I hurt it.  I simply woke up one morning in a heck of a lot of pain, unable to move my neck in the directions it had become so accustomed to moving.  Now, I’ve had good old neck cricks before – just like all of us get from time to time. This was completely and utterly nothing like that.  I am, by nature, dead set against pain medicine, or any kind of medicine beyond Ibuprofen and Benadryl, if I can avoid it. I suspect that this anti-medication manifesto springs from a childhood with frequent doctor visits, hospital stays, and medications (chronic asthma and frequent bronchitis).  I suppose that, somewhere inside, there’s a little girl screaming, “No more doctors! No more medicine!”

However, when my heat pad, ice pack (I alternated), bottle of Ibuprofen and I went to bed that night, I made a promise to God, my cat, and the inner little girl that a doctor somewhere was going to make the pain go away if I awoke the next morning without any relief.  I have a fairly high pain threshold (giving birth to three healthy babies will do that for you – to say nothing of a lifetime of being accident prone), but I have to say, this particular pain was excruciating.

Fortunately, the next morning brought a little bit of relief – enough to convince me that I didn’t need to see a doctor.  The pain went from being an angry, intense 10 to being an angry, intense 8.  Each day since has seen the number descend.  Thank you, God. Thank you, Ibuprofen.  Thank you, chocolate.  Chocolate, of course, makes everything better.

During day 2 of the ordeal, as I sat wondering which side of my neck hurt worse (the side I somehow mysteriously hurt or the side that I’d been bending my head on), I thought of a quote by Dennis Wholey: Suffering forces us to change.  We don’t like change and most of the time we fear it and fight it.  On occasion, the suffering is so great that we have to give up.  We surrender the old and begin anew.  Often it is the pain we experience that leads us, not only to a different life, but a richer and more rewarding one.

The days of being in constant pain made me slow down a great deal. It’s hard to imagine, but when you’re in a lot of pain you find it almost impossible to do anything. Sitting and working on websites or writing was painful, so I’d get up and try to find something to do.

It honestly hurt to walk!

I tried to do my favorite pastime (baking and cooking) and, somehow managed to cut myself 3 times in two days.  I couldn’t even read – another favorite pastime – because I couldn’t find a way to tilt the book to accompany my head’s tilt without making myself sick.  At one point I actually flung an Agatha Christie book.

For a couple of days I couldn’t even drive. I had to have people run errands for me, which I detested. I’d rather be burdened that be a burden, or even just feel like I’m one.  Nasty stuff.

However, being the Pollyanna that I am, I slapped on my rose colored glasses and tried to look at things from a positive…. albeit tilted…. view.  Sometimes our pain and suffering can bring about good things in our lives, if we allow them to.  Whether our pain is physical or emotional, the experience can actually make us stronger.

Have you ever come through something that was so bad that you thought, “Well, if I survived that, I can survive anything!”  Those of us who have lost loved ones certainly know the feeling.  Very often, great beauty comes from great pain. Just like childbirth!

I was forced to rest more during these days.  I, literally, laid in the floor with my cat Alexa one afternoon for two hours.  We’d sleep a little, then wake up and play with one of her catnip toys. (I remember thinking that I wish catnip affected me like it does her.) Then we’d sleep a little more.  That’s her in the picture above, during one of the sleeping sessions.  When it comes to sleeping, she’s all in.

I didn’t run to the store, I didn’t sit at my computer for hours each day… now that I think about it, even my brain seems to have taken a vacation.  I honestly can’t remember thinking about very many things other than “Has it been four hours yet????”  When I was able to sit down at my computer and work again, I found that my thought flowed like honey.  It would appear that the ol’ brain enjoyed her vacation.

When I was able to hop back on the treadmill, the time flew by and I greatly enjoyed every single minute.

If nothing else, pain (and sickness, for that matter) causes everything to look SO much more beautiful after the healing. Sometimes even more so than before healing was necessary.

If you’re currently feeling any sort of pain – emotional, physical, or spiritual – allow yourself to heal.  Healing takes time as well as patience. Don’t try to rush things.  When we’re hurting, it’s the perfect time to take extra good care of ourselves and do what we know we have to do in order to heal.  Think how wonderful you’ll feel on the other side of the valley.  Mountain tops are never sweeter than when we’ve just passed through a valley, are they?

 

When it Comes to How We See the World…

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Rain Outside of the Window

When I am happy, I see the happiness in others. When I am depressed, I notice that people’s eyes look sad. When I am weary, I see the world as boring and unattractive. – Steve Chandler

They say we look at the world through a window, but as the today’s quote so eloquently illustrates, very often this window is more of a mirror.  It can reflect back to us what’s inside of us, so much so that it’s often impossible to tell if we’re looking into a mirror or a window.

If you find that suddenly the world (and the majority of its people) begin to look overwhelmingly negative, I don’t have to tell you the first place you need to look – but it begins with an in and ends with a ward.

The Marines Aren’t the Only Ones

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Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. – Martin Luther King Jr.

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Speaking at Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom'

I guess it’s because we recently celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on top of the fact that today’s Muhammad Ali’s birthday, but I’ve been thinking a lot about bravery, boldness, and guts.  By contrast, I’ve been thinking about cowardliness and meekness.  The two aforementioned me epitomized bravery and redefined boldness.

Whether every single person agreed with them or not wasn’t the issue – everyone knew where they stood.  Everyone knew what they stood for, they didn’t have to guess or read between the lines.

I’d rather an individual have ZERO beliefs than to have beliefs and keep them under wraps for fear of what others will say or think.  People like this are cowards and are a disgrace to the causes or beliefs they supposedly hold.

Take Tim Tebow, for example.  Whether people agree with him or not, everyone knows Who he believes in and Who he has dedicated his life to.

Personally, I think it takes a borderline nitwit to have a problem with that. Seriously? With all the disgusting sport’s stories we read about, people are going to say negative things about a young man who’s a devout Christian? One who spends so much time with sick kids?  One who does nothing AT ALL to bring disgrace to his team, his sport, or his family?

I once heard that, very often, the people we choose to hate has more to do with US than THEM. Whew, I’m glad I don’t hate Tim Tebow, I wouldn’t want to know what that said about me.

This post may be a little all over the place (not even halfway into it, I”ve gone from a civil rights leader to a boxing legend, to a quarterback), and I apologize for that.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is this:  We have a lot of ills in our society that need to be taken care of.  From Alzheimer’s Disease to child abuse, there are countless diseases and social issues that, to borrow from the Marines, need a few good men.  Naturally, in this instance, I mean men and women.

If everyone keeps pussyfooting around, scared to death of stepping on anyone’s toes – nothing’s going to get done. Cowards accomplish nothing.

  • If you’re a Christian, say so!  Why should any of us who are Christians hesitate for a second to say so?  We didn’t do anything wrong!!!
  • If you’re Catholic, say so!  Again, you haven’t done anything wrong!
  • Whatever your beliefs are, don’t be ashamed of them or afraid of what people will think.  Think about it, do you really care what bigoted, narrow minded people think? If you do, then that’s the first problem you need to address.

Don’t be a coward, for crying out loud. Don’t refer to God as “a higher power” or “the universe.”   Here’s the thing with people who do that:

  • Either they don’t believe in God, but do believe that there is something which is a higher power. Elvis? Yeti? A Ninja?
  • Or maybe they don’t believe that there is a God, and the Bible was completely mistaken – however, the “universe” DOES wheel and deal with people’s fortunes and misfortunes.  Perchance the moon is in charge of good luck, the stars control bad luck, and the planets deal with reprobates.

Wouldn’t they be better off just using the old fallback Karma?

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on an installment plan. – Martin Luther King Jr.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I am being a little nasty. But when you’ve been reading (like I have) a lot about Martin Luther King, Jr. you lose zero tolerance for fence sitters.  At a time when there was so much bigotry, prejudice, and racial tension in our country, this black man didn’t sit on his hands, hoping someone else would take care of the problem.  He didn’t think, “Uh Oh, if I say something, what will people think?”  He stood up. He spoke out. He rocked the world.  The hatred that killed him didn’t have the last word.  What would his haters have thought if someone had told them that one day this man would have his own holiday?! That little boys and girls would learn about him alongside other heroes and heroines in history class?

I’ve never kept my own beliefs a secret from anyone – but I’d be willing to fight for anyone else to have the freedom to express their beliefs, whether or not they line up with mine.

The majority of this post has dealt with religion and Spiritual beliefs, but boldness actually entails other areas as well.  Boldness is being able to stand up and do the right thing, in the right way. It’s believing in yourself, enough to know that what you feel is important.  What you say matters because you matter.  Throw timidity and cowardice aside and boldly be who you are and say what you feel.  Make this the year you come out of your shell and crush the shell fragments under your feet. Grind them into the ground!

If everyone boldly stood up for their beliefs, then the one’s who actually DO wouldn’t be so rare.  They wouldn’t be like beacons of light in darkness, they’d just be beautiful lights in a sea of other beautiful lights.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. – Martin Luther King Jr. (more Martin Luther King Jr Quotes)

Photo Credit: The image is Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Speaking at Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom. It’s available as an art print on Allposters.com

It Ain’t What They Call You…

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Confidence
Buy This at Allposters.com

It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.

The inspirational story by Walt Disney reminded me of a great poster I saw once. I searched for the miniature super hero and – ta da! – found him.  Sometimes we have people in our lives who tell us we can’t do something or, worse, they’ll make fun of us for something we ARE doing.   Fortunately, I’ve ran into that only a few times in my life. Being an only child usually involves people telling you that you surpass all of the wonders of the world and that you could move mountains if you so desired.

Oh, and that you’re just the cutest thing….

However, like everyone, I’ve had opportunities to doubt myself – usually because of what someone has said.  The first time I encountered this sort of thing, I was floored.  I nearly gave up everything I was attempting to do at the time.  Fortunately, after I cooled down, I realized that (like the little boy above) what I know I can do is what counts…. not what doubters think I can’t do.

Believe in yourself enough for you and 10 other people.  Sometimes we’re all we have! The next time someone tells you that you can’t do something or infers that you’re a fool to even try, remind yourself that it ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.

Then look them in the eye and tell them, “You know, you’re not just wrong. You’re damn wrong. I can do anything I put my mind to. Grab a seat and watch.”

Confidence? Yeah, it’s like that.

Thursday Throwback: Take a Chance

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Walt Disney Quote About Failure

Sometimes I wonder if “common sense” isn’t another way of saying “fear.” And “fear” too often spells failure. – Walt Disney

Take a Chance by Walt Disney

In the lexicon of youth… there is no such word as fail! – Edward Bulwer-Lytton

I wonder how many times these sturdy old words have been used in graduation speeches each year.  Tehy take me back to my own high-school days, when I had my first pair of white flannel trousers and the world ahead held no  heartbreak or fear.

Certainly we have all had this confidence at one time in our lives, though most of us lose it as we grow older.  Perhaps, because of my work, I’ve been lucky enough to retain a shred of this youthful quality.  But sometimes, as I look back on how tough things were, I wonder if I’d go through it again.  I hope I would.

When I was about twenty-one, I went broke for the first time.  I slept on chair cushions in my “studio” in Kansas City and ate cold beans out of a can.  But I took another look at my dream and set out for Hollywood.

Foolish? Not to a youngster.  An older person might have had too much “common sense” to do it.  Sometimes I wonder if “common sense” isn’t another way of saying “fear.” And “fear” too often spells failure.

In the lexicon of youth there is no such word as “fail.”  Remember the story about the boy who wanted to march in the circus parade?  When the show came to town, the bandmaster needed a trombonist, so the boy signed up.  He hadn’t marched a block before the fearful noises from his horn caused two old ladies to faint and a horse to run away.  The bandmaster demanded, “Why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t play the trombone?” And the boy said, “How did I know? I never tried before!”

Many years ago, I might have done just what that boy did.  Now I”m a grandfather and have a good many gray hairs and what a lot of people would call common sense.  But if I’m not longer young in age, I hope I stay young enough in spirit never to fear failure – young enough still to take a chance and march in the parade.  – Walt Disney