That IS a very, very cool story, Whitney. I think possibly I'm sporadically a ton more balanced in focusing on the MOMENT, also, but still realize am not 'there', to be sure, Good Grief. You seem to be much closer, very interesting ( plus nice, made me smile ) and hopeful. I can kind of see where I could be getting to, if I keep dotting those I's and disallow backslides. Almost quite literally keeping your eye on the ball, you can see where this would be do-able. That's a word and I'm sticking to it.
I didn't have the plain, old time to go read contributions in the PM portion yesterday, I DO hope to catch up later today. 'Team' must mean something, I'm very sorry I appear to have ignored the rest of us for a day.
Unless I flake out and forget, I never, ever mention another member's name without asking permission so I can't. A big, fat grateful can't be stated with too much emphasis. I had a member step WAY up to the plate, surpass it and meet me somewhere out in Center Field, they did something so kind for/to me. I was out there inspecting my navel, is what I was doing when POOF, out of the blue this astute person who is obviously paying a lot more attention to inner growth than I am ( despite what must be an awful lot of cr*p I seem to be talking here ), BOOM, gave me tears in my eyes and went much further than she had to to put something silly back to even. Humbled me? Don't even start, I'm flattened, grateful and resolved to apparently stop talking sh*t and REALLY work on myself, geesh.
Out of respect, since how awful to kind of rub someone's gracious nose in a personal perspective, I'm also grateful for lessons from the 'Universe', which we get to learn unless we're so far into navel gazing we've fallen in and are floundering amongst the belly-button lint. I very nearly was, am grateful to the Universe to not giving up on me.
Today is my daughter's birthday. Not only am I grateful for her, her excellence in all things, her delightful character and comany, but for her first day, her birthday. I'll never forget it, something pretty mystical occured. I was in the hospital, this wierd, amazing feeling of complete and utter 'in-tune' peace and euphoria, came over me, lasted quite awhile. Nobody tell me 'hormones' it as not. I could FEEL something wrapped alllll around me, protective, more than happy, grace o peace or whatever. Puzzling since it wasn't a great situation, the alcoholic, but a gift is a gift. I thought about THAT moment alllll the time in the next years- as in ALLLL the time, because the very next day, new-born in tow and with a fractured leg I was fleeing for my life in the middle of the night. All hell and hell's suburbs transpired from there, safe houses, rape, court, more abuse, kidnapping, poverty. It was like something was giving me something to cling to because I would NEED it, although did not know it at the time. I'll never, ever forget that moment, the PEACE, joy, past/present/future so clear and comfortable in my soul, what they say drugs do for you only squared and cubed, times 100. I DID cling to it, like it was manna I got to hang onto or something. No, I don't wish to ruin this story for everyone comprehensively by saying it was a 'religious; experience, I didn't then, actually, it WAS whoever and whatever is out there composed of Love who is at the bottom line of this whole Life thing. My daughter? You can't even describe what kind of a child she was to raise and what a sterling person she is, a little magical, to tell the truth. That moment was the last time for I guess maybe 5 years ( I can't remember SO, so much, I didn't know this was typical, despite the therapy, until joining this forum ) that I had any real joy at all. It's 5 years of awful, broken by moments of focus on the kid's various acheivements and distractions. Still, 5 years of a blur of terror mostly. So. Grateful for that gift I was given, that moment of whatever-it-was, I had when I had that other gift of my daughter at Mercy Hospital, Scranton, a lot of years ago.
Act of kindness. My husband and I deliberately kept Mom cheered and busy after she and I ran smack into my niece at the grocery store yesterday. She's pregnant again, with yet another great grandchild my mother will be disallowed fro seeing, or having a part in the usual family joy attendent with a new baby in the family. Hurt? Of course it does, my mother was never an abuser, did anything but help raise these kids, this thing is all just plain cruel. Beyond cruel. It's exactly as bad as I am describing and as incomprehensible, like something you'd see in a movie or on Jerry Springer. My mother's granddaughter spotted us, turned around and went the other way. I had to not react, just kind of slide by it and get her outa there, later just kept her busy and laughing.
I've already journaled about the positive experience, I'd like to add it's SO much a theme in my life, good coming out of bad, I consider myself very lucky to have been given yet another one.
It was tough to meditate, had to once again just empty my mind and listen to 'stuff'. I have an app on my audio Kindle, which is short, just is descriptive of the world around us and Light, so used that repetitivly while jogging the miles.
Once again, please do excuse any contributions from team members I fail to acknowledge. If I haven't read them, I do not just go through and 'like' them, so can't until I have more time, you know? Plus, the new 'like' system takes extra time, which impedes progress after I HAVE read them. I'm not witching, I'm sure there's a very good reason for this system, it's just me explaining why I haven't gotten to the whole team thing.
