For over 27 years I’ve watched my beautiful Japanese cut leaf maple tree develop its curved umbrella form in the backyard of my townhouse. Periodically, I would sit in my outside porch chair and just look at it as well as the surrounding trees from the neighboring Reston Association open wooded area just over my backyard fence. Sometimes I would even tell my tree how much I liked it. Unfortunately, a storm a few weeks ago took a few trees down from this wooded area, with one of them coming down right on my beautiful tree. In hitting my tree, the falling one essentially sliced my Japanese maple in half, severing one of the major branches and leaving a long “wound” down the side. To say that I was upset would be an understatement. What happened next is the subject of this article.
I was initially happy that the fallen trees didn’t hit my home. These same trees did hit the property of the neighbors to my left, just into their backyards, but only damaging their fences and not their homes perse. This was fortunate. The Reston Association was notified immediately; however, there were many trees down due to the storm, so it took several days for their support team to come out to cut the fallen trees into pieces to be removed and just let decay in their park area.
When I asked about their responsibility for what had happened to my tree I got the standard, “it was an act of God” and that they would essentially do nothing. As a tree maintenance company was already out one day talking to one of my neighbors, the kind man offered to make a clean slice where my tree had been “wounded”. At least that would give the tree some relief. To help, I put down some Epsom salt fertilizer hoping that added nutrients might help the tree to heal.
Each day I go outside and talk to my tree encouraging it to not give up and die since the leaves seem to be curling up as if they were dying. Then after a few weeks I began to see tiny new red sprouts of leaves that are very cute that are coming out from the bark, branches and everywhere on the tree. So, what looks like a dying tree that perhaps had a tree’s version of a heart attack, seems to be slowly recovering. It’s interesting to watch. There is no way to know if my words are helping it, but I keep trying. I hold on to a branch and tell it that I care about it and to “Live”. We have had very hot weather which has not helped the situation with the tree. Then there was a period of rain. Maybe that was good.
Nature has a will to survive, so perhaps my tree will make it. I really hope so. For now, my tree looks more like a tea cup with half of it present rather than the full umbrella that it once was. But the holographic form that used to be there is slowly coming back. Somehow the tree knows what it used to look like, something like a limb growing back after an amputation (if this were possible). I wonder what my tree will look like in a year. Will it regain its full umbrella? I hope so.
When we are uncertain about how things will go, and we happen to be on the spiritual side, one might say, “God willing”. Therefore, this is a common expression and can be heard in many languages. I happen to be familiar with the Hebrew and the Arabic versions for example, indicating that the expression is part of not only the language but the associated religions which represents a good part of the world. I have an interesting story where I found a use to teach this expression to a tango instructor who was concerned about his monetary intake for the evening. Here is how it all went. I hope that you enjoy it.
There is a tango instructor that I like very much, and he hold dances at a local dance venue called Glen Echo Spanish ballroom. This location is quite beautiful, being of the Art Deco era, however it is not fully air conditioned. During this summer, what little A/C is installed wasn’t working making it very uncomfortable to dance. As a result, after various types of makeshift large hoses to pump air into the back room used for the tango dances, this instructor decided to move the August Sunday night events to another location.
I don’t attend every week, but I do enjoy the evenings with live music as a duo plays tango music that is wonderful for dancing. On this night, I went to the alternative location which was off the highway in what seemed like a wooded area. As I walked up to the doorway, which was lined with trees, I noticed that the signs were of both a church and a synagogue. For those not familiar, it is common for a church, which holds services on Sundays and a synagogue which holds services on Friday night and Saturday to share parking space and sometimes the actual building. I always find this interesting; firstly, that these two different religions can find each other at the time of construction and that the style of the building would suite both liturgies. In this case, no one else but me noticed that it was called both the Universalist Unitarian Church as well as the Beit Chai Congregation.
Rene, the instructor was concerned that the fees for dancing would not cover his expenses since this type of location, which did have a beautiful wood floor, was more expensive than the public facility that he normally used. I told him that I hoped that it would all work out and gave him back the $5 change from the $20 bill that I had handed him. It was fine. I was happy to just be there and dance. Most places do charge $20 anyway. There were other people that helped as well.
I enjoyed my dancing and, on the way, out, I said, “God Willing”, you will break even. Then I decided to teach him how to say this in Hebrew – “Baruch Hashem”. I walked back and said, “I’m going to teach you some powerful words that I believe will help you”. After all, it can’t hurt. He gratefully repeated the words.
The next day I got an excited text from Rene, “It worked!! I broke even”. Well, maybe he would have anyway, but it’s nice to thank God in any case.
We are built with an ego that forms our individualized self that is by definition, concerned for what we want that makes us feel good at the moment. In other words, this is the animal soul. The other part of the soul is concerned for others, for God and for what’s right in the altruistic sense. This is called the Godly soul. These two sides of our nature are at odds within us on a daily basis. Sometimes the animal soul wins and sometimes the Godly soul takes over. Today, I’m going to explain how we can get out of our own way and move towards the Godly soul.
There are challenges known as everyday occurrences that happen all the time. Today, for instance, kids were playing in the middle of the street near my home. I live in a relatively small townhouse community that has one curved road that circles around to get in and out of the development. There is no other access. If kids are playing in the street, a driver must stop and wait until they move. Under these circumstances, if either the driver or the kids aren’t watching, disaster can occur. There is a corner that one must drive around and then – bam – there are kids with a ball, or running, or playing on a little scooter.
When I was growing up, a mother would never let her child play in the street. I can hear my mother now, “never play in the street!”. But times are different, and parents think that once they move into a neighborhood it belongs to them and they can do what they want. It’s like in a restaurant. Everyone else must listen to their kid screaming because they want to go out to eat with their young child. In my day, that’s what babysitters were for. I guess I’m from a by-gone age. Maybe so, but courtesy and safety are still important.
After pulling into my driveway, I went back and really tried to be polite to my neighbor who was playing with his child. I begged him to not do this in the middle of the street where cars are driving. “Please go over to the next block where the play ground is or down the end where it is safer.” I also told him that I had checked the local code and it was against the law. I was trying to be nice and not go down that road by asking first. He was more or less tolerant of my speaking and then got rather hostile stating he planned to continue….. that said, when I looked again, he and his wife (perhaps she understood the message better) were moving to safer ground down the end of the culdesac. Unfortunately, my other neighbors were playing with their kids in the street. I saw the first guy tell them. We’ll see what happens. I tried to be polite, checked my facts and then I went home and wrote the President of the board.
How am I using my Godly soul? I communicated in a very polite manner and literally begged him. I told him of my motivation and what happened to me previously so that the message would be in context. The animal soul would have just called the police. That would have satisfied my anger quicker. I hope I’ve done the right thing because now everyone knows that it’s me. Oh well, I’ve become the old lady in the neighborhood anyway and my sense of morality is different. I must accept that. It’s a new world.
Everyone has a birth and an expiration date. Even though it’s not pleasant to think about the later date for the most part, in some cases, it’s best to plan. In my case, I don’t have family, so I want to take the guess work out of my final arrangements for the executor of my “estate”. My net worth won’t be in the category of Bill Gates, but it is still called an “estate”. Hence, I went out to take care of my funeral arrangements. This hit home to me after making similar arrangements for my mother’s final resting place last year. Doing so brought home my own mortality. I also realized how expensive an actual burial can be and will certainly be more expensive in the future. When a friend told me how he pre-planned his funeral and had also paid for it a long time ago, I decided to do the same.
If someone just wants to be cremated and their ashes thrown about, the problem is much simpler. At one point I felt this way until I studied about the Jewish perspective on the soul while investigating burials for my mother. Then I realized that I might not care, but my soul might feel differently about it. I changed my will from cremation to burial. At this point, several years ago, I hadn’t decided on the actual funeral arrangements.
Now that my mother’s funeral is in the rear-view mirror, I decided to take time out to plan my own. As there is only one Jewish cemetery near my home in Virginia, I went there a few weeks ago and picked out a plot. I was surprised that in March there was a sale. One doesn’t imagine that there would be sales on cemetery plots. I guess it’s essentially real estate that one uses in the future. During the afternoon, I had a few chuckles to myself. One of the funny moments was when the lady said, “Don’t you want to be up on the hill?” When I realized that the cost was three times what it cost to be lower down, I declined. The neighborhood looked just fine near the row of trees closer to the entrance. The people already buried there seemed to be “nice” people. Just imagine me standing there looking down at those already buried and thinking that they were fine for me to have as neighbors one day!
I told the lady helping me that I would take the spot available as I looked up and saw a beautiful cherry tree wondering if it would still be there some thirty years in the future when I felt it would be my time – God willing.
I signed the contract for the selected spot and all the extras that were required, including the headstone. That is also an interesting story. There are several grades of headstones each costing more – depending on style of lettering, borders and how much information was on there. I chose the basic one but had to have my name in both English and Hebrew. Of course, this is the Jewish section of the cemetery and having the Hebrew writing was an extra charge! This did seem very strange to me. I have the basic information of my birth date and the date of death is of course, TBD.
The contract will get paid for over 5 years. The next step was the funeral home.
I communicated with two different funeral homes and got pricing for a basic Jewish casket, ritual washing and the other basics that are required. That too was put on a five year contract.
In the end, no pun intended, the details of what I want are in place. Now the person who will handle things for me will know what to do and it will be mostly paid for. I say mostly because there are always last minutes charges. I expect to be living in the same area but could move. This organization does allow for that and will facilitate monies going to other services elsewhere. I’ve done the best job I can with really not knowing how it will go in the future. One cannot project manage everything.
But almost everything. I certainly do feel my mortality more than before. And I turned another year older in the process.
There is an adage about making lemonade from lemons. This is a great idea until it’s you that has the challenge in your path. Perhaps it’s an illness, the loss of a loved one, or a physical injury – for example. It could also be smaller occurrences such as not getting the raise that you expected, someone treating you in an unkind manner, or just missing a connection on a trip. It can be anything – when it happens to YOU, it’s different. It feels different and it really hits home because it is home. It’s YOU. This is normal. But how you react to these situations, both big and small, is what makes the difference in your life. In this article, I’m going to discuss these curveballs that life throws at us and how we may or may not react to them.
In my almost ¾ of a century on earth, I’m finding that making lemonade out of lemons is not so easy when it’s YOU that the lemons are happening to. When it’s my mother that has gotten sick and I must run around the country to take care of her. And then when it’s my mother that dies, it’s very difficult. I hear many people in my generation who have lost a parent, but not until it happened to ME, and I lost my MOTHER, did I really understand what it felt like. In addition, I didn’t understand how much I had to do to settle her accounts, etc. after she died. So, when other people told me about it, I just nodded my head. NOW I get it and will have more emotional intelligence and will provide more empathy to others when I hear this.
Other people get sick. Some get better and some don’t. They live with illness and others die. Some continue to go out dancing with this issue or that. When I hear about it, I say how sorry I am and then continue dancing. It isn’t me that has the problem. I feel bad that it’s happening to them, but there isn’t anything that I can do about their having this problem. Now, occasionally, I get stepped on, my toe might be bruised, or I might get a tendon torn in my foot. Over the many years that I’ve been a dancer (ballroom and tango), I’ve had several injuries. I’ve not fussed about it; neither have I asked for help. I went to the doctor and dealt with the consequences. Sometimes, I’ve had to have procedures that required me to stay in the house for days at a time and I didn’t ask people to come over. Perhaps I was to stoic. Others don’t know that I’d like to have company and that I really don’t want to be alone so much. That said, I don’t like to bother people since I feel that others have their own stuff that they have to deal with. I’m not dying so I can carry on. I suppose if I really had to have a ride somewhere after a procedure, I’d try to get help, but I don’t ask – or haven’t as of yet.
So now I find out that after over dancing for a few months – having a good time – I finally got an MRI and it turns out that I have little tears in both hips. In addition, there is tendonitis down the back of both legs. Wow, I really did it to myself. I had pain and just told the doctor to give me the shots and she did. Now I have to pay the price. I stopped dancing except for once a week. I miss it and don’t have much to do in the house except watch GAIA videos about esoteric things. I enjoy the videos and I’m learning a lot of stuff. I have lots of fun facts to throw out at the table when I am around other people. My friends seldom have time to watch TV so they enjoy my tidbits.
So how can I turn this physical issue into lemonade? What could there possibly be that’s good about it? For one thing, it’s slowing me down. I have time to think about my mom’s passing in a healthy way, not just the busy stuff I had to do during the first few months after she died. I miss her a lot but was just vegetating in the house – then went crazy dancing. I realize the error of my ways now – one needs to do little exercises to keep all the muscles going and not just the big ones – like with Zumba and weight training. Exercise like Barre, Pilates and Yoga work the little muscles and tendons and keeping the body flexible to reduce the likelihood of injury. I know now I have to add these types of exercises into my routine.
I also realize that I have to have friendships beyond the social circle of just dance friends whom I know three things about and can ask how you are while dancing. I need social friends to just hang out with other than dancing. I have to widen my world.
In addition, I have to find another goal in life. For the last three years of my Mom’s life I cared for her and she was always in my thoughts – what I had to do for her or someone was calling me telling me that she fell, etc. Now there is a big hole that I have to fill with a new direction. I have many years left and need to be productive – not in a working sense, just as a human being. I want to help others, be of service in some way so I need to find my next volunteer situation.
So how does one make lemonade out of lemons? Start from the beginning, figure out what the lesson is and go from there. The answers always come.
I recently started taking a class with the Rabbi’s wife in addition to the ladies’ bible study in which I’ve been participating for many years. This new class concerns a very special book called the Tanya, written at the end of the 18th century by the founder of the Chasidic sect of Judaism. In our first class this past Wednesday, we learned that there are two souls – one is called the animal soul which governs out instincts and our nature/ego while the other soul is concerned the aspect that connects us to the divine will. So, when we are doing things for others but for a selfish intent, it’s still part of the animal soul. Likewise, when we sit quietly and ask how we should be used to serve others or even how doing the laundry can become a divine task, then we are using our Godly soul. Although I’ve studied this concept before, I felt that I needed a refresher due to an incident that happened a couple days before.
Like most events in life, things happen for a reason; at the time it may seem like it’s just an action/reaction situation. Upon later reflection, however, we may find that there’s a deeper meaning to the scenario. Here’s the high level version, and of course, my side of the story.
So, what happened? I came home from an exercise class to find some young children playing with a very large ball in the middle of my street. Normally, over the many years that I’ve lived in my townhouse neighborhood, on the rare occasion when children are playing in the street, they normally are with an adult – either a parent or a guardian of one type or another. But this time, the kids were playing alone. (As I’d learn later, their father was inside their house.) The kids didn’t move as my car approached which meant that I had to stop for them and, in fact, they took their good old time getting out of the way. I was very surprised at this behavior making me feel like I was inconveniencing them to not obstruct traffic; rather, it was implied that the street was their right and I was a nuisance that could just wait for them. I take issue with kids that have no respect for adults and this situation was not going over well with me from the start. First, was the playing in the street without adult supervision and the second thing was ignoring the right of way of a car to drive down the street for the driver to get home.
Once in my driveway and safety parked in my garage, I walked back to where the kids were and said, “it would be safer for you all to play down the end of the street”, to which they just ignored me. I really wasn’t surprised since they had taken an attitude when they say my car initially. Apparently, they were being raised to believe that they were the center of the universe by their parents, so of course, every one else needs to yield for them. I’ve seen this behavior before and it produces adults with no sense of responsibility so I really hate to see it in children. I have family members that were held up to the light when young and now they are a gift from God… and have no respect for the rest of the family. It’s a shame what has happened over the last few years and has hurt me terribly. That said, I was really triggered by these kids.
Then I said, “Where is your mother?” to which I got a “She’s not home.” But they didn’t tell me that their father was home. A few minutes later I got a pounding at my door. When I went down the stairs, I saw a huge man furiously angry wound up and ready for bear as the expression goes who said, “How dare you speak to my children like that?”. Really, like what? Concerned for their welfare that they shouldn’t play in the street and that it would be safer to play down the end of the street.
He wasn’t interested in what actually happened because his kids had said that I took pictures of them, which I didn’t and it isn’t against the law anyway. However, he was hostile, abusive and threatening to say the least. And this wasn’t the end. I made the mistake to post on the neighborhood information board not realizing that his wife had no time to monitor the kids, nor take them to the neighborhood park play ground only one block away, but had lots of time to monitor this information board. In just a few days, there were 65 comments to which she replied to each one in turn stating her opposing view. I was amazed. It wasn’t difficult to figure out which one she was and even a few days later she contacted me directly.
At that point, I knew I needed to know my legal position, so I contacted the local police department non-emergency number. The really nice police lady was totally supportive, told me that I’d done nothing wrong and that this crazy family had no recourse against me legally but that if it should happen again, I should call the police at which point the parents would be told to keep the kids out of the street – private road or not. I definitely felt better after this conversation since the contact with this crazy lady had taken me off balance.
I went for a walk around the lake near home. As I walked over the foot bridge around some people, I accidentally walked too far to the right, and my foot slipped causing me to fall down on my side. Some really nice people came to my aide while others just kept on walking. I sat there for a few minutes questioning the meaning of the situation and received guidance that there are nice people in the world and some that just aren’t very nice. It was up to me to surround myself with people of a higher vibration – those of the light, and stay clear of those with a lower vibration – those in the darkness.
When I felt better, I stood up, finished my walk and came home with more resolve to limit my access to people in the light. I deleted my original post and realized I had allowed myself to use my animal soul – my ego had gotten in the way and that I had to reconnect to the light. The fall was the wakeup call – to shake me to remember who I am as a spiritual being. It really worked. Nothing was broken, but I did have to stay in for the weekend recuperating and allowing the swelling on my ankle to go down. I was very lucky that I didn’t get hurt any worse. I learned my lesson to stay connected to my Godly Soul. Sometimes we have to get shaken up to learn our lessons.
In this blog article I’m going to address the stage in life where the kids are taking care of the parents to the extent where the line of who is the parent and who is the child becomes blurred. This is a subject that is hitting close to home at the moment as I move further along the path of caring for my aging mother, now pushing beyond 94 years old.
I never had children of my own although I was married for a considerable number of years. As my marriage was always rocky, I didn’t want to bring a child into the world under a disadvantaged situation right from the start. I know that some people think that a baby will solve marital issues but I wasn’t of that mind. Anyway, that’s a subject for a different day. As life would have it, I seemed to have taken care of other people’s children along my life’s path. For several years, I had my ex-husband’s niece and nephew living with us when we first got married. They were teenagers, so I had the rebellion stage with which to attend. Then, later, I had the kids of my friends that I’d baby sit, so I became familiar with 5-10 year olds. I once taught school for middle kids so I had to learn what made them tick. In the end, I never had to feed, clothe, and shelter my own children. But the universe had a way of teaching me what this would have been like in a very surprising way, at least for me.
My parents moved out west closer to my brother as my father came down with Alzheimer’s disease. He passed in 2007 with my mother caring for him until the last day. Then she had to fend for herself with my brother looking in on her periodically. As the years went by, I travelled to her condo in Southern California to visit for a few days first yearly, then multiple times per year, then every 3 months. It may not seem like a lot but there was the week of preparation to leave my own home and my cat at the time, the actual trip and then the catching up afterwards. It was about a month of time for me dedicated to the one trip. My family never saw it that way. For them, it was just the few days I was out there. But when I was with my mother, it was 24/7. They would come over to my Mom’s place, bring some food, like bagels and feel like they had done their job. When I visited, I cooked, sometimes cleaned and took her places. I began to feel that I was really taking care of her. Then there were times that she wasn’t well during my visits when I had to take her to the doctor. A few times I had to take her in for an elective procedure – like her cataract surgery. During other times, she had illnesses like bronchitis or swollen legs wherein I had to take her to the doctor. Meanwhile, my doctor brother was at home oblivious to what I was handling for my mother. He never accepted that I was really helping him take care of her. Again, the universe had a strange twist of fate.
My brother, yes the same one that was a doctor, came down with cancer. He valiantly fought it for close to eight years, but in the end it took him down. Probably his poor eating habits, exercising very little and maintaining a very stressful practice as well as his private life didn’t help any either. His children and wife all had huge expectations of the lifestyle they wanted to lead and he was the breadwinner and played that role until his last day. He refused to stop working until he was totally incapacitated. In other words, retirement was not in his vocabulary. Well, rather unexpectedly, again from my perspective, my younger brother who lived close to my mother died.
I was next in line to care for my aging mother. I quickly went out to California and began the role of primary caregiver for her, except it wasn’t a visit now, it was full time. To the surprise of the rest of the family (his wife and kids) I began to live there just returning home long enough to take care of my own home. This went on for 10 months with me doing all the activities of daily living for my mother; this included making her healthy meals, shopping to make sure food was in the house, maintaining the cleanliness of the condo to my standards (which included steaming the floors twice weekly for example), doing the laundry twice weekly and running her to all her appointment regardless of whether they were for doctors or to get her nails done. There’s a reason that people don’t have children at 70 years old. Being responsible for another person at this age is seriously tiring. I was more than tired. I was exhausted. Multiply what I was doing at her house with flying home and in a couple weeks, catching up at my house and then flying back to start all over again.
As time went on, my mother’s condition began to decline making it necessary to have outside support for just a few hours daily when I went away. After several trips and the world coming out of the pandemic, I decided that it was best to move my mother closer to me in Virginia. Understanding how stressed I was and that I was not going to fly back and forth forever, she agreed to move. Then I had to find a really nice place for her, pack her things, move her and then unpack her. Is this so different than a child leaving home and the parent helping them to move?
Although my Mom loved the place I chose and everyone quickly learned her name, her health took a turn for the worse within a few months. She had several falls, landed in the hospital for 4 days and the following month went on oxygen. Apparently all the years of smoking finally caught up with her. Well at 94.5 years old one can’t say that it shortened her life by much. She’s very lucky that my father made her stop smoking about 30 years ago. Unfortunately, she did gain about 30 pounds which she’s since lost over time with great difficulty. Currently, other medical problems are popping up. I still feel that for a woman that’s almost 95 years old, she’s led a fairly healthy life up to now with only a few medical blimps on the screen. Watching her decline in mental health is disheartening to say the least. Day by day she’s loosing cognitive ability to the extent that someone needs to watch her in the afternoon. There are activities were people come in during the morning hours and again at night so this is the main time for care coverage.
So just like a young child, that one must watch, make sure they brush their teeth, change their underwear, put on their glasses, go to the doctor and stay out of trouble, I’m watching and helping my mother. I get snacks for her in kid’s sizes, even giving her the twist off top yogurts that she really likes. She loves peanut butter and jelly on crackers, bananas and simple food. She’s eating more complicated food like salad less and less. I cut up her meat for her, but she’s eating about half of a portion these days. I open snack packs of nuts/raisins into a little bowl and she likes that. She sits in her recliner chair and closes her eyes most of the day.
Recently I bought an Amazon Echo Dot speaker where I can say, “Alexa, play Frank Sinatra for one hour”. She seems to really enjoy listening to her era of music and it appears to be very calming for her. I’m learning how to use this little device to provide wake up notices and alerts to go to the door to get her breakfast at a certain time as she can easily forget that it’s been delivered.
So now you have it- Food, clothing and shelter are now my responsibilities and all things in between. When her hearing aid gets lost I have to figure out how to get another one. I buy her new clothes and a new coat as it’s much colder here than where she came from. She still likes to sit in the sun on the front porch but there are few days when it’s warm enough for her as we approach December in Virginia.
As I leave my Mom after each visit, I wonder how much longer she has to live. Each day brings us closer to the last day. The thought tears at my heart every time I leave. I’ve also learned that as a caregiver, I can get lost in what I have to do for her, so I try to squeeze in some exercise and outside activities. All of this is not so different that a parent taking care of a child.
If this isn’t role reversal, what is? Everyone that lives long enough watches their parents’ age. It’s just really hard when it’s your turn. Comments are always welcome.
From what I’ve read there are a number of states that people go through after losing a loved one including denial and anger among others. A few months ago I had to put my dear cat Skylar to sleep after many years of caring for him. It was a heart breaking experience to look for ;hope one day and take him to be euthanized the next.
Making that kind of decision is beyond expression. From the vet’s office I went to the crematorium to part with my little boy forever. I returned several days later to pick up his ashes and prepared his final resting place near my home. As I was about to conduct his funeral, I got the call that my brother, long suffering from cancer, had passed that morning without awakening from a coma he’d been in for the past week. Why did you leave me?
Within two weeks after my brother’s passing I was on a plane to the west coast to stay with my mother, my initial thinking was that I’d stay for a while, take her to the cemetery and do a service for him since she’d been excluded due to the pandemic and just figure out long range care for her. However, once I arrived, the situation quickly changed. I soon realized that my brother’s family was hidding the fact that he’d gotten Covid from them and they wanted me to leave, but their agenda was unclear. Although their motives can be surmised I can’t prove them. I accepted their rude behavior over the years when we’d get to get her and I’d be left out of conversations attributing it to not living nearby, however I now realize my inner notion that my sister in law just had no use for me is clear. Its all about control and money. Its very sad really. She just lost her husband and has his estate and details to occupy her yet she monitors my where a bouts, my car, and has my nephew bring in other external people to try to take over insisting that I’m not taking proper care of my own mother. She doesn’t have enough on her own plate? One would think she’d be glad to have someone else here to care for Her husband’s mother as she works and is shutting down his business. Unless it’s not about my Mom but about her money. Oh now we have it, although she inherited mucho from my brother….. what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine too!! No?
Unfortunately, I’m now caring for my Mother in a way that represents me taking responsibility for her much as a role reversal, which, of course feels very strange. I’m doing her laundry, making meals and taking care of other daily details of life. Meanwhile I have a woman looking in on my own house back home. It’s four months now with no end in sight.
I keep asking my brother now in spirit why he left me with such evil people at my heels making my life so miserable? I have great responsibility and yet have such burdens on top of it.
And in the quiet moments I think of my little boy Skylar and miss him. He tells me that he’s ok and no longer in pain in that little body he had. Surprisingly enough my brother agrees that his wife is not acting properly and he agrees with the defensive actions that I’m forced to take.
As a spiritual person, one can be called by our guides and angels to assist others – whether as an individual or a group to move towards the light. I recently had experiences representing both of these types of “SOS assistance calls” to which I responded. Although I feel good that I did respond, I also learned my own lesson of discernment. Discernment is ascertaining just when to start trusting, assisting while maintaining one’s own boundaries, in any type of relationship.
My first personal lesson of discernment concerns a spiritual group to which I belong; in fact, it is the group from which I was ordained 11 years ago. My favorite saying is that some spiritual people are not so spiritual. The reason I say this is that the human ego is present in all of us on this physical dimension, and even those souls who profess to be spiritual can have an overactive sense of self-importance. Case in point is the various leaders of this particular group who have taken over after the original self-less leader led the way for over 30 years. I give people who are dedicated to a cause much credit, so don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate the role that they play. It’s just that when they ask me for help and I comply, they have tended to give me a really hard time.
The most recent situation that has me rather irked is where I spent time developing a meditation for their Friday night service. The program that I developed was well received by this particular leader. I was then informed of the date when it would be aired on Facebook live. I did the work on my own in order to help the organization promote their spiritual message. That said, it is common practice to provide creators of programs credit for their work. My bio and hi resolution photo had been requested but it was never posted on the website. Although their website did note a program to be held that evening, there was no mention of my meditation. I tuned in that evening to hear the pastor give her talk and then my meditation came on. Unless one was online and just listened there would be no way for anyone to find it on the website later. This is contrasted to other visiting people doing programs and being very much recognized. Just to make the point that I don’t develop these programs for personal gain nor recognition, but it’s only right to give someone credit.
I did send a note to the leader indicating what I thought was a mistake and asking for it to be corrected. I never got a thank you for the program nor did I receive any indication that my concern would be acknowledged. I made a tough decision not to make further contributions for this group. I didn’t call and complain. I just will step back. If I decide to develop other programs, I will post them here for my readers to see. So my discernment is that this type of unrecognized behavior is only using me and does not serve me to do anymore for them. It’s a basic rule of the universe that when we give out we should get something back, not necessarily money, but some exchange of energy to preserve the balance of nature. Apparently, the so-called spiritual people involved are not so spiritual.
The second example involved an individual that I felt called to help. A few weeks ago I came into contact with a man who was had recently separated from his marriage. Normally, I stay clear of this type of situation knowing from past experience that it doesn’t go well. Newly separated people have so much baggage to process, yet in this case I felt that guidance wanted me to assist him. Our initial contacts were cordial but after a couple weeks it became clear that he wanted to go out. I agreed to meet for dinner thinking that he just wanted a friend with whom to hang out.
Unfortunately, after just a couple weeks of interactions, he became controlling, manipulative and although I could see it coming, he had some endearing qualities which were engulfing me. I was in a quandary. I knew better than get involved, yet I felt myself slipping. My desire to help him, after so many years of life coaching this is a trait that is hard to leave behind, yet he was attaching to me very quickly. He was an energy vampire and it was taking its toll on me. Everything that happened to him was a major drama and as I tried to help him sort it out, I was getting more sucked in. I didn’t want to be his life coach, nor his therapist so my comments stopped at suggestions that I would make to any friend. Still I could feel my own energy draining.
Finally, this past weekend, my angels gave me the signal. It was time for it all to end. The balance point had been tipped. He was really wound and did some things that I couldn’t stand for which gave me cause to be snippy to him. My goal was to give him reason to end it with me so that he could save face. It worked since by the end of the day he was upset. That evening, he sent me a “good-bye” text. I was very happy. My plan had worked. I had been concerned that he would disintegrate if I walked away from him. Sometimes this approach is necessary. The very next day he tried to communicate with me but I didn’t respond. I now feel better. Whatever help I was supposed to provide, I did so until the balance point was reached. This is discernment in action. It’s good to help others but we must watch out for ourselves. I’ve also let my guides know that I’m done with this type of assistance in the future!
If you ask someone what is missing in their life, many will respond that they’d like more love. The younger generation might feel that they didn’t get enough love from their parents, whereas the older generation might feel forgotten by their kids. Or, the working class might feel that they’re not appreciated at work. Those of one belief system may feel those of other beliefs (whether religious, organizational or political) are against them. And even there are those that judge themselves unworthy of even being loved.
Wow, with all this unloving going on it’s amazing that anyone is happily in love! But of course, there are many people that walk around with smiles on their faces while in relationships, having wonderful children, and happy at their jobs. So what creates loving vs. unloving situations? The question is an age old one of how can one be happy because in actuality, we create our situations (most of the time).
According to brain research as well as ancients religious texts, we create our world one thought at a time. I recently watched a great video on GAIA, the spiritual equivalent of AMAZON PRIME VIDEO Channel, which explained how the brain is wired. This video went on to explain how our thought patterns create new neural networks almost like beating a path to a door from constantly going there.
The result of constantly re-hashing how others were mean, angry, abusive or otherwise non- appreciative of us, is creating a mental state where we begin to believe that we are only deserving of abusive behavior. In other words, by thinking negatively about ourselves we begin to believe the negatively about ourselves which in turn becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. This was a scientifically based video. The other end of the spectrum is the spiritual view where Edgar Cayce, the sleeping prophet and great psychic of the 20th century, promoted the idea that thoughts become actions become our world; or, as we think so we become. So here we have a case of science meeting spirituality; both systems giving support to the idea that thinking negatively is counter-productive to create anything positive.
Now my own universal law appropriate here is that nothing positive comes from a negative. In the case of love, if you don’t love yourself, how can anyone else do so? It also follows that if you want to be loved you need to be more loving yourself, as like attracts like. This is also promoted by many spiritual beliefs as well as the work of Edgar Cayce.
If we create our world one thought at a time and we need to be loving in order to be loved, what is the best way to create a loving reality? I believe the answer is clear! Be positive with your self-talk, have compassion with those around you, think before you speak working towards being the best version of yourself that you can be avoiding throwing stones at others for holding a contrary viewpoint; everyone deserves a place in the world and to express their reality even if you don’t agree. Hold love in your heart for your fellow humans; one day we might need each other. There are many challenges at hand. No one knows for sure what will happen in the future. Have empathy. Stay in the light and be positive. These are all loving qualities to nurture and behold the love that returns. Voila, you’ve created a loving reality! (Granted, this may not be a perfect solution, but give it a try and see how life improves!!)
Inspirational memoir capturing a love that extends beyond the veil of death, of care-giving, of the ravages of Alzheimer's Disease as well as a widow's restructuring her life after the only man she ever loved was gone. Buy safely via PayPal
Posted by intuitivelifecoachjoanne 
Joanne's StarTeacher Blog 