10 Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart

Interesting book.  Thought provoking and practical.
I especially talk about the chapters on coping strategies, doing something different, and simplicity.

Perception, growth, and protection

Read this fantastic article recently and have been pondering ever since.

Interview with Dr. Bruce Lipton

Called about this summary part and am waiting for an electronic copy.

Ok, here's the article that accompanies it.

:)amy

From the back of the van

We're driving north on 35W up where it joins 94 Eastbound and we're listening to a kids' music CD.  Mark calls, "Mom?" and I shut off the CD so I can hear him. 

"Mom, why doesn't God have a lifespan?"

I take a deep breath, hoping I'm up for this and reply, "Not having a lifespan is one of the things that makes God, God.  Everything else has a lifespan- people, animals, trees.  God created everything but God was never created.  God always was.  That's one of the things that makes God special."

"Mom, what about houses and fast roads and lights?"

"Houses and fast roads and lights are not alive so they don't have lifespans."

"No, Mom.  Houses, lights- did God make those?"

"Oh, actually, people built those.  God made metal and trees and people took those and created houses and lights.  God creates things and He made people so we could be like Him and create things, too, except that things we make aren't alive.  Do you know what the most special thing people can create is?"

"No."

"Babies.  God lets us create more new people just like He created everything alive.  We make things because God makes things and we're like God.  The most special thing we create, the only living thing we can make, are babies.  God let us participate in creating with Him.  Isn't that great?"

"Yeah, Mom.  Could you turn the CD back on?"

I drove on slightly stunned.


A couple weeks later, we're walking to our car in the church parking lot on our way to a service project for the morning.  Anjali's gone to one for older people and Mark and I are hustling to drive to ours on time. 

I say, "Mark, we need to hurry and be on time today."

"Why, Mom?"

"Well, who are we working for today?"

Silence.

"We're working for God, buddy.  God works for us every day- making the sun shine and the rain come.  God is good to us every day and today is our turn to say thanks to God by working for Him.  So, we need to be on time, ready to go, ready to work hard, not make messes, and be great helpers.  Let's hurry so we can be on time."

We arrive and walking from the car to the door, we review.  We're working for God to say thank you for God working for us.  We're going to be great helpers and do our best.

Mark says, "God is happy when we help people."  And with smiles we walk in.

As we approach the group receiving instructions, I lift him up so he can see everyone, my hearts swells, and I whisper in his ear, "Mark, do you see all the grown up daddies here today ready to work for God and help people?  When you're a grown up daddy man, you're going to be a good helper."

Mark nods, eyes on all the men, and I feel an electric moment, like something has passed from me and these men to my son.

Then we work and work and work sorting donations- gifts, cake mixes, party supplies- for this charity's Birthday Room, a cubicle in a warehouse where parents can come, choose a gift for their child's birthday, wrap it in a gift bag, and choose cake and frosting to make at home.  Mark and I got to unwrap thousands of donated bags of presents, sort by gender, and box until they were needed.  Talk about the best service project ever!  It was like Christmas on steroids getting to unwrap and touch every toy, book, and piece of candy.  And then we never have to pick them up or put them away ever again- a mother's dream!  Seriously a blast.

After 2 hours, Mark starts playing with toys and I throw out expired cake mixes.  I find him sitting on the floor of the Birthday Room, playing chess with one of the grown up daddies. 

As we walked to the van, I say, "Mark, I'm really proud of you for being a hard worker and a good helper.  You did a good job.  I'm also very proud of you for knowing your limits, finding something positive to do, and choosing a good friend to play with.  I'm very proud of you."

We drove to pick up Anjali and I ask Mark, "How do you feel?"

"I feel great!  It was great being a helper."

"Do you know why it's great being a helper?" I ask.  No answer.  "Because God likes helping people.  When God helps people, God is happy and we are like God so when we help people, we feel happy.  What makes God happy makes us happy, too.  Do you know where all those presents we opened and put in boxes are going?"  No answer.  "They are for moms and dads who don't have enough money to buy a birthday present for their boys and girls for their birthdays.  How would that feel if you were a dad and you didn't have money to buy a present for your sweetpea?"

"Not-so-hot-so.  Really sad."

"Yes, very, very sad.  So this is why people who have enough money gave presents for free so that the moms and dads without enough money could come and choose a birthday present.  It's really wonderful.  And you were a helper today getting all the toys sorted so that moms and dads can find what they need when they need it.  The people who gave the gifts won't see who gets them and neither will we, but some mom or dad who loves their sweetpea will get our presents.  That's really great."

"Mom, why don't the people with the presents just give them to somebody?"

"Buddy, they did give them to somebody- somebody who will come to the Birthday Room."

"No, why didn't they give the present to somebody in their hand?"

"Oh.  Sometimes we want to give a present but we don't know who needs one.  But God always knows who needs the presents so if we give the gifts to God then God can get them to the right person.  We may not see it but God knows."

"Mom, it's like glories."

"Glories?"

"Yes, glories."

I could feel the power of this moment.  "You're absolutely right.  In the beginning, God had all the glories but having all the glories didn't make God as happy as sharing them, so God shared His glories with us and when we share our glories with other people, we're happy, too.  God gives us glories every day and He gives us glories whether we share them or not because it makes Him happy.  But what makes God especially happy is when we share our glories and when God is happy, we're happy, too."

I felt something pass through me to Mark and feeling him receive it I received it, too.
We both got glories.
 

Doctors and miracles

In the past 3 weeks, I've had two long social conversations with doctors- my father-in-law George, a retired orthopedic surgeon and Angela, this nice mom I met at the park while our kids played who's a family practice doc in town.  Both conversations were personable, frank, meandering, and healing. 

This is a miracle. 

Doctors, in a sadistic twist of evil, are my worst trigger for all my child abuse/smothering stuff.  So the very people trying to help are the ones I can least receive it from. 

I have felt like doctors' nightmare patient- slow to change, impossible to diagnose, untrusting, obstinate, and combative.  I was able to confess all that to Dr. George, now retired, and he heard me out.  All the way.  Until I finished.  Then said nothing.  Ahhh.

"I have been an uncooperative patient," I said.  "Doctors and their offers to make me unconscious or make me lose track of parts of my body really freak me out.  I was a difficult patient, I really was."  Silence.

I complained, "I've lived in here for 40 years and I know myself.  They didn't listen to me.  They were too busy selling me something."  George responded with a sales joke. 

"Opiates make me anxious and nor-epinephrin gives me a panic attack."  George responded with a story about his own bad drug reaction, normalized the whole thing, and encouraged me to document what did work well and seek alternatives for what didn't.  Ahhh.

"I have a venereal disease which I got as a toddler when I was sexually abused.  My second pap came back normal but I still get symptoms if I don't take these herbal pills.  I've undoubtedly passed this on to Tim and probably to my kids, too."  George asked about the sexual abuse, the first family member from that generation to ask me about it to my face.  Then he encouraged me to talk about vaccinations for HPV for the kids with the one medical person I'd mentioned in a positive light, unsure whether it would be helpful since the vaccines came out after he retired.  Ahhh.

Miraculous.

This morning we went to the park by Maggie's house and when the sun shifted, I moved to the shade and struck up a conversation with a mom rocking her newborn in his stroller while her toddler played with my kids.  Turns out she's a doctor, Dr. Angela, at a Minneapolis clinic.  We started talking about her NOOK (think Star Trek padd) and wound up talking about why she went into medicine, what initiatives her clinic is working on, why she thinks traditional medical people are going to need to partner with alternative medicine people, what's right and wrong with health care, staying compassionate, and her interest in learning acupuncture.  I gave her Joe's name and info, telling her I'd tried various acupuncturists and he's my best.  She hmm-ed encouragingly so I told her that I liked his subtlety which never made me dizzy like other people's style did.  I mentioned my chronic illness and the abscess surgery and what a change it's made for me.  I praised my oral surgeon and nurses for finding a way to be both compassionate and competent, especially in the face of my panic because of sexual abuse.

"I've dealt with the competent who aren't compassionate, and they just aren't healing," I said.  She concurred.

"I had classmates who had the compassion squashed out of them by the system.  Everyone goes in wanting to help but feel so worried and unable to help in 15 minutes," she replied.

"I think we as a culture are going to have to make some different trade-offs," I reply.  "We want all the high tech stuff, all the people connection, all for low cost.  We're going to to have to trade off differently eventually because we can't have it all.  We need to respect doctors' limits.  Sick people are hard to deal with.  We as a community need to provide some balance for our care givers or we're going to burn the best ones out.  How can people remain passionate when they are under a time crunch, threatened with having their passion taken away, all while working with difficult people?  We're going to have to help doctors and police officers and fire fighters and other care givers find balance."

"I find myself saying often, 'I don't know but I will help you look for an answer,'" she said.

I interrupted, "When I was 20 I wanted answers because I had answers but now that I'm 40, I respect when people say 'I don't know but I'll help you look' because bodies are mysterious and things aren't obvious.  My head hurt and my digestive tract was whacked but the actual abscess in my jaw didn't hurt and we had to stick with it until we found it."

"Sticking with it is sometimes the only solution to mysterious and complicated things, " she replied. 

"And no matter how hard we try, everyone has a lifespan.  Doctors can't prevent people from dying.  I regret that I didn't talk with my Gramma about dying," I said.  "We were talking about fighting the illness, about next steps and treatments, rather than asking her what she'd like to pass on to me before she died.  I really regret this.  Everyone has a lifespan.  We need to find a way to end with dignity as we began with celebration."

She replied talking about "allowing natural death" and wanting to talk with people about their choices and wishes in the dying process and how unwilling so many were to talk, even people in their 80's and 90's.  Everyone over 50 in their system can now sit with a nurse and family members and spend 1-2 hours discussing and planning the process of dying. 

"What did I miss," I wondered, "because I substituted conversations about fighting the disease for the real conversation about dying?  We as a culture are in denial about death.  I've told my family I don't want to be embalmed; I want to look dead when I'm dead.  Someone is going to need to start having these difficult conversations and I'm impressed that your clinic is doing it."

She talked about how when she was a teenager, doctors came to talk to her class and she was fascinated- couldn't get enough.  I told her about being called Dr Amy in my junior high health classes and that now that I'm 40, I'll never be a doctor but maybe I'll do hands-on healing, like cranial-sacral, someday.  She encouraged me to join in, even consider being a doctor, and expressed her approval for cranial-sacral.

And so on, for an hour and a half.

Miraculous.

As we were gathering wet sandy kids to go home, I realized I felt respect and connection.  I walked over to her and said, "We've been looking for a new family practice doctor and I'm pretty sure you're her.  Could I get your clinic contact information?"


I have confessed. 
I have been heard.
We have spoken in agreement of death and dying with dignity, of responsibility and compassion and limits and lifespans.
And she invites me to get my skin in the game, to join the healing team.

I used to think that the gift of healing involved prayer, laying on of hands, and miracles- like some sort of formula.  Pray + touch = instant health.  More like a magic trick I see now than a true supernatural wildness.  Like God the Cosmic Vending Machine dispensing prizes to people through chosen special folks with magic hands.

So when I was offered the gift of healing at 20, I held it at arms length, not even sure I wanted it.  What use could a good, Baptist girl have for that voodoo?
 
Then at 25 and 30 and 35, when I was desperately sick and miserable, I waited to receive the magical healing.  People came to me, saying, "If we have enough faith and pray together, God will heal you."  No luck- still sick and in pain for another 15 years.  Sometimes, I went to people hoping that this time God would pick me and wave His magic wand over me.  Nope- still sick.  I stopped asking because clearly I wasn't one of the chosen winners.

Meanwhile, in my heart the seed of healing grew and I began to pray for healing for peoples and neighborhoods.  Healers like Ginger and Joe and Tara became my heroes.  I longed to become a healing person.

Here I am at 40 with my heart open and my mind blown.  Healing doesn't mean what I thought it meant.  Healing isn't magic although sometimes it is dramatic and maybe even sometimes instantaneous.  Healing doesn't necessarily mean the pain goes away or even that the person lives.  A person can be healed into death.  Healing, like freedom, is something a person must claim, must work out for themselves.  Another can open the door but the individual must walk through it.  Healing is mysterious and supernatural and utterly unpredictable.  And when I tilt my head a little differently, it is as sure and natural as gravity, always coming at top speed, a constant like the speed of light. 

The gift of healing is not something I have.
The gift of healing is something I receive and somebody I become.

Dr George and Dr Angela, they were the gift of healing to me.
Our conversations healed me.

I walked away with my heart singing.
Miracle
Miracle
Miracle

Job and Job's Friends

I married a man who has pondered Job for all of our married life and consequently, I've been pondering Job, too.  Back in my mid-20's when I became chronically ill, Job and his story took on special meaning.  Job's friends blamed Job for his suffering, claiming it was all his fault and that he should admit his wrong and take his consequences like a man.  Job meanwhile knew he was innocent, refused to take the blame, marched to God's door, deposited the responsibility for his suffering there, and demanded a hearing.  His friends were appalled and thus begins a 40 chapter long argument between Job and his friends which ends with an incredible flourish when God shows up in a storm, tells Job to man up, and reveals His glory.  Job answers, sits down, shuts up and winds up with greater blessing.

I kid you not.  That's the story.  I find myself trying to type this, shaking my head with my face all scrunched up, like, "Really?!?  Really?!?"

I try to type on and I wind up hands in the air, gesturing, confused.  From who-do-you-think-you-are to sit-down-and-shut-up to make-offerings-and-pray-for-forgiveness-for-your-friends to twice-as-wealthy-with-beautiful-daughters-who-inherit-with-the-sons.  Wow.

I've gotta say that whoever wrote this, he had suffered and suffered and suffered and then after everything and everything he'd been blessed again because my own suffering and blessing process have been wacky and unpredictable, too.  I took courage from Job and marched right to God with my anger and disappointment and cries for justice and God answered me, too, with who He is and I am satisfied.  I'm standing on that threshold of blessing and I need Job to inspire and encourage me to receive the blessings, to accept the good life.



Lately I've been reflecting on Job's friends.  These are the guys who came and sat with Job after he'd lost all his wealth, all his children, and all his health and happiness.  Don't even remember their names.  Let's see... ah, yes, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.  Here's the text if you want to take a look.  They started out strong- lots of silent companionship, weeping, sitting in the ashes for 7 days.  Then Job speaks and Eli speaks and Job rebuts and then... 35 chapters worth.  When I was suffering, I had a special beef with Eli, Billy, and Zo.  Did they really think that all this blah-blah-blah was helpful?  Arguing with the sufferer?  Not helpful.  And to back up my point, I connected this to the punchline when God declares the friends wrong, Job right, and Job prays on their behalf and gets all the blessings.  See- told you so.  The sufferer was right and the friends should have kept their mouths shut.

Now, however, I find my vantage point changing as I am recast into the role of Job's friend. My best efforts at comfort are feeble and my "help" really isn't.  I am strangely impressed by these guys sitting silently in the ashes with their buddy for 7 days.  Talk about love and an ability to attend to someone else's sorrow.  My effective range is much shorter despite my earnest desires.  And even after everything I've learned as Job, I say too much or too little, too soon or too late, fumbling and conflicted.  I find myself more appreciative of Billy, Zo, and Eli for even trying.  Trying and failing fairly spectacularly surely but still giving it their best shot. 

I look back with new eyes and wonder how many of the people I have felt have insulted or abandoned me gave me their best shot.  I have felt that my friends and family should have engaged more, tried harder, felt worse with me.  Somehow their best should have been better.  Now I wonder.

Nothing and no one could have helped me like I wanted.  I know that no amount of their effort would have unrung the bell of evil ringing in my life.  No amount of feeling bad would have helped me feel better.  No extreme loyalty on their part would have undone my own betrayal of myself.  But even knowing that, even knowing it was their best, didn't make it better.  Even knowing that my co-dependence and my dysfunction were making me too crazy to bear, even that didn't make it better.  Maybe nothing really does but God speaking from the storm in the fullness of time.  

I am no longer surprised that so many people distanced themselves to keep my chaos from swamping them. I see why Laura needed her space and why so few people called.  Illness is boring and chaos is frightening and no sane person wants to stand too close to someone's who's screaming at God.  It's still my story and it's still a sad story and yet I can see it differently.  I was overwhelmed and bored and terrified by my suffering and it was mine.  Not theirs.  I would have loved to escape my life but no such luck.  I thought them cowards but now I see that I would have done the same if I could.   Perhaps this is what makes me feel so lonely in my suffering- I'm the only one who can't leave.

I also feel even more amazed that anyone at all stayed.  Job is not an easy person to live with.  And yet, so many helped and others came back when they could.

Tim deserves a medal.  I know how hard it is to be with me sometimes.  And it was a lot of sometimes in a row there for a while.  The fact that we've grown up and grown together after everything and everything is miraculous.  My respect and trust for Tim have aged like wine into this full-bodied happiness I couldn't even conceive of at 22 when I said 'I do.'  Miraculous.  Should be immortalized in song or long-winded free form poem or something.  He's my hero.

Then, there's Ginger.  She deserves a parade.  She made me laugh week after week, year after hard year.  We sick people are a tough audience but her zest for life overcame.  She never rolled her eyes saying, "You again?" no matter how many times I called asking for help.  This is incredible.  I was boring; I was there, I know.  I circled the same spot on the outline of the little guy on her intake sheet like every visit for 7 years.  Seriously.  And she never gave up and her optimism never failed and she taught me to listen to myself and helped me feel better every visit for 200+ visits in a row.  I hope to someday be a fraction as healing as she is although I've done the ridiculous thing of asking God to give me a double portion. 

Sheila believed in my future good.
Joe kicked my ass with a joke on his lips.
Tara helped me come a long way back for myself.
Jen lead the way to happiness.
Pastor Peggy helped me find the road home.
Pastor Vicki was fond of me.
Laura showed me how to choose myself.
Shannon created a sacred space and kept seeing Jesus.
Emily catapulted me to a better life.
My mom persisted.
Megan brought depth and insight.
Angela asked great questions with even greater heart.

All of these people were free to walk on without me. 
But they didn't.

Job got the free form poem.
I got grace.

 

Womanhood

I've been reflecting a lot on womanhood and woman's relationship to man.
Here's a quote I re-read in my journal yesterday from Don Quixote in The Man of La Mancha.

Woman is the soul of man- the radiance that lights his way.

Woman is glory.

I ask of my lady that I may be allowed to serve her,

That I may hold her in my heart,

That to her I may dedicate each victory and call upon her in defeat.

And if at last, I give my life,

I give it in the sacred name of Dulcinea (Sweet One).

Good people, I long for radiance and glory.

Honored

Read this and felt very honored and proud.  Proud to be a Wedge member and proud to be a human being.
I have enjoyed Alafia's hand lotion for years and will enjoy it more now.