In Defence of Naps

I may talk way too much about health, when writing this blog. If so, I am certainly open for that feedback.

That being said, I am sort of into health these days. If you have read past blog entries, you are aware that I have had heart challenges of significance for over 2 years now. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and have every reason to totally trust that I soon will be fully healed. I had number 5 cardio version yesterday and will have number 2 ablation, hopefully before the new year. This cardio version went very smoothly. The others, not so much! I feel good today. A teeny bit slow, but mostly ready to focus of what I love (my work) and stay in the trust and knowledge that my health is terrific and my body will not fail me.

I am one for trying to find the lesson or understand the learning from most any situation. What was/is the learning from 2 years of fear that my heart will explode and I will self distruct because it is beating waaaaay to fast? I think it has to do with the need to slow down. And that does not look for me, the way it looks for many other people. Many people do way more than I do. I am not a doer. I am a be-er.
However, my mind, criticism of myself, judgements and dumping on me go on forever.

Not a good thing!

I don't think this is a bit unique to me. I think mothers, as well as all people who are committed to growing and learning, tend to pile up a bunch of stuff inside and no matter how much talking to others may happen, the internal load grows and the soul shrivels. I say mothers because I remember when I was raising children there just didn't seem to be time or space to share my internal emotional load. I was very alone.

I think too much, too often, too hard. It doesn't suit me! I think, for me at least, the key is to stay in the moment. Because so much of that thinking is really about worrying and blaming ----me. Like somewhere someone taught me that the only acceptable was to function in this physical life time is to be perfect. Then I wasn't told what perfect really looks like nor was I taught how to be perfect. I had to make that up. And what I made up was simply you are not enough, Nancy. You don't know enough, work enough, you aren't smart enough, creative enough; there simply needs to be more and you aren't even smart enough to know what more would be.

A recipe for suicide.

Wow! Did I really say that???? There is truth in that sentence. I nearly died, at least 3 times. Each time I was given another chance to understand what I was doing to myself. I actually think I've got it. What I am doing to myself is trying to erace me, innilalate me, wipe me out, get rid of me and start over. But I am actually not ready to start over. When I have learned this next batch of "stuff" I will be so much more prepared to be off and running the next time 'round.

One of the ways for me to start my new regime is to take a rest (I haven't become brave enough yet to call it a nap) during the day just because I want to. To not have to be sick, or stressed, or overwhelmed or anything at all other than wanting to take time out. Which generally means reading and sometime means sleeping.

S0, off I am to taking time out. I will read. I will let you know if I stept. I will NOT blame myself for wanting this or feel shame because the rest of the world is working their little bums off and I am a slacker.

More later. Nancy

Summer Time! And the Feeling is Easy!!

What a gorgeous day! What a marvellous summer so far. So interesting to me how 2 plus years of focus on my insides working or not working quite right, has left me with an exquisite awareness of the world outside my body. Now that I am so very well and healthy, I seem to be loving whatever mother nature has to offer.

This morning was a powerful thunder storm. Heavy rain. Feels like releasing, letting go, preparing to move forward. Then it cleared up and Aimee and I had a grand and glorious walk at our favorite park: a cemetery near by. Two memorial services were going on in the cemetery. I felt soft, sacred, sweet, caring and loving to walk past their energy. Peace mingled with sadness hung in the air. Aimee was so good. She just walked by and left them alone. Sometimes she feels it is her job to sooth and comfort and love the people who have gathered together to grieve and let go of their loved ones. Not today. I guess she felt everyone was doing their job just fine and she wasn't needed.

Remember how it feels to REALLY want something, to not want to be a bother or distruber, at the same time wanting to keep on top of things? That feeling of being sure you are still on the radar, but it probably is best not to bug too much!

Well, I feel all that right now. A few weeks ago I thought I was being offered the job of my dreams. I no longer know if they want me. I have tried to connect but it hasn't worked thus far. What I know I have to do is let go and trust. But instead I keep on hoping, wishing and thinking. I know the universe knows what it is doing. I know I am being taken care of and deeply loved. I learned that during my heart challenges. Now I need to remember to stay peacefully in the place of having put out my desire, and letting it come to me.

Yes! I desire. I wait. In hope and trust.

I will keep you posted. I will be sure to let you know when I have received my heart's desire.

Bye for now, Nancy

Out On A Limb, feel off for a bit and has Climbed Back On!

Not surprising to any of us at all, lots of life has happened since my Nov. 08 entry!!!! (: Good stuff actually.

I have had 2 years of significant challenges with my heart. Emergency rooms, ambulances, friends rushing and helping, hospitalizations, angels hovering and holding, cardioversions (3), ablation (1), rest, recovery, and back to work. Actually, back to life. I am on the other side of the whirlwind and grateful, delighted, energized, and deeply, deeply grateful to my wonderful partner Clo, my daughters Lisa and Michelle, dear friends, and Aimee, the dearest 4 year old puppy on the planet.

All during the astounding stress and rush toward life and fight against leaving this physical space before I felt certain I really wanted to go, I planned to come out on this side with health, hope, love, joy, peace, ------ and learning. I expected to have great insights and deep, spiritual, amazing, learnings. Weeellll------ I am ready! Here I am. Arms open, heart soft and receptive, ears tuned, mind willing, but, I truly do not know what those 2 years were all about. I want to say it taught me a lot. I suppose it did. But I will be darned if I can tell you what that "lot" is.

I am aware of new energy, hope, and readiness to move into new professional territory. That's a fun thing. What can I welcome and create next that will be fun and new for me? I have put out my desire, and I wait quietly, peacefully and confidently to hear back. I will keep you posted. I am always glad to share new and exciting as it arrives and I begin to process it.

Not having written for so long, I find myself gropping around for what more to say. So, enough for now, more later. Thanks for being there for me to talk with. Even when I wasn't writting in the blog, I was writting in my head.

Warmly, Nancy Ross

,Time to Check-in and Update

It has been a long time since I have sat at the computer and written freely. Yesterday a beautiful snow covered our favorite cemetery/park. Aimee (the cutest little puppy on the planet who is now a 3 yr. old dog) and I walked, played stick and ball, talked to each other, socialized with other's doing the same thing, and looked for the coyote. Others have seen her lately. We have not for a week or more.

I think it is time I talked more about aging. I would have to agree with whomever it was that said: aging is not for the faint of heart, or aging is not for wimps, or aging is for the valiant and courageous. I fully agree with all three! I think there is a moment in every one's life when they really GET it. I----me----I am not just getting older. But I am actually aging.

What makes us think (hope) that it really won't happen to us? Not the way it has happened to others we have seen, or loved, or heard about. I believe every one of us has a secret belief way way back behind our heart, that if we do after all have to get older, WE will be able to do it right. And by "right" I believe we mean, easily, smoothly, without trouble to others, with minimum pain and fuss. I also believe we expect to continue hurrying here and there, filling 12 to 14 hour days, keeping on top of all life brings to us.

Many of us pull that off. For a very wonderfully long time. Some of us feel ourselves beginning to slip here and here and chalk it up to a bad day/week/month/year. Too much stress and we have to just get through this stretch of time and all will be as it was.

My comeuppance has happened through my heart. Never would I have expected my heart to break. I have not had and hope to not have a heart attack or stroke. I have a heart that beats too fast all of the time and even at that does not beat a regular too fast. It is fast and irregular. Not terribly unusual. Many of us are on this particular journey.

Louise Hay says about heart: "Represents the center of love and security." Right. That makes sense to me. Especially the security part. When I get anxious, I believe my heart takes a huge hit.

Under Heart Problems, Louise Hay says," Longstanding emotional problems. Lack of joy. Hardening of the heart. Belief in strain and stress."

Now, doesn't that just give one a lot to think about!

Do I "believe" in stress and strain? Yes, I guess I do. Do I want to change that belief? Absolutely! Do I know how to change that belief? Well, now that is the question, isn't it? Do I know how?

Off course I do! Let me count the ways: hmmmmm--learn to laugh more; don't take myself so seriously; stop caring so much about what others think of me; play; remember the ways in which I am safe and let go of fears that I am in danger (of not being loved, financial disaster, health issues, world situation); continue to be an important player in my Gratitude Club.

Do you know about the Gratitude Club? Check the fall 2008 newsletter on my web for details. http://www.couplerelationshiptherapy.at/ Essentially, you send me a minimum of 5 things you are grateful for daily and I send you mine. Get every day off to a great, positive, impowering start.

So-----my first step, starting today, in letting go of stress and stain is to go to the food and wine festival. That should distract me a bit. My second step is to write today's gratitudes:

I am grateful for a full, restful, and dreamless sleep last night
I am grateful for a warm and comfortable bed where I rest, restore, dream often times, process, learn and heal
I am grateful for cello, piano, and flute music that I find healing and peaceful
I am grateful for my wonderful daughter and her family who have offered to visit if I am looking for love and support
I am grateful for the library where I can get as many books as I want, freely offered and of great variety

Off to start my day. I will write more about aging and hearts soon. Enough for this moment.

Write to me, phone me, eamail me, keep in touch. Your response, energy, suggestions, caring, are all appreciated.

Nancy

My Ethereal Self

Ethereal: delicate and airy; heavenly, celestial

A friend and I were talking the other day about what happens next? You know, as in where to from here? "Here" being Here, as in Now; here in this now. Particularly in terms of the physical. What happens, really! (ha) in the non-physical?

I look at Me, which pretty much means my body. I know there is much more to Me than my body. I can get how I can take all of that with me when I walk through the door from here to there. But I just can't wrap my mind around not having a body. How do you do that?

Then my friend used the word "ethereal" and I sighed with relief. Ahhhhh, I get it. I get to be "ethereal". I particularly like the delicate and airy part. I can imagine that. I think I would even like it. Ethereal is soft and lovely and easy. Not hard. Not painful. I think I remember being that before. It is a relief and you can rest and breathe easily.

I am reading a mystery called Thunder Bay by William Kent Krueger. He tells us that the Ojebwe tell about the Path of Souls. Waiting at the end of the Path of Souls to welcome us Home is someone who loves us and took the Path before we did. Who would you like to be waiting at the end of the Path of Souls to greet and embrace you?

I am not my ethereal self yet, so that means I am still in the psychical and that means I have the mind and thinking process I have cultivated for 7 decades. I've often gotten a chuckle out of sayings like, "one brick short of a load," or "not the brightest bulb in the chandelier," "not the sharpest knife...." What best describes me is, " one sandwich short of a picnic." I love it! The picnic blanket (me) is lovingly laid out under the trees, in the grass, near the wild flowers. The blanket is lush with abundance and nourishment, colour and surprises. Oh, no! The missing sandwich! ( my critical thinking self ).

None the less, I do have opinions and feelings about the upcoming U.S. election, never mind whether or not I have all my sandwiches. I have run the gambit: from fear, to amazement, to humour, to frustration, to.... you just won't believe this...excitement. Check my web for what Deepak Chopra has to say. It is brilliant. The bigger picture. He gets how what is happening has to be happening and that it is a good thing. All that stuff I just said about sandwiches and me is about my critical take on what Chopra is saying. I don't pretend to be academic or have a critically scholastic or political mind, but what I think he was saying is that the Sarah Palin and Barack Obama shoot down had to come. Some day. It has been in the making for sometime now. And blessed be. I get to be here even as it is happening.

What I hear him saying is that the polarities had to face each other. The country has to decide: is it going ahead, or is it going back? It is their choice. If going ahead, it is truly exciting to be a part of that and to watch what will unfold around us. If going back, those of us who prefer forward movement have to stay steady and hold our own. We have to be patient and wait for them to catch up. My challenge is to remember that there is not a right and wrong here. It is not that I am right and they are wrong.

That isn't easy to hang on to. It isn't even really fair to say I need to wait for them to catch up with me. That somehow suggests I think they need to believe and act like I do. There is room for all of us on this planet. The Obama-Palin face off so makes me think of couples I work with. Sorry. It just is true. I have been letting my fingers do the talking as I write this, and that is exactly where my mind has gone. To couples.

Palin and Obama are a couple. There is not a right person and a wrong person. Just two people who believe differently, thus behave and respond differently. How do we learn to live with our difference? Through dialogue, I teach my couples. Surely that would work in the bigger world, even the world of politics, as well.

Well, I surprised myself about where "ethereal" took me today. If I surprised you as well, let me know. Love hearing from you. Blessings, Nancy

Anniversaries

People often find themselves having particular feelings on the anniversary of something significant in their lives. I have always honoured that and recognized the importance of pausing in this busy life to remember the death of some one loved, a birthday, the time when an illness hit or was recovered from. A special delicious trip or treat or encounter------anniversaries can be of a myriad of things, both delightful and difficult.

I think our memory cells are miraculous and mysterious. I think we can be in the midst of an anniversary and have forgotten, and our physical self reminds us. We find ourselves surprised, awed, feeling very reverent. That's what happened to me.

A year ago today I faced death head on. They didn't want me. I saw a huge total black cement wall. No light, no colour, no sounds. Black silence. I begged for safety. I longed for arms to reach out to me through the veil. They didn't. I returned. And I returned to a beautiful, magical, challenging and exciting world and new life for me. Hence my dreams of working in Vienna, Kuwait, and possibly France. I won't turn back. I only go forward.

The mystery to me is what happened to me 2 days ago: Aug. 19. I spent the first few hours of the day in what I called " a psychic web." I spent time there as my mother prepared to leave us and then for some time after she left. There is an unseen and unknown power that takes me over. I can not pull out of it. I am exhausted and unable to function. I am not of this world, and have no idea what world I am of.

I went back to bed with my clothes on and with Aimee in my arms and gave into the ennui. I drifted. I dreamed. I don't think I slept. The only memory I returned with was the memory of multi-coloured star dust floating down all around me. I loved the colour. It felt like the bits of colour were tired to strings, like the tails of balloons or kites.

When I "woke" I felt I had shifted somewhat. Although I spent most of the day feeling far away and tender, I felt somewhat in control of myself. It was the first year anniversary of the death of the partner of a dear person in my life. I thought I was caught in my friend's pain and anguish. I wondered if I left this world to be with her just briefly. Then I wondered, "Which her? My friend or her partner?"

I don't fully understand what happened. But I am learning to appreciate, not feel embarrassed, and welcome those times of being "caught in a psychic web." I trust I have much I can learn while there. The more I honour what is happening and choose to not fight the pull but to lean into it and follow the power, the more I will understand. Out of the understanding I think will come the possibility of expanding my conscious awareness. I want a greater consciousness of where I am, where I am going, maybe even some clues as the what I will find when I get there.

This past year has been a year for me of learning to let go, learning to trust my process and surrendering to the universe because I am safe and I am loved. Blessed be, Nancy

Number Two Thought for the Week

Maybe I should save this for later. But I won't be here next week, so I will do # 2 thought for this week: The difference between people who are successful and those who are not is that people who are successful have failed more.

Oh, boy. Do I like that. The more I fail, the closer I get to success. Alright! Feels like an important thought for my Vienna adventure. Over the years I have had a myriad of hopes/plans/ideas/dreams, stuff like that. Vienna is the latest, and the one I MOST want to succeed. So I am counting on having failed at: TV hopes, radio plans, Dear Nancy column, collaborative law ambitions, big time couples groups dreams, on and on; means it is about time I am successful at the most recent rocket of desire, which is a blooming private practice with the English speaking community in Vienna.

The first time I return to Vienna to see 3 to 4 couples, I am going to go to the top of my son's condo, a view of Vienna that passes all expectations, and launch 30 balloons with my new and very beautiful bookmarks tied to the strings. The balloons represent my rockets of desire. I will celebrate a new era in my life/practice, by letting the universe know I am doing what I want and loving every minute of it.

Sunday I am off to Houghton Lake to be with family. Three of my grown children and their families, 2 cousins, and my brother and sister-in-law. Fun! And no new thoughts for the week.
This is it until September. September is fall. Fall is beautiful. More about that in a couple of weeks. Warmly, Nancy