Body Memories Wake Me Up At Night

It happened again and boy was it intense.  Yep, the pain in my neck and shoulders was so great, I was crying "uncle", but it would not stop.  It was yet another night of body memories.  It isn't the first time and probably won't be the last.

I don't even recall the hour of the night, but I'm guessing somewhere in the 3am to 4am time frame.  All of the sudden, I was awake and my neck was hurting with excruciating pain.  I got up and went into the bathroom and could feel my shoulder muscles and my neck muscles as tight as could be.

The muscles were so tense that I think a steel rod would not have been as strong.  Any movement just exacerbated the situation.  The pain was excruciatingly tense.  It seemed like no end was in sight.

I tried to do some relaxation things that I know are helpful, but they didn't really work.  I tried to focus and visualize letting go of tension and pain, but it still was there.  Finally I just went back to bed and laid down feeling the intense pain with every movement.  I almost took an aleve but fought against doing that.

After I laid back down, I must have finally drifted off to sleep because I did not wake up until 9:30 in the morning.  My neck was not feeling as bad as it was in the middle of the night, just a few hours earlier.  However after a little movement, I could feel the residual tension and pain that was still there.

I got up and the more my body woke up, the more I felt the pain and tension.  It was one of those moments that you just feel grumpy and growly from the pain. It was a feeling of exhaustion.  It feels draining.

As the day went, the pain and tension was still there.  I continued to do relaxation things to help let go of it.  I continued to try and shift my focus.  Laying in the hammock felt good as I watched the trees sway in the wind.

Writing this, the pain and tension has subsided a lot more or maybe I've just numbed out to it and I don't feel it much at this point.  I have resisted taking an aleve because I hate taking any type of medication.  It just keeps you from dealing with what is at hand.  Yes, sometimes I do take something because the pain gets too much for me to bear.

What this is all about, I don't know.  I just know that it started from a moment of anxiety yesterday when I smelled onions cooking as food was being rewarmed.  There is something behind all of this, but right now its a mystery.  It is just another body memory that wakes me up at night.

After all, it wasn't but a couple of weeks ago when my back did the very same thing.  It was so painful that I could barely move in bed or get up.  The pain grew with such intensity and then disappeared by the time I woke up.

A story to be continued...

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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5 Minute Mind Body Exercises

So, going back to yesterday's post, we are all too busy to take care of our mind body connection, right?  Wrong!  After all, it doesn't take hours or full days.  You can do so much in just a few minutes.  In fact, if you gave yourself 5 minutes, you could do a lot!

Are you with me?  Can you take 5 minutes out of the 1440 minutes you have in a day?

Here's some things you can do in those 5 minutes that will help your own mind body connection.  No, they aren't a replacement for more involved stuff, but these little 5 minute exercises will at least help.  Once you start to see the difference, then you can move on to the big stuff.

Mind Body Exercises in 5 Minutes

Exercise #1 - Breathing

Where ever you are at, (even if standing in a long line or sitting at your desk), take a few minutes to just focus on your breathing.  You're not trying to breathe a certain way or do deep breathing.  You are just noticing your breath - the rise and fall, the deepness or shallowness and the speed and duration.  You're just observing and being at one with your breath.  You can leave your eyes open and focus on something peaceful or you can quietly shut your eyes.

Exercise #2 - Walking Outdoors

Take a few minutes throughout your day and just walk outside.  Walk out and feel the sun on your face and your body.  Notice the warmth and see how that makes you feel.  How does the sun feel upon your body?  Is it warm?  Is it uncomfortable?  What happens if you find a shady spot and go from the sun to the shade?  How does that make you feel?  Notice what it does to your mood, your emotions, and your stress in that moment.

Exercise #3 -Easy Stretches

Have you ever watched a cat get up from a nap and they do a few little stretches?  It really is that easy.  You don't have to get on the floor and do yoga posses or stretches that you would do before a workout.  I'm talking, light gentle stretches to the ceiling or a gentle twist turning with your back.  Make sure you don't overstep the bounds here and stretch to hard that you injure yourself and by all means, only do some of these things if you're not restricted by your doctor.  It could be a shrug of your shoulders up into tension and then let them drop down.  It could be a stretch of your legs from your office chair.  It could even be an easy walk to the restroom and back or outside for exercise #2.  Whatever the form may be, connect with it and try to feel it.  It isn't a race or marathon.  It isn't a strenuous workout.  It is something that is simple and connected.

Exercise #4 - Being With Your Body

What if you just sat there and thought of how your arm felt if you let it hang down to the floor?  Maybe you could just notice how you felt with your arms folded and then unfolded.  You might stop and think of how your neck and head rest comfortably on your spine as if it were a flag waving in the breeze and balanced steadily on a flag pole.  Find some way to just notice a body part and see how it feels.  See how you could move it to make it feel different.  Sometimes taking a body part into tension and then backing it off in to comfort can dramatically change how we feel.  It is the true mind body connection.

Exercise #5 - The Big Sigh

Have you ever had one of those days when you are just dealing with so much and at some moment, you let out a big sigh. Why not take a deep breath and then as you let it out, you just let the big sigh come out.  Let it come out forcefully in the beginning if you need to, but then do it again where you let it come out as gently as you can.  Most likely you will see how this lets go of so much tension and stuff that you are carrying.  Notice the tension as well as the feel of relaxing because the difference of those two things is where the mind body connection is located.
 

So...... Pick One!

Pick one of these and try it.  If it doesn't work, pick another.  If that doesn't work, change it up and make it work for you.  We're all different creatures and what works for one person, may not work for someone else.

The important thing that matters is that you choose to do things that will help your mind and body, not claim you have no time.  We all have 1440 minutes in a day and it depends on us what we choose to do with those minutes.  We can use them for our own good or we can waste them and they pay with our lives later.

Get rid of the tension and stress in your body!  Enjoy these exercises.

Feel free to leave a comment and let me know which one worked for you.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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My Body Reacting To Stress

For some time I have been going through a very stressful experience in my life.  While I'm writing this well in advance of when it will actually publish to the blog, I'm recording what is happening.  It is a journey that you can follow along and has been unfolding.  I've tried to write and share as much as I can.

I've been struggling to make a decision.  I've felt this in my body.  It has come out through neck tension, back pain, headaches, increased anxiety, difficulty sleeping and an overall feeling of being so frustrated and depressed, I could barely go on at times.

Don't let anyone tell you that stress does not show up in the body.  In fact, when the body experiences pain and discomfort, it is usually a result of what is going on in your life.  Many of us are disconnected from it and many use all kinds of ways to numb out so they don't feel it.

I have gotten to a point in my own healing and consciousness where I feel it all.  This can be intense and difficult, but it is also a very good thing, contrary to what you may think.  The more you feel and connect with in your body, the more you can take care of yourself.  This includes the good and bad, not just the good.

Tension In The Body

Do you ever doubt just how powerful stress is in the body?  I know we all know that stress affects the body, but all too often we are mind numbed robots living on a busy schedule, eating ourselves to death, taking pain pills, or just ignoring what is going on.  We are masters at it in our world and its taught from a little baby on through our lives.

It happens so frequently and so unconsciously that we barely notice (if ever).  We go through our days smiling and acting as if everything is okay.  We convince the world that we have no pains, ills, or discontentment.  Even if we realize something is amiss in our body, we tend to employ many different ways of boiling water, rather than cooking something in the kitchen, so to speak. 

I've had those moments when I'm going 16 hours a day nonstop and in those moments, I rarely feel pain in my body.  It isn't until I stop that all of the sudden, I notice it.  My mind is preoccupied in running from the pain to do what I have to do, rather than stopping to embrace it.  While this may be necessary in the short term, if we continue this way over time, the buildup of the stress and pain leads to chronic pain and other health conditions.

Impact Of Trauma On The Body

All of us have been through things in our life.  Some of us have experienced greater degrees of trauma than other, but as I always say, trauma is trauma.  It doesn't matter if you were abused as a child, witnessed a disaster, or been through some extremely stressful experiences.  Trauma is trauma.  The impacts of trauma on the body can have serious consequences to our life for many years to come if we do not fully integrate and release all that we have been through.

It is easy to carry these things with us through every day, almost ignoring the fact that they are resting upon our backs.  They keep us from experiencing all life has to offer and the joy that can be found in a day.  Many times, we don't even realize just how they are impacting not only our mind and emotions, but our physical body.  Often we are so numbed to their existence that they may be only a tiny little fragment of thought that barely becomes conscious in our day.

Release And Then Relax

Glass Of Water
Release And Then Relax

Imagine a glass full of water sitting on a table.  If you try to add more water to it, it will over flow.  If you try to add the water all at once, most likely you will splash some of the original water leaving you with less water in the glass then before.  However, if you want to add additional water to the glass, you need to drink some first.

Now imagine your body as the glass and you are trying to relax.  Relaxation is the water and so if you're nervous system is revved up too much, (or the glass is too full), it will be difficult to add much relaxation to your body or to feel relaxed.  Yes, you might do some relaxing things or enjoy some body work that is relaxing but the capacity for you to take it all in, is limited.  In order for you to replace the tension or stress in the body with relaxation, you will need to remove some of it first.  Once you remove it or release the tension and stress from the body, you have the opportunity for greater relaxation and peace.

Unfortunately, too many body workers, healers, and massage therapists, focus on putting more relaxation into a body that has no capacity to take it in.  In fact, many people out there going for treatment are looking for the quick and easy fix to relaxation, rather than creating greater capacity within their body for this.  While limited results may occur, the person being treated only gets so much benefit from the treatment.  Many modalities and healers claim that they just allow whatever to happen that needs to happen.  There is much truth to this, but there is also a blind spot in the mirror.

Stress Relief and Crying

Crying is considered to be an important means of releasing physiological tension and stress according to the website, emotionalprocessing.org.uk. 

A biochemist at the University of Minnesota, proposed that people feel better after crying due to the elimination of adrenocorticotropic hormones associated with stress. 

In medieval times, tears were associated with bodily humors and so crying was seen as a way of releasing excess humors from the brain.  At one time, it was thought that emotions were only reflexes to rational thought.

In a Wikipedia.org article, according to the German Society of Ophthalmology, women cry about 30 to 64 times a year and men cry on average of 6 to 17 times per year.  Men tend to cry between two and four minutes while women cry for about six minutes.

Tears do have a biological benefit because tension is released when we cry.  It does provide a cleansing that allows the body to discharge toxins.  Crying bathes and cleanses your inner self  as you gets you emotionally clean.  It can also refresh your heart.

So the next time you feel the need to listen to your upbringing and suppress those emotions by holding back the tears, think twice!  Holding back may be necessary in a single moment but at some point, allow your body to release the stress of the moment and have a good cry.  It may just be what the body needs and you may find that you’ll be refreshed, renewed and invigorated!


Further Reading:
1)  Men And Women Cry Differently
2)  When Is Crying Okay?
3)  Newborns And Crying Babies
4)  Biology Of Crying


Sources Of Information:
1)  Read It And Weep, Crybabies - Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2011
2)  Is Crying Good For You - EmotionalProcessing.org.uk
3)  Crying - Wikipedia.com
4)  Don't Apologize For Crying - AssociatedContent.com


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Blog Post & Images (c) 5/24/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
http://www.donshetterly.com

If any part of this post is used or shared, a link back to this site is required.
http://mindbodythoughts.blogspot.com/
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The Pulse Of Autonomic Arousal

The past several weeks and especially the past few days, I've been under a tremendous amount of stress. I could feel it building up within me. The overall tension in my body was building and making it difficult to just enjoy living in my body. My nerves were on end and I could feel an overall agitation knowing that there were many things to get done and not enough time to do them in. I felt the pressures of the world, of daily life, responsibilities coming down on me as well as things that various people were expecting me to get done.

It seemed like no matter what, finding a moment of peace was almost as difficult as finding a four leafed clover. Yet, I longed for peace, for rest and even just some tranquility in my life. It had been far too long because I had been just pushing myself hard and for good reason.

Then I grabbed my pulse meter and went into my massage room to just give myself a moment of saying, this is my time. I didn't care what I had to do at that moment, but I just wanted some time of rest for myself. The pulse meter of course showed exactly what I felt in my body with my pulse being around 110 beats per minute. Of course, I've been down this road and so I didn't freak out from fear of my pulse being so high.

As I went into my body and connected with all the shaking, tremors and movements, I began to feel some pain and the tension really deep within me. It was at that moment, that my body began to violently shake and move almost as if the movements were coming from deep within my core. I allowed this to take place and just road it through as a surfer riding a wave. For I knew that at some point, it would dissipate and subside. It was potential energy that needed to get released. My body continued to twist and turn with moments of extreme shaking and movements then letting go and sinking down in to the table.

My pulse after a few minutes had come down from 110 to 103 which is still high but an improvement. Than as I continued to lay there listening to the relaxing sounds I had going, my pulse slowly began to come down to around the low 90's. Again, that is still a high pulse and shows that there is autonomic arousal in my nervous system. The best thing would be for me to go further into this but the time doesn't permit me to do this at the moment.

The feeling though of my body at 110 bpm and then at the low 90's felt like a nice wave of relaxation to me. It felt refreshing and welcoming to me. It gave me a breath of fresh air knowing that I could drop my pulse down and dissipate some of the stored energy that was locked up in my body. Tomorrow, I will do more with this and drop it further but for now, I'll just enjoy the feeling of my body coming down and letting go and traveling deeper into relaxation, rest and peace.


*For more articles, check out the Mind Body Thoughts Blog

Focus On Breathing - Exercises and Awareness

If you have read the past two posts "Focus On Our Breathing" and "Focus On Our Breathing - 30 Second Exercise", than you will already have understood why focusing on breathing is important and a quick way that you can do this. If you have not read these two entries, please check them out.

Breathing is so powerful and I'm sure each person reading this blog post is aware of that. However, we often forget and neglect the most basic thing we do outside of pumping blood through our veins. All too often, we go through life just assuming we are breathing as we need to but we never stop to check to see how we are actually breathing. I remember sitting through many counseling or bodywork sessions and having people remind me to breathe. At first I was startled by their comments for me to remember to breathe because I thought I was. However, as I have since found out, there are times that I almost hold my breath or I just don't breathe! It may sound strange but I have witnessed this in not only myself but in many others.

As a massage therapist, I have used breath work to help people really go in and release deep, long held pain within in their bodies in a very short time. Having people use their breath as I work on them in a very directed way is powerful and makes my job much easier and their results more profound. It is important to note that each one of us can go deep within our own bodies using our breath and release tension, pain and long held somatic memories.

Here's some thoughts about how you might actually go about working with breath on your own. These are additional methods to the 30 second exercise I shared about in a previous blog post.

1) Find a comfortable place such as a bed, massage table or maybe a lounge chair on your patio. Get yourself comfortable and make sure the place you are lying on has much support but is also soft and gentle on your body. You could also sit up in a meditative style if you want but I find that the body really lets go when it is not trying to hold itself up. It doesn't make sense to me to sit up, having tension in your body while trying to let go of that tension. Maybe it makes sense to some but not to me in my experiences.

2) If you have a pulse meter, check your pulse before you begin and establish a baseline of where you are at. This helps greatly because then you will truly know what is going on within your body and you will see through measurement what effect it will have had upon you. There will be no second guessing or having your mind trick you into thinking that something happened. There is too much of that in our society and in our healing world where people think something happened, when in all reality, very little if anything at did actually happen. I use the Finger Pulse Oximeter. The reason I use this pulse meter is that it tells me in real time what my pulse is and how the wave forms of my pulse appear. It gives me some very good and helpful information. Plus, it shows me exactly what is going on, not what my mind maybe tricking me into believing what is going on.

3) To begin, just get comfortable in the place you have chosen and lie there for a few minutes doing nothing but just sensing what it is like to lay on the table. I'm going to use the word "table" referring to a massage table to make this easier to explain. What does it feel like to lay there on the table? Are you completely comfortable or can you add a pillow or change your position to feel more comfortable? Just sense all of that and take it in for a few minutes. Focus on allowing all your busy thoughts and things that you need to accomplish, to just stand outside the door of the room you are in. You can always pick them up at the door later if you so choose but for now, they are not needed.

4) As you begin to feel the comfort and support of the table, begin to focus in on your breathing. Notice the inhale and exhale, the rise and fall of your breath. This is not the time for judgment but just observation. Observation which allows you to look at it through caring, loving and accepting eyes. Take note of the depth or shallowness of your breath as well as the speed of it. What is it like? How deep is it or how shallow is it? Maybe even trying to sense this is difficult at best for you and if it is, take note of that. Consider giving yourself the option of just allowing that feeling to be there and to be ok with it, not expecting anything more than is happening.

5) Continue breathing and then see if there is any change within how shallow or deep it is, how slow or fast it is and any other qualities you may find. Keep noticing this and focusing upon your breath. While you are doing this, you may begin to notice things within your body. This could range from minor shaking and trembling to maybe a body part is moving on its own. You might also notice an itching sensation or tingling as well as you might notice areas where it is almost a numb feeling. Emotions such as crying and laughter among other things may be showing up. There may be unexplained pains or stiffness that is present. You may see colors or feel all kinds of sensations within your body. Accept and honor all these things for they are your messages and your gifts to bringing about greater awareness within your body.

6) Keep your focus on what is happening within your body and with your breath. While all the experiences may be exciting and it could be easy to get lost in those, keep your focus on what you can sense and feel within your body. For this is where the true healing will take place and lead you to a greater awareness. If you begin to find areas of discomfort and pain or strong emotions coming up, begin to shift your breathing to these areas and imagine filling yourself up with the power of your breath. You may notice that your breathing speeds up as if you were running a race and that is perfectly ok. Allow your breathing to go where it needs to and then keep observing to see how things change in your body. Are areas less tense, less painful? Have emotions changed that maybe you were feeling and experiencing? Maybe some of the things you noticed have shifted from one area to another. Maybe you're feeling heat rise from your body. Welcome all these things and just continue to observe everything that is taking place. Continue to allow yourself to be with what is happening and just allow it to take place without trying to control, change or manipulate it or judge it.

7) As your body moves through the feelings and as you begin to feel and sense more of your breathing, allow your body to just sink down into the table and find a moment of peace and rest. Know that you do not have to solve everything in your life that may be showing up in your body at one time. Sometimes, short bursts of doing this type of exercise is healing far beyond comprehension. So just allow your body to come back down to a moment of stillness and rest on the table, giving it honor and thanking it for being there for you.

8) After laying there for a few minutes, you might check your pulse again with the pulse meter we discussed above. How did your pulse change? Is it significantly lower? Is the wave form more pointed and even? Then match that up with how you feel now versus how you felt before you started. What changed in your body? What changed in your mind?

Honor all these things and take them all in. Treasure them as gifts of awareness for they will connect together the more you do exercises like this and they will yield so much to your life. For you have the power to do so much within your own body. Yes, there may be some difficult challenges in which you want a safe and supportive person there with you to help coach you through them. We are all much more powerful than we realize and we can do so much on our own that will give us so much in our lives.

If you have found this helpful and you're working with it, I would love to hear your experiences. If it was possible, I would most likely ask to share them on this blog. For I know in my own life, some of the basic things above that I described have helped me push through so much in my life and helped me heal in my own awareness. My hope is that as a result of this exercise, that your life will grow in a more rich awareness and it will help you further your own journey of self discovery and healing.



*For more articles, check out the Mind Body Thoughts Blog

It Took A Miracle

Several days back, I was at the point of wishing life would really stop. Life as I know it had given me a lot to deal with and culminated in an episode of vomiting and complete exhaustion of my body. One could make a claim that I had a 24 hour flu bug or that I had eaten something that didn't agree with myself but the facts would not support these theories and hypothesis. However, there was one factor that played a significant role in this entire night of horrible anguish.

Leading up to this night, I was full of anger that seemed to just replenish itself every moment that I drew from its well. There was no end to its supply. On top of that, my neck muscles, back muscles and overall body were in a state of tension from stress with pains radiating from many different parts. It included the creep crawly feeling on my legs along with the muscles twitching that drives me nuts! Headaches were coming and going and my eating diet was so far off with wild mood swings from one extreme to another. I felt like a pendulum going back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth.

Than when the fury of the night unleashed its gigantic storm on me, I sat on the bathroom floor wishing this would stop but knowing if I continued to resist it, things could and most likely would get worse. By the time, the vomiting had stopped; I could barely stand up on my two feet or make it to my bed to just go to sleep for the night. Every internal organ inside of my body was twisting and turning and I could feel every movement which was not enjoyable. I just wanted the night to be over and all of this to end. I had reached my end point. I had reached the point of saying enough was enough and did not have the ability to even begin fighting this in the moment. I had reached fatigue. I had reached exhaustion. There was no going back at this moment. The only way beyond was to accept the current state I was in and worry about the next moment when it arrived.

The next day, I still felt horrible as far as abdominal pains from the night of vomiting. I was weak and had little desire to eat anything at that point. I was extremely tired and desired sleep. However, my body felt much more relaxed than it had felt in some time. The tension was remarkably less. The headaches were gone. It felt as if my body had gone through a big release as if I had been through a bodywork session on a table. You could argue and probably would be correct that the night of vomiting was point that built up to the release in my body. However, my body was not the same as it was the previous day and even though my mind was still tired and exhausted, I knew there was a change.

As I regained my strength throughout the day, I finally broke down and said, "Universe - you win". I continued speaking to the universe that what I had been given in life to deal with was more than I could take. I needed a break. I needed a reprieve from it. I just could only deal with so much and it seemed as if I had been given more than my fair share. I remember uttering the words "I really need a miracle" and I was not going to share that point with anyone. I wanted the miracle to come my way totally unsuspected and in a way that I knew I was not creating it. I just left it at that. By this point, I felt strong enough to start doing some yard work and so I spent a couple of days outside in the sun not worrying about any of the stresses I had to deal with in life at that moment.

Then on Monday morning bright and early, I was awakened by a phone call. While that was annoying, I stepped back and saw that what this person had to share with me was a prompting to pick up a project that I had almost given up on. I was sitting there thinking - wow.. that's amazing! Later that day, I found out about an opportunity to sell some music through a national retailer website that just had not connected in my mind and so that process started. On Tuesday, I had sent an email to someone and so wanted to be able to attend an event coming up but knew there was no possible way. Out of that email, came a response that completely changed every aspect of that particular situation. In the process of this time, I was able to connect with an online friend who up until this point, I was too shy to talk to on the phone and that single act of speaking on the phone was a big moment for me. The possibilities of that single phone call are out of this world.

Tuesday morning of course was met by another phone call for a 5 day contract job. While the pay was less than normal, it was 5 full days of work which was a welcomed relief. Things had been getting pretty dire with income and so after going many weeks without any phone calls, this contact meant so much. Later Tuesday afternoon, I was working hard on a project when a call came through from a friend on the Yanni Fan Club message board. I missed the call initially but then check the messages and knew I needed to call her back right away. She had initially bought tickets for her family to see Yanni in Orlando next but her husband just had pace maker surgery and was advised not to travel to Orlando. That meant, she had an extra ticket and she just wanted someone to be able to use it. While she had called others about this, I was the first one to return her call and I’m so happy I was. The ticket is in the 4th row and I've never been to a concert where I sat in the 4th row before. She gave me the ticket and wanted nothing for it. Without this act of her kindness and generosity, I would not have been able to go see Yanni. I never expected something like this to happen when I woke up yesterday.

My mind is drifting back to the statement I made to the universe just a couple days ago "I need a miracle". I didn't get "ONE" miracle. Instead, I received several miracles. And I wrote the following, "I love it when the Universe and the Angels let me know they are there and today, it has been in some very dramatic ways. I asked for a miracle and I'm amazed at how quickly things happened. Wow... Why did I ever doubt this? That's the lesson I still haven't fully learned."

Yes, I still struggle with the issue of knowing I'm not alone in this world. My upbringing led me to the point of not ever relying or asking for or accepting any help whatsoever. I was taught that if you did, than the people who were giving these things to you could and most definitely would demand how you ran your life and what decisions you made and every little thing you would do. I was taught by example that once you accept help, than you give up all freedom. When I look back at the previous week, it is obvious that I'm not alone and it is very obvious that there is something out there listening to me. You may want to call it the Universe, God, The Angels, The Spirits or a host of other identifiers. To me, it doesn't matter what I call it, because I know they exist. However, I usually refer to them as my Angels or as the Universe. It is what fits for me.

My heart is filled with joy at this time because of all that has transpired for me. I can see that if we drop our guard down and allow ourselves to connect with all that is around us, than we truly are not alone and we are blessed beyond imagination. I realize that we don't have to go any further than what is right around us. It isn't something that we need to look to others for the answers but is something that is right within us. Others may help us discover what is within ourselves, but we can access it at any time.

Of course, like many others, I fail to remember this. That just gives me the opportunity for further growth and continued steps on down my journey. So once again, I'm reminded of all that I am part of and all that is a part of me. May I remember this as I draw on the strength I need to fulfill the purpose that is before me.