The Healing Beauty Of This Ocean Place

It was a little too chilly for the beach, but the beauty of this location in NC is one I've loved for many years.  It was an area where I would often pour my heart into words on a paper.  It was where I would often cry the tears of healing a painful past.  It was the place I would go and wake up to the sunrise when I couldn't sleep.  It was where I felt safe enough to go and be with my thoughts when they made no sense.  It was my place.  It was big enough and powerful enough to help me find my way forward.

This one little spot on a beach in North Carolina was just that perfect spot.  There was a sandy beach where I could warm in the sun.  There were big giant rocks that I could climb down on and sit there all alone.  It was these places that helped me process all that I needed to work through in my life.

Learning to Let Go

In the past few months, I've had multiple times where I've had to deal with horrible events.  Events that strangle me emotionally with so much pain, I can barely make it.  None of it is easy.  It seems like no matter where I turn lately, I'm just confronted with loss and pain in one way or another.  Learning to let go is not easy for me.

I'm not trying to say I don't care about someone or some event if I learn to let go.  Its quite the opposite.  I care deeply and I feel it deeply.  I'm a very sensitive person and there is very little that escapes my attention.  What I do feel, I feel with such an intensity that it often overwhelms me.  So learning to let go is not something I say casually or lightly or with callous.

Learning to let go means that I feel all of this, but I don't attach my existence to those feelings and emotions.  It means that I honor and respect those feelings and emotions, but I don't allow myself to become them.  They are there for me to acknowledge, but my life is much more than this.  Again, I'm not saying that we become unattached to their existence, but that we don't attach our purpose in life to them.  It may not be an easy concept to understand in what I am saying.

Does The Doctor Know Best?

I think we need to have a serious discussion on this issue.  I see people exclaim that if you don't follow what a doctor says, somehow you are a bad person.  Somehow, you are misguided.  Somehow, you put everyone else at risk.  Its like everyone treats doctors as the current GOD of the universe.

So does a doctor know best or not?  Doctors know a lot.  They've been to a great deal of medical training and many of them have had years of experience in the real world.  While that is great and beneficial, it doesn't mean they always know best.  I'm not trying to tear doctors down in what they do, but I'm trying to see if we can all find a little more balance.

At one time, the medical establishment thought that leaches were good and that if you had blood coming from you, that the blood needed to be drained.  They considered "blood" to be a very bad thing in your body. Now we know that isn't the case, but at the time this was the medical knowledge that all were expected to follow.

Have One Without The Other

I often hear people talk about opposite emotions and opposite reactions in life.  Often, people exclaim how wrong anger is or how they want to take away pain, or how they only have love.  While these are noble and honorable parts of life, I really don't agree that you can have one without the other.

After all, if there is not pain in life, could one experience pleasure?  If there was no anger in life, would we know what peace was?  If there was no hate, would we be able to identify love?  Could we be happy without knowing sadness or depression?

Maybe I'm being too simplistic, but in many ways if you you only have one side of the emotion, would you really recognize it?  I'm not so sure we would.  I believe it takes these other sides of life to bring about our awareness into what is possible.

Our Character

I'm seeing a trend that I don't like.  It affects me personality and it has to do with our character, our work ethic, and who we are as humans.  Either we're so numb and oblivious, or we just don't care any longer about our character.

One project I've been on, I take support calls.  While I try to be there for everyone and help them the best way I possibly can, it feels like I'm getting taken advantage of by many different callers.  Little effort is used to use basic common sense or troubleshooting skills, before calling me.  It always amazes me that these people are hired for these jobs and then act as if they don't have any way to troubleshoot or use common sense.  This is the part of these people that makes up their character.

Where Two Or Three Are Gathered

While I'm not a person that subscribes to any particular religion, I realize that spirituality is part of the human experience.  Because of what I went through many years ago, what is taught in the church is very hard for me to align with in my life.  As a result, I recognize that there is a universal power or a source energy, but I try not to tie myself down according to how other humans perceive this through their own beliefs.

With all this said, I also recognize that in healing moments, we are never alone.  There are many forces in the universe that are there with us.  If we think we do the healing with someone, we are completely mistaken.  We are vessels, but we don't do the healing.  The healing comes through our abilities, skills, and willingness to be with another person at that moment in pure love.

Protect Your Boundaries

Many years ago, I struggled so much with this concept.  I didn't even think boundaries were something I remotely understood.  When they get violated repeatedly and violently early on in life, learning to protect your boundaries is essential for growth.

I can see more and more just how some of those lessons were preparing me for my current life and that is to come in the future.  Without some of what I have learned, I'd be crumbling for sure now.

Boundaries are essential to life.  It doesn't mean you keep everyone out or you let everyone in.  You learn to discern which people at which times of your life can cross through into the inner circle of your life.  Some people are fine most of the time, but there are times when you need to pull back.

Startled Awake At Night By Snakes

The other night I was awakened out of my sleep around 3am.  This is the time of night when if difficult moments will happen, it will take place in these hours.  On this particular night I was startled out of my sleep by a nightmare about snakes.

It has been some time since I last had nightmares about snakes and was startled awake.  In the past, I have had to turn on all the lights, strip the covers off the bed and shake them out, just to prove to myself that there were no snakes in the bed.  Fortunately this time, I did not have to do this.

When I awoke, I thought was screaming loudly and my breathing was at a rapid pace like it would be in an anxiety attack.  I was frightened beyond belief.  There was nothing good about this nightmare.

I Don't Want To Say Goodbye

Photo by Margaret Bland

When I encounter moments that are difficult for me to comprehend, I usually turn to writing words on a page.  This is one such moment.  I lost a dear friend of mine just last night.  I'm in disbelief.  There is no easy way to make sense of it.  I don't want to say goodbye.

He was one of those people to me that was in my inner circle.  I don't let too many people in to the degree I did with my friend.  We could talk about anything.  I never felt judged.  I never felt like I had to feel or be or act a certain way.  I could just be myself.  I could just be whatever I felt like in that moment with my friend.

He was there with me through many a rough moment in my life.  When family issues would arise, he was there with an open ear, a heart of compassion, and his presence.  When my Grandmother passed away and I was afraid to go because of family issues, he made the trip with me.

Don't Wait Until Tomorrow

If someone is on your mind, in your thoughts or touching your heart, don't delay.  Don't wait until tomorrow to reach back to them or call them or go see them.  Don't wait until tomorrow because you're too busy today or you have countless mundane tasks to be completed.  Do it now.  Reach out to them now before its too late.

In the past few months, I've lost two friends that I kept saying, "I need to go see them".  It was always something standing in my way.  I'm too busy.  I've got too much going on.  Oh, we'll stop and see them another time.  There was always something and well, the day came and gone when it was too late.  There no extra moment or tomorrow that could be harvested or used up.

Its easy to let life take control and in this day and age, it isn't always easy for us to make the time we need to for others that we hold dear in our life.  Its just part of our modern day culture and its the part that truly sucks!

We Fixate Upon The News Story Of The Day

If you watch the news regularly, it appears that life is nothing but a few events.  We fixate upon the story of the day and we rarely see the world in the bigger picture.  Our focus is so narrow, that we miss out on so much going on in the world.

Its human nature to fixate upon the news story of the day.  The news media has been very effective at teaching everyone how to do this.  Every day that we turn on the news or read the papers, we contribute to this teaching and ignorance.  We throw our critical thinking ability to the wind, hoping that at some point we will connect with it.

Everyone gets all up in arms about some tragic event or story and for the next week or two, that is the only thing they want to consume.  Search hits and traffic on the subject increase dramatically.  The news organizations do nonstop coverage on this stories and all stories like it.  In fact, before long that news that everyone is hearing about has been filtered by the news story of the day.

Puff The Magic Ego

Too often I see people portray a vast knowledge to their following, but what I see beneath it is pure and simple BS.  That may seem harsh and it probably is, but it is the truth.  There are far too many in the new age world of enlightenment and alternative healing that love to puff the magic ego up.

You see this by how they act as if they have all the answers.  You see it by how they just make claims and far out pseudo science that is anything but repeatable and true.  You see it by how they "market" and "polish" their brand even though they have only half a clue of what they purport to be true.

Puff the magic ego... puff it up.  Make it out to be the one and only true source.  They are no better than the grandstanding religious people or the ones that are attempting to attract all the attention they can get.  Yes, these people can sometimes get you to think they are the way, the truth, and the life in the world.  They are cunning and crafty, but in the end, its the ego that walks before them in their footsteps.

In Memory

I'm pausing to remember my Mom.  13 years ago I received a phone call that shook my world, giving me the news that my mom had been killed in a car accident.  The pain has lessened over time, but I still feel the affect of it to this day.  I know she is with me and I sense her present much of the time, but I still miss her.

This video is something I put together and is titled "In Memory".  It is a video in memory of my mom from 1939 to 2013.  I have included the words to this video that I wrote.  The song is one I created called "In The Arms Of Love".  All pictures in this video were taken by me.

All words, music, images are copyright 2015 by Don Shetterly

Unlimited Abundance With Christie Marie Sheldon Update

I can barely remember when I first downloaded this program.  It was sometime in late 2011.  Okay, that wasn't all that long ago, but so much has changed in my life since that time, that it feels like an eternity.  Back in 2011 and 2012, if you would have told me I would be where I'm at today, I would have rolled my eyes, closed my ears, and laughed at you so hard.

In those days I was in a very miserable place.  I had been having this battle with life for what seemed like forever just to make enough money to survive.  Everything was difficult.  Everything was not fun.  Everything was depressing.  It was not a good place to be.