Life Is Transitory: What Have We Collected On This Part of the Journey?

 

 

See, I think Life is a Transitory Journey.  I think we are “on our way” to what is next.  The only baggage we came with, here to this life, is what we are meant to build on, to take with us to the next part of our soul’s journey.  We all have an expiration date.  We cannot escape that.  Our body is only a shell to contain those things beyond worldly goods.  We are collectors of spiritual aspects of our physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual during this part of our soul’s journey.  What have I collected?

My body carries scars of this part of the journey.  Decisions I made, or were made for me, shows up as inscribed parts of my journey that took courage to recover from.  I have what I call “my crown and anchor” carved on my body and those scars mean something very worldly but the impact of those scars I carry in my mind, heart and soul.  Each scar changed me, took something huge to recover from.  But, any physical baggage we will carry with us, in that energy that leaves this shell, is what is the crux of why we here at all, as physical beings; why we went through physical things in this life; why we should concentrate on what we have done with this physical body to help make this journey worthwhile.  I have done good in many many ways.  Of course, I have let the world of my body control my worldly self. I surrender to my inefficiencies and have made life harder for others with my bodily decisions.  But I have used my hands, my feet, comfort, caress, coax and try to control self, or not.  I have many physical frailties.  I try hard to change my weaknesses and every night I ask for forgiveness for those frailties and ask for courage to change, every morning.  I do not deny that I spend a great much time trying to make up for my many frailties.    

My mind has collected many good thoughts and wisdom.  I have tried t extinguish negative thoughts (believe me, I have many things to extinguish).  I do a great deal of self-talk trying to make sure I do not mire down in negative thinking.  I refuse to lie in bed, in the dark, when my mind would love to dwell on negativity.  I get up and do something to change the pull into negative thinking.  I listen to podcasts that inspire.  I seek writings that inspire.  I spend time thinking on positive things.  Even this very blog is coming from a place that I am thinking about. 

My heart has collected such precious memories of emotional strengths...and, yes, sadnesses, too.  Insecurities that evolve from abandonment and a sense of postnatal rejection.   I can see that every poor decision of mine came from a place of fear.  I worked all last year, with the word FEAR.  It took courage to make decisions that could make someone not like me, not love me, reject me, abandon me.  I gathered up my timid courage and said what needed to be said, did what needed to be done, and with each time I dared to say or do my truth, I felt empowerment…tiny little bits of self-esteem grew as I tried to do what is right for I knew I would have to live with the consequences, abandonment or not.  What is in my heart, I will carry forth to the next part of my journey down here and over there, somewhere.

My spirit has great moments of spiritual knowledge.  From somewhere I cannot define other than saying it was soul, I knew things I was never taught.  I knew to do things and did them without thought or intention.  It could be called inspiration.  It could be called lots of words, but it came from somewhere within, not without, within.  I have seen things you cannot imagine, never mind that I could not. 

Christianity says that Creator created us in his image.  Are we meant to stand in for his presence?  That is huge.  Have I stood as a satisfactory replacement for Creator down here on earth?  See, we might have been focusing on worldly things rather than on the things we should be carrying with us into the next part of the journey.  That’s deep.  That is also a huge responsibility.    What have really done, of any good, in this world?  What am I carrying forward?  Of what “substance” am I?  I do believe there is a little bit of God/Goddesses in us.  Am I remembering to collect things that come of that?  I have work to do, for sure.  I have better stuff to collect on this part of my journey. 

©Carol Desjarlais 1.24.25

 

Lord, Give Us Strength

 

 

Change is so difficult.  Yes, we have hard it a million times, but this is striking me, now, personally, in a huge way.  I used to multitask, used to be able to have a whole string of lists and thoughts n my head all at once.  Not any more.  I am being, somehow, whittled down, pared down to the core, and I cannot seem to string thoughts any more.  Any bit of change seems dramatic and full of “what ifs” and uncertainties. 

In our 20s, 30s, 40s, even 50s, we do not imagine what we are going to be needing to deal with in our 70s, 80s and 90s.  We never seem to give a thought to what kind of ‘courages’ we are going to need.  Yes, we have been warned about wrinkles, but we did not consider whole-body issues.  Physically; an unsteady gait, for instance; and aches in places we were not even aware of, and loss of fine motor controls and more loss of most important body organs:  intellectually; the real issue of “I can’t find where I put my_______” memory lapses:  Emotionally;  we lose our whole-body ability to adapt, to change, to accept surrender to all that our aging body demands; more people, in our life, die in their 60s and more in their 70s and we are rushing through our late 70s filled with negative wonder and loss of self-esteem and identity and, even, purpose:  Spiritually;  if we are, in deep reality, afraid of death because it has so many unknown, for sure, really, that, when it draws near the international lifespan age, we begin to want to KNOW, more assuredly, the what, when, where, how of it all because, suddenly, trite words and religiosity does not really comfort us.  In all of this, it takes courage to accept what is and find a way to deal with it.  Courage, I say, is what it takes as coming closer to it seems to accelerate and our ability to control the quadrants of our life extinguishes more and more every day.

We lose the ability to go out and window shop, never mind we are less able to go out for lunch with friends.  Either we or someone in our group cannot go because… because... they find it easier to just stay home.   We begin to become less mobile; we become less clear about even what danged day it is because every day begins to be the same; we cannot even have a normal conversation because our ‘normal’ (and everyone else’s) is all about our changes in being.  We spent way too much time thinking rather than doing.   

In our late 70s, it seems to me, that we are identified as “survivors” even as we walk in a more hunched over being, shuffling forward into more unknown every day.  That we have survived indicates that we have been resilient enough to go through life’s ever hard times and we, actually, need to be admired for such.  We are’ Recoverers’. 

Life, itself, is recovering from so many things in all four quadrants:  physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.  We have navigated through our own personal ’dark nights of the soul’.  Life can offer up so many difficulties but so much joy.  We begin to define JOY in many ways.  One friends, on saying “good morning” instead says, “well, I woke up this morning, so I’m doing pretty good.”  We never thought that that would be a sense of joy. 

We never thought of how much we have to be more rigid in our patterns of iving so that, with short term memory starting to slip, we have to put things where we will find them.  The Bee Man has a table near him with all the things he might need throughout the day.  He asks me to keep his morning pills on the table where he eats breakfast.  We start to focus on keeping things ‘in their place’ and stricter routines. 

I need to keep some adventure in all of this.  I refuse to eat the same thing day after day or when going out for dinner.  I vary things I do during the day.  I begin to chat to strangers, to catch their eyes and smile, to listen to more people.  I do activities that nourish my brain and spirit with new and different activities.  I work on problem-solving because there can be a whole lot of necessity to solve problems that come up during a day. 

We stop competing with others and set up little competitions for ourselves.  We have to find a way to surrender to adaptability, to be as competent as we possibly can be.  We need to find ways to be of use to others.  We need to be seekers of adventures, no matter how small, in order to build our sense of self and identity and sense of esteem.  We re al here, right now, because we are supposed to be.  No matter the ‘frailing’ of our body, mind, heart and soul, we are exactly where we are meant to be.  We have made decisions and now we live with the consequences.  Finding joy in our ‘consequence; is huge.  It takes courage, dear hearts.  It takes courage! 

Let us, every morning, wake up, and take a big breath, give credit where credit is due, for being kept safe during the night, and focus on being our best and worth keeping us for this new day.

©Carol Desjarlais1.23.25

 

Seeking Peace Amidst Chaotic Episodes

 

 

I had a girlfriend who said the worst thing she ever experienced in our first 50 years, was that her family room fireplace smoked up the house…then… she lost her husband to cancer.  She was able to define “worst thing”.  I, on the other hand, had many “little worst things” comparison.  I never “lost” a husband, but I “left” a couple” and then became a legal widow a couple of years ago.  (We had not seen each other since 1986 but he refused a divorce and I, being Me, thought staying legally married would keep me from making a mistake again.)  My “little chaos’s” were divorce and walking away.  I had every reason, in my life, to be a crack addict or a serious alcoholic, because I had any of the problems in my life that true addicts and alcoholics gave as reasons for why they were what they were.  Lots of heartbreaks and heartaches in between.  The way I kept afloat was to put one foot in front of the other and keep on keeping on.  I am too old for this crap now though.  I do not resurface as easily.  Part of living on the edge is found n a quote I found, somewhere, “The only easy day was yesterday.”

This reminds me to remember that yesterday/the past was the past and nothing can change that.  Every new day is a new challenge, a new beginning, and worth putting your all into it.  THRIVE as best one can in every new day.  I put this word up on my bathroom mirror that reminds me.  To promise oneself to thrive takes courage… some days that courage is foremost, for sure.  I have to learn to let be what is.  I do this, very aware that, in a moment, the emotional environment can change at a moment’s notice. 

As I enter a new day, I have to not predict nor cause to happen, anything negative.  I have to prepare for a door to open and negativity come rushing in but not focus on it.  Simply prepare for it.  Prepare a positive ay to deal with sudden negative interruptions.  For instance, I know that there will be negativity but a doorway away and I have to learn to walk away so that negativity does not rise in me.  It feels rude.  It feels foreign because I am a welcoming person.  But I have to remember that I am taking care of me and face on negativity is not good for me.  Panic rises and I lose control of my own nervous system and move into panic mode.  Panic mode means that I do not handle negativity well.  So, when I feel it rise, I have to remember the courage to thrive and simply go in another room away from it.  Who would welcome in negativity?  To thrive, I must do what I must do and, preparing for it to happen and my reaction to such needs to be practiced.  After the first few times, it gets easier and less guilt-ridden. I have to remember how hard my whole body, mind, heart and soul reacts when it feels negativity’s potential to attack and by staying in the moment, I can take control of self.  Self is all I have.

Once I have walked away, I have to reframe my thoughts to focus on self-care rather than the moment that senses negativity.  I am not retaliating with negativity.  I am walking away, saying to self that I am working on selfcare.  It takes courage for me to do this.

I know, professionally, that one has to destress as soon as possible and do something that allows for immediate cool-down.  It is then that I will turn to my arting.  That is a place and space to let everything around me fade into some background as my heart and soul moves to express itself.  It does not mean that I paint or make something negative.  It means I turn to make the moments following panic into peace.  Self-talk is helpful.  I am proud of myself.  I am courageous.  I have done something positive with negativity that has come.  Then, sink into creatin’s compassionate activity.  As I de-stress, I feel the negativity peel off me and I can sense a type of victory over negative self.  That is huge. 

Another thing I am noticing is that, I am tending to withdraw (remember I used to post every day?) and become numb in a way.  I let a whole day slide by with little effort or purposeful activities.  I am having to force myself even to go out for dinner with my partner.  I notice that I am talking to him less and I seem to be a lost planet in this life of mine and with those I care about.  I am sort of skimming the surface of life.  I have not been baking, doing much painting, nothing but pure minimum of housecleaning.  That is so not me.  I have to get busy and DO.  I am timidly stepping out to do a couple of new activities with a group.  That is typically not me either.  But I am enjoying new activities with new people.  It, too is a way of skimming. 

If you know/notice someone who is “skimming”, realize that they cannot make themselves maintain contact.  It is time for those who love them to give them a call, invitation, something to draw them back into who they mean to be.  Do not take it personally.  It is not you; it is that they are delving into their Quiet for courage to simply keep going.  A couple of cheerleaders makes a huge difference.  I have those kinds of people.   They notice.  They give me the cheerleading I need to keep on keeping on as I gather up the flung bits of self that is necessary for me to thrive 

 ©Carol Desjarlais 1.18.25