Finding your pace

My pace changes with my life circumstances, although I prefer a slower pace that is peaceful and harmonious. On the other hand, I loved the fast pace of the corporate world as an executive assistant. At this time of my life, I would call my pace “go with the flow” as I go back and forth through various changes.

There have been times in my life where a slower pace is what I needed, but my restless nature would become bored and crave going against a swift current to shake things up a bit.

In my working days, the swift pace I had to maintain was tempered by one long weekend every month. JR and I both had the luxury of earning more than a month’s worth of vacation . . . the reward for being loyal long time employees. What worked for us was to work hard and then take off and unwind for that one long weekend a month . . . usually camping at Disney World. Of course we took advantage of those really long holiday weekends.

We enjoyed the versatility of camping at Disney since we had the best of all worlds there, depending on what pace we wanted to follow. It seemed as though he and I were always totally synchronized as far as the pace we individually needed. We also had our times of indulgence when we would stay at one of the expensive Disney hotels and spoil ourselves in luxury.

On those slower paced weekends, we would ride our bikes through the woods, stopping along the way for a packed lunch or just hanging out on the man-made beach enjoying nature and relaxing. Our favorite thing to do was to get up before the sun came up in the morning, get our coffee ready to go and hop on the bikes to the beach area to experience night turning into day, enjoy the birds and squirrels coming out to greet the morning and experience the marina coming alive. I’ve just described my favorite pace of all . . . my favorite place too.

Then we had those fast paced weekends where friends would join us and we would pack in as much Disney magic as we could handle, running from one theme park to the other like we had never seen any of this stuff before, acting like big kid tourists. In those times, going back to work was like relaxing.

What is your pace?

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Constant craving

Even through the darkest phase
Be it thick or thin
Always someone marches brave
Here beneath my skin

Constant craving
Has always been

Maybe a great magnet pulls
All souls towards truth
Or maybe it is life itself
That feeds wisdom
To its youth

Constant craving
Has always been

Lyrics from the song

Constant Craving
K.D. Lang

I’ve mentioned that I have not really moved on in a meaningful relationship since my husband passed away although I have found “love” online and went through the resurrection of my “first love”. In all cases of "potential relationships" I have kept them FAR away . . . where they are safe, where I thought they could not hurt me . . . but they did anyway.

As I’m currently in the midst of the phase where I am truly “embracing my solitude” and have actually accepted the fact that I can be happy living the rest of my life alone, never to find love again . . . sometimes feeling I am better off . . . especially after going through old journal entries and feeling the “pain of the relationship struggle” again.

Above all, there is nothing worse than the feeling of constant craving, as I was feeling in this journal entry from last year . . . sometimes we need reminders, huh?

 

Originally published sometime in 2008

As I’ve drifted through my meaningless life the past couple of days, feeling like I’ve hit rock bottom and ready to emerge from the ashes of nothingness, I have been trying a form of self-hypnosis as when I quit smoking.

The constant craving has got to stop . . . it is driving me crazy. I can’t take anymore. Tonight my attitude has flip flopped from even last night . . . I don’t want to feel love, I don’t want to have feelings for anyone, I want to love myself, depend on myself, be happy by myself . . . go back to the “embrace my solitude” mentality, but not just for now . . . forever.

Maybe it is because I have given my heart away and had it broken. I’m scared it is going to happen again. The constant craving draws me back. It is just boredom and I need to change that part of my life.

Before I met JR, I was hurt so badly that I never wanted to feel love again, but I did . . . at first, it was in the form of embracing my solitude and loving my life and having a satisfying and fun job. When I met JR, he chased me relentlessly because I really didn’t want to be bothered, but he was determined to win my heart. I fought him just because I didn’t want to feel love again, which I related to pain.

It is time for the constant craving to go away and for me to find happiness in the real world and forgetting about love from another human being. The roller coaster ride of up and down and back and forth has got to stop.


It has been approximately a year since that entry was written and I am very happy to say that the “constant craving” is under control . . . the roller coaster ride stopped, although I do get periodic cravings.

Having said all of the above . . . never say never . . . another lesson I have learned in life!

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Finding a purpose

I’m still searching for that feeling of purpose

in my life, you know, the one where you

can hardly wait to get up in the morning.

That feeling is my measurement of finding purpose in life . . . it means total happiness for me and the peace that comes from that kind of happiness. I’ve found that happiness and fulfillment many times in my life . . . but it escaped me and hasn’t found its way back to me.

Sometimes life reminds me of a used box of puzzle pieces . . . the box shows a beautiful picture on the cover, but are all the pieces included? Will the beautiful picture emerge in it’s entirety or will you be left with missing pieces?

It seems as if the last couple years of my life have been about figuring out what I want for the rest of my life . . . what will make me truly happy.

The hardest part was accepting my life circumstances and coming to terms with the sudden changes that seem to continue year after year. All the twists and turns have at least brought me to the place of acceptance where I can now concentrate on my ultimate goals of just being happy and content with who I am as a person.

The past year has been about finding my purpose as far as finding a way to survive financially and also give me that feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment. Work is not about the money for me . . . it is the accomplishment of what I do and how that makes me feel.

It has been over a year that I saw the changes happening with the economy as far as my online business. I’m an internet retailer . . . my sales started taking a nosedive way before last year, but I made enough to keep things going and had no idea of knowing the turn the economy would take.

The year was wasted on two jobs that I am not suited for . . . I should not have been persistent since there were still jobs available from the profession of my old days of working corporate jobs that almost made me crazy. I was being stubborn and wanted to do something entirely different . . . sometimes it seems like I failed miserably although I don’t see it that way because I tried to go “outside of the box” to be true to myself.

Now I’m having to turn that box inside out just to find a way to survive financially, but it is ok . . . perhaps these economic times will bring me to the purpose I would have never imagined. I do believe that everything in life happens for a reason.

Have you found your “purpose”
or are you still searching?

Do you look forward to getting
out of bed in the morning
or do you wonder . . .
why bother getting out of bed?

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Peace come to my rescue

Bad times always bring up other bad times for me. In many ways, it is one of my subconscious mind’s defense mechanisms, showing me a time I experienced similar emotions that I made it through, ultimately feeling peace in my life again . . . and not feeling anger towards God.

It is also another reason writing in my journal every day has helped me make it through difficult times as well as the good times . . . not only when I am going through the time itself, but going through a similar time . . . and knowing that “this too shall pass.”

Those who have lost someone close will understand what I’m going to say about “trigger days” . . . I have “the trigger season” which is the time after Halloween, when society gears up for the “happiest time of the year.” However, for me, it is the most dreaded of the “trigger days” when feeling your loss in the most painful way. The best way for me to describe it is to compare it to the withdrawals I had when I quit smoking cigarettes . . . that feeling like you are coming apart . . . inside out.

The following entry was written as the holiday season approached a year or so ago. At the time, it seemed as though the holidays were going to always be a time of unhappiness and dread for me.

However, I am happy to say that this past holiday season was the first one I can say that I participated in and enjoyed more than in the past. It still isn’t the same, but it was a turning point in my life.

Christmas 2007 . . .

As I approach my 5th agonizing Christmas without JR, I’m still filled with emptiness, just wishing that the holidays would not touch me and I could ignore them as if they are not even here. For another year it is a reminder of how pathetic I have allowed myself and my life to become.

In my travels through society with my smiles and cheery well wishes for a Merry Christmas to those I am in contact with . . . none would ever have the idea of the pain inside of me, the anger that I direct at God for taking the most important person in my life . . . anger at God, who was always my source of strength in bad times.

Isn’t this the source of my pain? Not the grief, although it is still overwhelming and even paralyzing at times . . . but the peace I always found in God is gone and I am so angry. My faith in God had always been so strong, unwavering and all consuming. It is all but gone. I can finally admit it to myself and say it out loud.

It is also about guilt . . . on many levels and for so many reasons. The collective guilt haunts me and torments me at times. What seems ironic to me is this . . . with all the thinking and analyzing that I do without giving myself a break, I am just now willing to admit my anger at God and I’ve lost my faith, the peace that comes from within. It seems like what I have been feeling subconsciously has tormented me on a conscious level.

The realization hit me this week as I contemplated getting involved in some type of volunteer work on Christmas Day. Although I am a deeply spiritual person, I am not religious and have quite an aversion to organized religion with all its rules and regulations, much preferring to simply talk to God.

It got me to thinking on a level I had not ever gone to . . . the thought of talking to God and he’s not listening at all, he’s ignoring me, punishing me for reasons I don’t know and I am angry . . . extremely angry when I started thinking about it . . . I’m a good person, go out of my way to not hurt others . . . a Christian does not go there with all the questions, we are supposed to have faith. But I have . . . I went there with the questions, the doubts . . . and realized that is what is keeping me from having peace . . . my anger at God . . . and dare I say, my loss of faith?

Too much loss in my life, too much disappointment, too much betrayal, not enough gratefulness for everything I have been blessed with . . . too much guilt for merely being alive, for not being able to do something so that JR would still have life, guilt for not being there when he died, guilt for feeling this way, for wasting my life away when there are so many others in the world who would be so grateful for a fraction of what I have and healthy life itself . . . I could go on and on with the guilt for everything that torments me.

Will the magic of Christmas and the reason for the season ever return to my foggy world of black and white? I need the peace, love, happiness that has been the motto of my life . . . I need God back, I feel so disconnected . . . like I’m within the grips of dark forces. This torment has got to end and I know I must stop beating myself up . . . it is one of those nights.

To quote a line in the song, “peace come to my rescue and I don’t know what that means” . . . life imitates art again . . . and again . . .

Although I have come to another place in my life where I am feeling anger for life circumstances and have experienced a momentary loss of peace, I had to relive a time in my past to know that peace will return again. And I can be grateful for those bad times of my past making it easier to deal with those of today . . .

I Need Love | Sixpence None The Richer
Lyrics

i left my conscience like a crying child

locked the door behind me put the pain on file

broken like a window i see my blindness now 

i need love

not some sentimental prison

i need god 

not the political church 

i need fire 

to melt this frozen sea inside me 

i need love 

driving into town tired and depressed

like a flare the streetlight bursts an s.o.s.

peace comes to my rescue and i don’t know what it means 

i need love

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Burned out or slightly charred?

My brother was rushed to the hospital with chest pains last night . . . my mom ran off with my sister-in-law to Tallahassee where he lives and works during the week.  My mom recently had a heart attack . . . of course, I worry about her.

Although I’m a Christian with a positive attitude and a lot of faith, that faith has been tested over and over and over again in recent years . . . sometimes with no relief between life circumstances to get a firm grip before the next thing is thrown on me. I’m tired . . . burned out . . . or just slightly charred?

I’ve had the same revelation several times when too much was on my plate and I start to lose faith and hope . . . I’m burned out. As I read from my book, “Simple Abundance”, I came across the section called “Recognizing Burnout Before You’re Charred.”

You know, I think that I’m a little more than slightly charred . . . but on the other hand, I am always able to get up from what I call “falling down.” Seems like since the new millennium  began, it has been long streak of bad luck and unfortunate situations that don’t want to stop. Every time I pray for gratitude, peace and contentment in my soul and go from one moment to the next telling myself, “this too shall pass.”

My “burnout” is seen as my ying/yang thing of peace, love and happiness being out of balance . . . “running on fumes rather than fuel.” It is burnout when nothing satisfies you because you haven’t a clue what’s wrong or how to fix it. Because everything is wrong. Nothing feels right and you don’t know why. Totally out of balance and everything is out of whack. It is not depression although it feels similar. I’m feeling so helpless.

In search of this balance, I spent the day easing up on myself, stopped beating myself up long enough to be grateful for what I have been blessed with and spent a great deal of time in prayer and contemplation, silence, waiting for that still small voice to speak to me, giving me direction. My burnout is feeling like years of nothingness and living with no purpose . . . like a restless wave that has suddenly swept over me.

I know it is current life circumstances . . . my perspective is blurred, making everything seem inside out, upside down . . . frantic to find that place of peace where I can hide and feel safe.

Life history has shown me that “this too shall pass” . . . but when one is in the midst of the storm, you feel as though the tide is gonna pull you out to sea . . . it is that helpless feeling.

Can you relate to the feeling of

burned out or slightly charred?

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Forgiveness

Sometimes the bad feelings we are holding
inside has to do with forgiveness.

Have you ever harbored unforgiveness?

You know the feeling I am talking about if you have.

I wrote the following post in September 2007 . . . it was another period of contemplation where I feel I experienced the greatest healing, which led me in a definite direction.

Now I can look back and see it so clearly, but at the time it felt as if my world was falling apart, part of the healing I guess. That perception alone is a lesson in life. At the time I didn’t know it . . . I had to forgive myself.

The major thing was feeling guilt for having life when my husband didn’t. I tortured myself with the question, “why am I still here and not him . . . why not me?” In time I realized that I am not God, I am not in control of who lives and who dies . . . it was his destiny to die young, it was mine to deal with it.

I had not forgiven him for leaving me
so abruptly without saying goodbye.

“In my silence I would love to forget
But restitution hasn’t come quite yet
And with one accord I keep pushing forth
I stretch my heart to heal some more

It used to be all I’d want to learn
Was wisdom trust and truth
But now all I really want to learn
Is forgiveness for you

As my seasons change I’ve now grown to know
When one’s heart creates, one’s soul doesn’t owe
So I wash away stains of yesterday
Then tempt my heart with love’s display”

lyrics from the song
Forgiveness by Collective Soul

Forgiveness is the mental, emotional and/or spiritual process of ceasing to feel resentment, indignation or anger against another person for a perceived offense, difference or mistake.

After all, we are only human . . .
why is it so hard to forgive?

As it relates to love . . . forgiveness is based on intensity of the anger and/or resentment for mistakes made. Of course there is the severity of the mistake . . . is it major or minor . . . and what is the perceived outcome as it relates to trust?

What about new beginnings as
if nothing ever came before?

Is it my stubborn nature, or is
forgiveness a universal problem?

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Alone

This article was originally written for a photo challenge a couple of years ago . . . a photo that tells the story of my perfect day . . . my peace perfection!

My perfect day . . . this was so easy for me as I’m still consumed with the memories of my beach vacation sitting on that very bench, gazing into the Gulf of Mexico, soaking in the sun, feeling the warm breezes blow my hair in the wind, smelling the salt air, hearing the crashing of the waves and the call of the birds.

Alone on the beach, yet not alone . . . such is the contradiction of my life. I’m a widow, alone but never alone . . . he is still with me and always will be.

Of course the perfect day at the beach starts with a cup of coffee, a walk on the beach that ends up on that bench in the pic . . . to think of what has past, fondly remembering where I’ve been and those who took me there . . . to ponder my destiny and daydream about my desires, wondering if I’ll ever find love again, share my life so beautifully and completely . . .

The day ends with one of the things I love most . . . a beautiful sunset on the beach. It is such a peaceful, spiritual happening for me . . . the spectrum of changing colors in the sky, the sun’s reflection dancing on the waves and into the sky . . . reminding me of life changes, how changes can be different yet beautiful.

My perfect day ends with the sun melting into the water, like two hearts in love melting into one soul. I love sunsets on the beach . . .

Nature defines peace and happiness for me . . . there are three places where I can find total peace and happiness that has nothing to do with money, material things or even love . . . my back yard, the beach and Ft. Wilderness Campgrounds @ Disney World.

Is there a magical place that
defines peace and happiness for you?

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