ASK~BELIEVE~RECEIVE

In the past few weeks I have been working to cease continually being stuck in the problems of my life and to become embedded and deeply committed to being involved in the solution. This isn't easy.  In fact it is quite grueling at best. Friends understand and support me whole heartily, others don't understand at all and place blame on my lack of availability and accessibility as I take this journey that I must take alone. I have retreated, backtracked if you will, and am taking a well deserved 'time out.' I am resting, cogitating, reading, listening to music, journaling, quieting my life to a manageable pace and focusing on finding answers to questions long neglected.

The issues go back to my childhood.  Trauma and abuse I have carried my entire life had it origins decades ago.  Relationships, bad choices, continued tolerance to being repeatedly treated poorly, thinking I didn't deserve anything better ~ a learned behavior. A general inability to feel any real sense of joy, because I never got to as a child, and unrelenting constant guilt have traveled with me daily. 

 

I have lived my life, my journey, with a passion to inspire and motivate and have true and deep compassion for those I feel need it the most by use of my therapy dogs.  I have founded five non profit organization doing just that. Each are still in operation, for which I am pleased.

What I have discovered is that I never had those blessings bestowed on me. I am telling this not to gain sympathy, quite the contrary.  I am telling these things to make them real.  To make me real.  For in many ways I never have been.  It is easy for me to talk to double and triple amputees, severe burn patients with no nose or ears, coma patients, dying patients, parents whose children are taking their last breath, and the list goes on.  I am blessed to be able to do this, and according to many,  to do it well. Many professionals tell me this is a very rare gift.

 

But what I have discovered, is that in many ways I am giving to others what I so desperately have needed my entire life and never received. A place, a person(s) with whom I could share my tears, my pain, my fears and my laughter and successes. A safe place where nothing is asked of me, except that I be real, be whom I am, be me. I have needed a person who would listen and actually hear what I was trying so vigorously to convey.  But many times, most of the time, I have fallen under the control of domineering and abusive people, while I danced like a puppet trying to be what they wanted and demanded of me, only to be caught in the trap over and over again. When I did not do as they wished/required, I was, as I like to say, "bended, folded, stapled and mutilated."

 

I have written 58 books.  The last several Pockets of Peace series of books are dedicated to providing motivation and inspiration for those in dark places that so often we find ourselves.  Places that I am all too familiar with. In searching my soul, I find I really wrote those books, not only for our wounded warriors and their families, but also for me.  I needed someone to soothe my soul, to inspire and motivate me.  I know all too well the pain of being alone and so desperately needing a hand to hold, as I have met various challenges and countless heartaches.  So I reach out and offer those things to others for them to start a new day, to remember how to open their wings and fly!  Our ability to help and heal others is unlimited.  For me opening my heart to strangers, offering them hope and encouragement, defines why I am on this earth.

 

Now I am learning how to become 'real'.  I sit in my garden and watch the tiny buds opening as they too are trying desperately to climb toward that warm bright light.  I know with no doubt that I will never stop reaching out to people with a smile and often a warm understanding hug and offering them hope and encouragement and the true compassion that they too so dearly long for. They too need to remember how to spread their wings and fly, much like the babies of the white winged dove sitting on her nest right outside my living room window.  I have learned to protect her nest, as if it were my own. Protect her until her babies take flight.  I stand by it as the lawn men mow, so as not to have her frightened.  She seems to sense this protection I have of her ~ this making certain she and her babies are safe. I protect her, as I would love to be protected and sheltered.

 

But for now, for a while, I need to plant my own seeds, give myself gifts, get my nails done, get a massage, begin reading the stack of books that have long gone untouched, I need to find me again.  I need to find laughter, fun, activity, and involvement with those who make me smile and giggle.  I need to walk, sing, and dream.  I need real spiritual/physical therapy that I so urgently need for my personal well-being that has long been neglected..

 

Then and only then I can return to sharing those things with others, lending a shoulder, giving a hug and hopefully some day knowing myself what it is like to be loved unconditionally and fully, in a place where there is laughter and music and joy and most of all respect, understanding, caring and kindness each for the other.  I am going to focus on asking, believing and receiving.  Today is a new day.  I will offer my best and expect to receive all good things in return.