Gift of RA

I certainly didn’t expect to have another one of “those” days quite so soon, but there is no telling what will happen from one day to the next.  I am working on seeing Life as an adventure and that isn’t always easy.  Last night was one of those “end of my rope” times – I am still not sleeping and I was really dragging.  Plus I felt a migraine coming on and it just seemed as if I couldn’t climb out of the hole of not sleeping very well for so long.  I  also was really feeling pain in my legs – I was at that point of starting to cry.  But what surprised me was how I  found myself feeling better – I got to thinking that as long as I focus on not sleeping well and being so tired – isn’t that creating what I don’t want?   It was time to change direction, so I just asked God to change my attitude to positive.  He has done that many times before – one time I remember especially.  It was 1974 and we had just moved to an apartment complex in the South Bay of Los Angeles.  A brand new apartment, bigger than the one we left in San Francisco, but I felt “I don’t like this place”.  So I asked God to change my attitude and by golly, the next time I thought about it, I was fine.

I grew up with a legacy of several generations of negativity – how amazing that given that history, my Mom and Dad definitely changed a lot of that pattern for the three of us girls.  They always made us feel loved and wanted and we did so much together as a family – Dad always said if they couldn’t take us somewhere, they didn’t want to go.  They also brought us up with integrity – some days it felt like a blessing, other days more of a curse.  How could I be a “bad girl” with all that “good girl” programming?I always wondered what it would be like to be a “bad girl”.  Mom and Dad gave us  a good grounding in many things and more and more I realize how blessed I was to grow up in this family.

The negative part was always there as well, not always spoken, more implied.  One of the negative concepts was that the world is a scary place, so be safe and secure before venturing out.  Not conducive to taking risks and stepping out of the comfort zone.  There didn’t seem to be an example of stepping out to help guide us – so I have always been scared to step out in something risky.   Except one that I ended up copying.   Now I know that going down to Australia to marry a man I hardly knew was certainly a risk, except I didn’t really see it that way.  My aunt has introduced us and if she thought there was anything shady about him, I know she would have let me know in no uncertain terms.  Plus I had my Mom’s example – she went to California to marry my Dad right after Pearl Harbor even though her family thought she was crazy.  it took me as long to go to Australia in 1969 as it took her to go from Connecticut to California in December 1941.  I realize there was an objective in that rip, he was at the end of the flight and I couldn’t wait to see him again.  There were a couple of three times when I thought to myself “What am I doing?  I don’t know this man” .  That’s when The Voice arrived, asking “Well, if you don’t go, how will you feel?”.  The answer was, I would regret it.  The Voice said “then shut up and do it!”.

I know my parents loved us, but it seemed there was always second guessing and micro-managing – any time we did something or went somewhere.  It was a constant “Don’t fall down the bank”, “Don’t trip and hurt yourself”, “Don’t cut yourself” “Don’t, Don’t, Don’t”!  That was when we went to the property they owned on Vashon Island and we checked out the fruit trees, the high bank waterfront on the Sound and the old barn with all kinds of things inside.  Ye Gods and Little Fishes!  Did she think I or my sisters were going to do things deliberately to see how much damage we could do with the least amount of effort?  Give me a break!  We did have common sense after all.

Recently I began to be more aware of the patterns of only looking at the negative.  We have a long, steep windy hill in front of us and we can get to West Seattle more easily that way.  So when I was driving my Mom down it one day, she talked about going over the edge and ending up in a heap at the bottom without any trouble.  I suddenly realized I didn’t want to buy into that any more, so I said we could just as easily go down the hill and get to where we were going  with no problem.  I had never done that before and I have started noticing things ever since then.  It does take more practice to be aware of the negative patterns – negative autopilot is easier and more familiar.  It is slowly getting easier as I practice – I am a work in progress.

One thing I have chosen to do is to set an intention of  knowing the truth about myself because I now know it isn’t all negative as I have always feared.  Yes, there are things that are uncomfortable, may make me cringe and aren’t easy to admit and embrace; but there isn’t a godawful bitch on wheels in there after all.  Inside there is an amazing woman coming into her own and she is a Kickass Warrior.