Life Happens

I came here to Thailand to learn “to be” and I guess part of the process of when you come to that point in your life, when you are ready to be still, is to start to understand and see the life that you had lived until that point. Being still is not about doing nothing but rather about being quiet in yourself in order to observe yourself so that you can understand yourself. I feel blessed that I have been given and also taken this opportunity to do this in my life. I tend to see life not as a mountain but more like a mountain range. Where our lessons are learned through the valleys and the uphill hikes through the mountains. The deeper the valley the higher mountain and at the top of each mountain is the most magnificent view. These last two weeks of my life have been extremely challenging and the fact that I have been calm through out the process is a sign to me that I have come a long way. I have not been as calm as a monk but I have been breathing and looking for the light at every corner. Normally when hit with so much I break down and let my world fall apart and then berate myself afterwards for the mess I have made and now need to clean up. It is not very self-loving but that’s why I am here to learn and try again to find the love. I truly believe that we create and co-create our lives. For me I find this idea empowering and helpful in making a better life for myself, my family and others around me.

So here I am on my second leg of my 24 hour journey back to Dublin to sort my business out. My eye has swollen up, I left my 2 year old throwing up in the airport, I am missing my daughter Aiko’s 5^th birthday, I am missing my husband’s 40^th birthday, missing thanksgiving with my family and missing Hanukkah. But with all that, I find the beauty in it. I can take care of all this. We celebrated my daughters 5^th birthday a week earlier and she was none the wiser. Its not about celebrating it on the actual day but celebrating the event. As for my husband's birthday, well we just moved it to the 10^th of December when we will all be together. Hanukkah, well, we can move that as well and as for Thanksgiving, well, I have a lot to be thankful for… If I can deal with this in a positive way I can teach my children that when things happen, because they do, and that’s why we are here to learn, that you can great these happenings in a positive way and grow. And even though I am so sad to be away from my family  maybe my husband needed to learn that he can take care of the children and feel the power in that. As for me, I can learn to trust myself, because that’s why this situation came in the first place. So I look at this situation as a blessing to find my power within me. It't not what happens to you but rather how you handle what happens to you.

Thankful thoughts

Sometimes it seems that the most amazing realizations come at the most bizarre times or situations. Today I was lucky enough to have one of those realizations. I walked into the bathroom at school and saw a woman, who must have just come in a few moments before me, open one of the bathroom stalls, close the door again quickly and look round to me with a look of disgust and then walked into another vacant stall. For a moment I took in this information and stood there waiting for another free stall, but luckily a rational thought popped into my head, "take a look for yourself". I mean how bad could it really be? I mean at the end of the day what makes my shit better then anyone else's. It doesn't freak me out to flush my own waste down the toilet why should it freak me out to flush someone else's? I mean really if you want to break it down it's just food that didn't get used by the body.

So there I was like a brave warrior waiting for the worst to happen and as I opened the door I was only to find a bit of toilet paper that needed flushing. O.K. so no big deal, I can flush the toilet and get on with what I need to do. But what came to me after what pure light. I started to think about why it was so easy for me to just flush the toilet and know it wasn't a big deal. I realized it was something wonderful that my mom had taught me. She never got freaked out about those things. She just got on with it and never blamed someone for leaving it that way or really cared. All she knew was she needed to use the toilet and if you had to flush someone else's waste, well so be it. Big deal. So this made me think about all the other wonderful things she had taught me that help my life flow. Things I don't even really think about why I am that.  But I could certainly tell you why I am the way I am about all the bad and sad things in my life. I mean I could go on for days and years about what my mother didn't do and what she did that were hurtful but where would that get me. I've been there already and it doesn't make my life better it actually makes it worse because I get caught up in the lack which only brings me more pain. I can't change what has happened but I can change what will be. Today I decided that I would write out a list of wonderful and positive things that my mother taught me. Because there are many and I need to be thankful for them. Because if I can do that with her I can do that for myself and in turn I can do that for everyone else in my life and in my life in general. If you want to change the world change change your view of your life and watch it unfold like a beautiful flower. Have you ever heard anyone complain about a flower?