In order to change and grow I have to take stock of where I am in my life at this moment. I need to look at the positive and negative and accept the answers that I find. If I can’t accept my life as it is in the moment then I cannot truly change.
When I live in denial of who I am at a given moment I don’t have to take any action.
The alcoholic who is in denial doesn’t have to stop drinking because, of course, her drinking is not a problem. But once she takes that first step of admitting and accepting she is an alcoholic, that her drinking is a problem, and wanting to change then action is required.
For me, denial keeps me stuck and hitting the proverbial brick wall and asking myself why things don’t change. I blame things like having fibromyalgia and depression for my lot in life. I rely on excuses to cover up my failings. I sit and wish that things were different and when I try to make changes I seem to always end up back where I started. I don’t have a true sense of self or my position in life making it impossible to move forward.
Acceptance is the key to change.
Yet when I accept where and who I am then I can start to take the steps needed to work towards where I want to be. By asking the question, who am I right now and seeing my self in a true light, without judgement, then I can stop fighting, making excuses or hiding. Action then becomes a requirement if I truly want my life to change. I become humble.
I didn't think I would enjoy this movie but I did. Don Cheadle is a great actor and was able to take the character of Petey Greene and give it real depth. The movie is about Greene who was a DJ in Washington, D.C. in the late 60s who kept it real for African Americans by talking to them straight on and asking them to talk to him, thus the title "Talk to Me."
0.3This is a first in a series that I am doing about 4 Questions to Ask to Facilitate Change.
I had a fair amount of time over the last few days to think since I wasn’t feeling well and unable to go on my trip to Chicago. I started thinking about retreats I started taking back in the summer of 1985 on Friendship Island in Maine. The retreats were “empowerment workshops” for women led by one or two people from the therapeutic community and other holistic practitioners like massage therapists and healers. For several years I would spend one summer weekend on that island with no phones and no interruptions. They are memorable times.
Each workshop would start on a Friday night with a guided meditation that centered around 4 questions. The wording of the questions changed year to year depending upon the area in our lives being explored but in general they go like so.
The beauty of these questions is that they can be worded to deal with a specific area in our lives or all encompassing when we feel that we are off the beam. They can be answered quickly to see what comes right to mind or meditated on to find that voice inside ourselves.
One of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with living with a chronic illness is taking care of myself and making sure I get what I need. Like some other people I’ve met I tend to put the needs of others before myself. Unfortunately when I do that I end up with a flare-up with my fibromyalgia resulting in the inability to take care of myself or do for others.
It’s a reality I deal with and this week I tried to take care of business before going off to SOBCon, a conference featuring bloggers from all over the U.S. I thought I was taking care of myself but the truth was I wasn’t listening to my body when it started aching more, I just pushed harder. The result was a flare-up of the fibromyalgia that I was unprepared for and I had to cancel going to Chicago for the event.Â
It was a hard decision to make and while I feel a bit better today, flying to Chicago would have been difficult at best and my worry was that I would have spent Saturday in bed rather than down at the conference listening to all the wonderful speakers (although I could have done like Ellen DeGeneres did last week and have my bed down in the conference room 
).   It wasn’t easy to accept not going to Chicago. I hate when I can’t do something I had planned. The reality in life is that we don’t always get to do what we had planned, chronic illness or not.
If you are a tea lover you need to check out Adagio Teas. They sell loose teas and teaware to make sitting down with a cup of tea a wonderfully aromatic experience. No, I don’t work for them or anything, I’ve just been drinking their tea, hot and cold for the last few days.
An acquaintance suggested I try out the tea so I visited the website and found that they offer quite a selection and have a clever teapot to make cups of tea. So, I ordered 2 starter kits, one for me and one for a friend. Then, I saw the iced tea set and got that too. I do love to shop.
So far I have had hot English breakfast tea and blood orange and then I made a pitcher of blood orange iced tea. I love the blood orange tea, both hot and cold. The aroma that fills my house is absolutely delightful.
I love using the IngenuiTea pot to make my cup of tea. It’s so easy to brew a cup and it’s the best cup of tea I’ve had in a while.
If you are a tea lover you may want to check out Adagio Teas. I’m going to splurge and try out their white peach and oriental spice teas.
Do you have a favorite brand or flavor of tea that you love?
The greatest gifts in my life to this day was having an adult relationship with my mother where she was more than mom, she was a flawed, imperfect yet beautiful woman. I miss her so very, very much.
When I was a child I only really knew my mother from afar. You see, I was the 7th of 8 children (my mother’s nickname was Bunny) and my mother had little time to spend with me. As a teenager she was emotionally and sometimes physically unavailable because of illness, both physical and mental. But I will say one thing. I know regardless of the circumstances that she loved me. I’ve never doubted that.
As a teenager I got involved with alcohol and drugs and there really wasn’t a parent there to reign me in. In my early 20s I hit bottom and got professional help. Part of that help was therapy. During therapy I went back in my childhood to examine and then heal the hurt, the wounds. It was hard work and I went through a time where I felt the pain of not having my mother available during my childhhod. My therapist guided me through that time and brought me to a place where I began to see my mother as more than just mom, she was a person, a woman who had been through some horrible things in her life both as a child and an adult.
I didn't think I would enjoy this movie but I did. Don Cheadle is a great actor and was able to take the character of Petey Greene and give it real depth. The movie is about Greene who was a DJ in Washington, D.C. in the late 60s who kept it real for African Americans by talking to them straight on and asking them to talk to him, thus the title "Talk to Me."
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