Further Thoughts

I've been feeling great lately with the help of some alternate healing methods and am real excited about the future.
 
Sunday I attended a Wellness Weekend sponsored by a great group of local healers.  This group of a couple dozen gifted practitioners got together and decided to hold a workshop once a month to share their skills and spread wellness and good will.  Some of the stuff was a little "new agey" but I've got to say, I walked out of there feeling better than I have in memory.  At the workshop you were able to choose four different modalities from a list of 7 or 8.  Each session lasted about 45 minutes and best of all it was only $50 for everything!  I chose reiki, EFT, acupunture and E NPL (still not sure what that one is about).  In EFT (Emotional Freedom Training), the guy had me focus on a traumatic scene from my past that has been bothering me and he would calmly give me affirmations while guiding me thru the scene and how it made me feel.  He would say something like, "Even though this incident hurt me very badly, I still love myself wholly and unconditionally."  while tapping with his fingers on certain acupuncture meridian points.  I swear, that was the first good cry I've had since this all started.  I've felt so balanced and at peace since Sunday that I can't explain it with words.  I went back for another acupuncture session yesterday and it was wonderful as well.  Well, I think I'm rambling here (and probably sounding a little wacky) so I'll go on.

I was given a random challenge to help me think out of the box: Build something out of a hammer and a soldering iron.  Here's my hammer, that's all I need.  And my soldering iron.  All I need is my hammer and my soldering iron. .... And an idea, I need an idea to meet my challenge.  Hmmmm.  I could build something for my mother, but what?  Soon, I'll be blowing insulation into her attic and I will use a hammer so maybe that counts (sort of).  Trouble is, most things you use a hammer on are not things you use a soldering iron on.  I found something called a soldering iron hammer but that's only used for soldering rain gutters and my mom doesn't have any.  What could I solder into a gift?  How about some bangle bracelets?  I could use some half round 16 gauge wire and just solder it into a circle.  Ta da!!

Wow!

That's all I could say when I walked out of the Wellness Weekend.  I had just gone through four complementary healing sessions and felt like a million bucks!  These people are amazingly kind and I feel truly blessed to have met them.  I'll have more thoughts as they crystallize in my mind.  Right now I'm feeling such balance and calmness that I only dimly remember my troublesome thoughts.  I survived the porcupine quite nicely :)

Something Completely Different

Since the way I was trying to work through things has sort of stopped working, I'm going to try  "Something Completely Different".  I'm giving myself an early Christmas present and attending a Wellness Weekend at Tranquility Wellness Center.  Four hours of massage, reiki, acupuncture and EFT by a staff of 10 professionals for only $50.  Some of these things I've heard of before but massage is the only one I've tried.  What the heck?   I don't think it can hurt anything and I've always liked a good massage.  I might try to justify this as a scientific exploration of  whether or not this stuff works but in reality it sounds like fun, I think I will enjoy it and it will probably help me, to some extent.  If I don't post about this Monday, you'll know I didn't survive the porcupine :)

Physical Graffiti

I'm going to start this one off talking about physical stuff, because I've got a lot of it going on.  The last several months I've been getting a lot of exercize. Between 3 workouts a week at the gym, yoga on Tuesday night, volleyball on Wednesdays and Sundays, golf every other Sunday and darts on Thursdays (well it's sort of exercize),  I've been testing my body.  Sometimes I overdo it and get way too sore and stiff.  Then I have to cut back a little and it slows me down.  I'm a little lot impulsive and competitive so when I started playing volleyball again with old friends I ended up throwing myself all over the court to try to get to every loose ball. Even tore up the knee of my good yoga pants :(

So, in general, I'm feeling pretty fit but almost always have some nagging injury bothering me.  I put in a lot of time on the stationary bike but have found that doesn't translate too well to the explosive movements of sprinting and jumping.  I've strained my hamstrings and quadriceps a couple times each, seem to have reawakend an old college sports hernia (I swear it's in the same place I did it when I was 22), bruised my ribs (not sure how I did that one) and have widespread general soreness.  But it's all worth it.  The feeling that comes over you after a good workout is wonderful!   Five months ago I was described as "gaunt" by my brother in law and I realized that he was right, I looked like a refugee from somewhere that isn't there any more.  And that's just what I was.  A refugee from the skeleton of a marraige that didn't exist any more and where the love had only flowed one way for a long time.  Love is like the tides of the ocean in a way.  It has to go both ways, in and out.  Now, after much effort, I'm a pretty fit 175 lbs with good cardio endurance and a lot stronger core system and I'm feeling pretty good about that.

Random Thoughts

I've got this MP3 player that records voice messages and I've started carrying it around so I can capture any thoughts or ideas that seem to seem to be worth remembering.  So this will be a bunch of (mostly) unrelated  vignettes.

Gosh, I feel good! Going to volleyball and excited about it.  Looking forward to good things.

                           

I think if we can sense even a faint potentiality of happiness we must grab on to it and hang on with all our tenacity.  It's our responsibility to be selfish in the way we treat ourselves.  Happiness is out there and must be pursued diligently.
In this vein, I found a neat web site called pursuit-of-happiness.org which talks about the history and science of happiness.  What a concept!  I'm trying to ask myself every day, "What can I do today to bring myself happiness?"

"Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence."  Aristotle 
 I wagged my tail at a guy after he let me onto the road in very heavy traffic.  That is, I gave him a big smile and a friendly wave. I actually do wiggle my butt wag my tail in my car seat at a time like that.  It makes me giggle.

This gelato is sinfully good!  1/3 the calories of ice cream and much better tasting since it's not pumped full of air.  And, they even have chocolate!

The Troublesome Mind.  Sounds like a good title for another time.

We must realize how lucky we are as humans to be the only organisms on earth with the capacity of self awareness.