just face it

Two prompts for the Friday Reflection for June 10, 2015 caught my eye. Prompt #1 was a quote by Lauren Bacall, who said "I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that." At my age and with my experience in life, writing about my face would be easy peasy. A bit too easy. So I decided to add another prompt into the mix and combine them for a twist on the Friday prompt.

Prompt #2 was look through my photographs and choose one to write about. This is the photo I chose:

That was me about 4 weeks ago, on the morning of my first surgery for breast cancer.  I say first, because I found out that a second surgery was needed a couple weeks after the first one, and that was not an easy prospect to face. In this photo, I was positive, and just ready to move forward. Who doesn't want to get past something like breast cancer and move forward?  Being positive was easier with that first surgery. The second surgery was more difficult, because negative thoughts began to creep in and take over my brain.

It was hard to overcome those negative thoughts. I am not a negative person by nature, and won't whine and bitch about what was going through my mind. I won't give a lot of advice about the experience either. There have been tons of articles written about breast cancer and survival, etc. Sooner or later I will write a more personal post about my experience, so that maybe someone else who is diagnosed with breast cancer and starts combing the internet for information, will come across my little post and have a few questions answered.  But that time isn't now. I am not ready to dig that deep into my thoughts.

So I will focus on the photo of me.  Sans makeup, it shows me smiling, which is something I do most of the time. I have had a mostly good life, a magical life, with just a few life bumps along the way. Until this year, when I seem to be traveling a mostly bumpy road. Since January I have had to deal with things that are new and difficult for me to comprehend and work through. I have gotten past some, and some are still happening. I've decided that the best thing to do to get through a year like this year is to just take one day, one step at a time. To look forward too far is to sabotage where I am right now. And to look backward with regret is a waste of energy, because nothing will change, and again, it sabotages where my life is in the present. It prevents me from working through what I am dealing with at this moment in time.

So I will drag out my copy of A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle one more time, and thumb through it, and regain some insight into my mood and way of thinking, which lately has been self defeating. I will do this because I am that positive person my dad had a big influence on. I have that strength in me, waiting to be tapped into. I will do it because I am a get it done type of person, and not possessed of a victim mentality. 

I will continue to depend on my family, reconnect with old friends, make new friends, stay connected with my sisters (who were the first best friends I ever had), and find joy through my art and photography. I will tap into the strength inside me to overcome and deal with anything and everything, and it will show in my face.

My face, my eyes. An open window to my soul. 

...life isn't always good, but it is always real... cat
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

book launch: Living an Alive Life! by Tara Schiller

I have the privilege and honor to have guest blogger Tara Schiller here today, on a very exciting day for her! Today is the launch of her book, Living an Alive Life!  Tara is an author, life coach, business woman, and mom of four who will help you discover your true self, and live your life with purpose.  In Living an Alive Life, Tara shares her life experiences as she provides valuable exercises to help you discover how to live life fully as the person you are intended to be.  Please take the time to read Tara's post here, and to visit her blog, Absolutely Tara.  Without giving away any spoilers, I will say that I discovered it is ok to be selfish.  (I was surprised about it too!).  I had several AHA moments as I read Living an Alive Life, and I know you will too!  Read on, and learn how  you too, can life life fully.  (You can also follow @taraschiller on Twitter.)

From Tara:

If I could tell you one thing, it would be that you are amazing. And that you are absolutely and completely worthy of love for anything and everything that you are. I’d tell you that all those parts of you that you feel are ugly, bad, or worthy of shame, are in fact, what makes you so uniquely beautiful in the first place. Because you’re interesting. You’re full of character, and emotions, and life.

If you could see your heart through my eyes, you’d see perfection alone. You’d know that anyone who didn’t love you was completely out of their mind, and you’d feel sad for them because they missed out on something great in their lives by not knowing you.

But even if I told you these things, would you believe me? Would you take it in and protect it with your life? Maybe for a minute.

The reality is, most of us aren’t able to see ourselves this way. We’ve gone our whole lives being told what makes us accepted by others and what drives them to reject us. And since our mind is wholly devoted to protecting our heart, it has produced an acceptance gathering projection so we can feel loved.

But the problem is, we don’t just want to be loved, we want to be known. Being known is what connects us, not only to others, but to ourselves.

The mind doesn’t like that idea, because it can’t control how others react to our true hearts. It can’t create a good and bad master list and ensure we behave accordingly. And if it can’t do that, it won’t be able to protect us from rejection. The mind hates rejection. And so we aren’t known by others, and we aren’t in touch with who we truly are.

How do we overcome this? How do we retrain the mind to value the truth about our hearts over the acceptance of others? That’s what my book is about.

In Living an Alive Life, I focus on retraining the mind to value your true self, then turning those discoveries into something real and tangible with an actionable plan, and dealing with the emotional obstacles that will surface along the way.

If you go through this process and learn to value your truth, you will be able to live a life that fits you, not one that you’ve been told you’re supposed to live. And when you can become who you truly are, you will come alive. And an alive version of you will leave the world in awe!

-Tara Schiller

brimming possibility

Today is a new day. Every day is a new day. I am an early riser, the middle of the night to most people is an early start for me. I have turned my habit of waking early into a time to reflect on the day past, and think about the day that is beginning.  A ritual start to my day is to brew a cup of tea to sip as I think.  Some of my most coherent thoughts come during this time of day.  Some of you may call this meditation, and I guess you could label it as such.  But for me, it is just a solitary moment...with my cup of tea.

How do you start your day?


...life is brimming with good. ~cath 
find me @jonesbabie on Twitter

therapy

accepting this

With life in an uproar lately and much going on, I found that I needed some down time...time to think, get my mind in some sort of order and stop the chaos it was becoming.  So I took Friday and Saturday off, and vegetated...spending most of both days turned inward, thinking about things.

It's a refreshing thing for the spirit, and something I do instinctively when I see I am losing my center.  I spent the days thinking backward, and remembering people I loved who are no longer part of my life, but remain in my heart.  This was not time to be thinking about what I needed to be doing, but to think about what brought me to this spot in my life.  The influence of the people I have met, people I have known, and how they have made me a better person.

I think what started me on this path was a piece of paper I found stuck in my box the other day at work, inconspicuous at first.  I thumbed through the mail, tossed it aside to read later, and plunged on into my work day.  That piece of paper lay there for a few days, then one day while I was taking a break and drinking a cup of tea, I rummaged through the papers on my desk, and came across it again.  This time I picked it up and idly began to read it.

As I read the page with my name written on it, the hair stood up on the back of my neck.  It was as though this had been written to me personally, and it hit my gut so hard I sat straight up in my chair.  I reread it again, then again, and was stunned by the simple truths it held.

The person who sent it knows me very well, even better than I realized, and she knew I needed to read this:

Thank you Dolly.

And thank you to all the women and mothers in my life, who have added such dimension and richness that it is hard to convey the value in humble words.

Happy Mother's Day to my mother, and my sisters, my daughters, and my friends.  You are all the lights in my life.

...life is good. ~cath
find me @jonesbabie on Twitter