This blog was originally in my mind titled as “exercise”. And that might be a more catchy or more appropriate title to woo someone into reading it, but since this blog is for me, I think that titling it waiting is actually best.
First I’d like to talk on the fact that part of my healing, part of my personally developed protocol requires daily exercise. I have been endeavouring to make the movement of my body more regular, and more routine, and finding that I enjoy the fact that I can do this, and that I can push my limits. A 30 Minute walk is just always going to be a good choice for pretty much everyone, there are very few people who are truly unable to accomplish this task, and even they would probably benefit from the effort of the endeavor. Its just almost always going to be a good choice, but its also one of those things, that doesn’t really require spelling out. This is something we know… We like to talk about things we know, they sometimes help us gain inspiration to do them, but often they also defuse inspiration because we feel as if we have talked about them and that was part of the energy to accomplish the task.
In my case, the cancer was in the lymph. Also, when you have radiation, and dead cancer cells, its that good buddy your Lymph that moves all that junk across the stratosphere of your body, into the waste system to help you get it out, thru sweat and good old bathroom time, both necessitate the “movement” of lymph. The easiest, best and most healthy way to move lymph is thru good old fashion movement. its like that old colored bottle with the oil, turn it upside down to see the colored oil bubbles move out, dance around, jump around, or walk around to move that lymph and get those baddies out of your system.
But I digress. I named this post waiting… Smartly. There are alot of old adages about “stop to smell the roses” or “slow down life is to be savoured”… Its definitely worth mentioning, that while I have always had an acute sense of my own mortality thru the entirety of my life, this year has given me an even more razor sharp edge to that mortality, but sometimes I can be a little dense, and it takes me some time to realize the impacts of razor sharp things. I do not say this to be morbid or negative, but the only given in this life is that someday we will die. There is no punch card for getting out of this, so truly the only thing we have is time.
We all know that we have time, we rush, we hurry we move, and get from place to place doing, doing doing. While I recognize that life has elements of doing. There is a so much larger element of feeling.
I think maybe it was and has been because of the therapy I’m more acutely aware of feeling right now. A thing, one of the rare ones my therapist says, that sorta at first took me for a loop but has become something of an internal thing for me now is “How does that make you feel?”
Really? How does that make me feel? – its a stop and pause moment to ask that question, and then a stop and pause moment to answer it. And in the answering you are suddenly overcome with that emotion, of how it made you feel. The good, the not so good, and the bad. Getting to the root of all of those feelings and flushing out the bad ones has been part of the good choice of the therapy. But the realize has occured to me that that question is paramount to my healing.
By surrounding myself with waiting, and feeling all the good things that are around me all the time… stopping to realize, that even when things are not going my way, even when there are gaps or road blocks, I can still feel blessed, and happy and well… that those things, that used to make me crazy, or frustrated or sad, or angry or hurt, don’t need to……. Story time to relay the thoughts in my head into words..
We picked up foods last night for dinner, from Hat Creek. Kind of a rarer treat, particularly for me. I was overwhelmed by the fact that they have a pretty decent Vegan Burger, which they wrap with lettuce upon request, and serve with all sorts of tasty veggies. They also have one of my guilty pleasures, sweet potato french fries. We went thru the drive thru, as I was getting a treat, and it was dinner time so the place was hopping.
They messed up my order. They gave me regular fries not sweet potato fries.
P pulled the car over, and I walked inside. There was a huge line of hungry patrons at the counter, and 3 clerks meticulously working thru the line, with hungry soccer children, and families, and just general folks waiting for dinner. There was a clerk on the shakes – I didn’t indulge in these, but I do have to say I have in past, and their milk shakes are amazing. There were two floaters, and a manager.
As I stood at the pick up place, with my bag of incorrect food, I smiled. I waited.
I’m not precisely certain why I didn’t rush to get the attention of one of these people. I just suddenly, following intuition, knew I needed to wait. I needed to just stand there, with my little OPI REI sunscreen purple hat, covering my head, as I have to keep my head covered now from the radiation.
I smiled, and I waited.
I don’t know how long it took, but one of the people, I think it was the shake floater lady came over and I politely expressed to her that it was supposed to be sweet potato fries, not regular fries. She visible relaxed when I was polite. The lady ringing at the register at the end, that had noticed me and fully expected me to interrupt or ordering also visible relaxed.
Within less than a minute, the manager who had also been floating came over and brought me the sweet potato fries, also expecting me to be angry and hostile, and visible relaxed when I thanked her for fixing my order.
I felt the relief and the positive vibes resonate higher, and the line of people in the time I was there had also relaxed, as people were able to continue doing their work, and moving thru their process to get things accomplished. My waiting netted me the correct stuff, in pretty short time, and I felt pretty great about it.
Accidents happen, mistakes occur, we all make them. Whether it be me spilling the coffee, or forgetting to order the thing, or sending the wrong size, we are human, we are not perfect, and even though we try, sometimes we goof. I think what I am learning is how that sometimes those goofs are also an opportunity for enjoying positive emotions of help, grace, and generally forgiveness.
Waiting, is about observing, and feeling. Observing what is occuring, how other people are and what is happening around you, then assessing not the situation, but how you are in the situation, and correcting or fixing that.
Its worth mentioning, that the tie in to waiting and exercise is truly poignant. We all know “yeah yeah do your exercise” but we also all know, it takes time after you do exercise for the affects, or impacts to occur. Life takes time. Waiting is a part of life. Time is our only currency and we should be spending it on feeling more. Especially making sure we are feeling more positive, not negative, which sometimes takes waiting, to sort out.
We exercise today, for results tomorrow or next week, that time is waiting. Don’t stop the doing, but please try and spend some time waiting, and feeling.
I stopped to see the patterns in the clouds, and the shapes, and then thought about how they made me feel. I thought about the smell of the roses, and the images of how those memories make me feel, and the other places where the roses that smell so strongly so beautiful are located. To feel the connection to those people working, hard at work, trying to do their best to help everyone around them, and how maybe it isn’t a good day for them, but maybe me just smiling and waiting, and being happy at the solution instead of grouchy at the problem made things better.
We wait for many things in life, test, test results, strength, energy, focus, clarity, all of these are part of the journey, part of the what must be done, rather than focusing on these, going to continue this new found waiting knowledge of focusing on the feelings and ensuring that the waiting makes me happy.
Happy Waiting to you as well.