Searching for ... what ,exactly?

I am having an MRI of my pancreas done this morning.  I am nervous.

I went to the Doc a few weeks ago because my poop was white.  It was after I attended a BBQ (most excellent flavors) that included very high fat meats.  I figured (and the Internet confirmed) that I should tell the Doc about it.  White is not a normal color for poop.  Blood tests, urine tests, ultra sound tests - all reveal that there is nothing wrong with me.  No stones, no blockages.  So, today is the MRI.  To look for cancer basically.  I think that this is all that is left to look at.

I do not like the idea of being in a certain position for an hour...and not moving.  I do not like the idea that - if there is any metal in your body, you could get hurt by the magnetic pull of it.  I don't know if I have metal in my body.  Nobody put any there - but, who knows what may have happened?  Something in my eye?  Maybe aliens put something inside me, I am always playing in the dirt and doing dirty things.  My Doc said I should take 2 tranquilizers.  That is good.  I don't want to feel freaked out.  Like I already do - and my anxiety grows as the minutes pass.

Well, I leave in 3 minutes.  Going to take my pills.  Wish me luck.

As much as I do not like the idea of this test - it is an excellent thing, isn't it?  To be able to see the insides so clearly.  Amazing really.

On Communication:

You never know when or if, a person is damaged, and how so, – please keep this in mind:

When you tell someone what you think about them, it is vital (if you love them) to phrase everything positively.  For example - the glass is half full, rather than half empty.  By using the uplifting and hopeful type of sentencing, you are telling the person that you care about their welfare. You are sharing love.  By using the more negative phrasing you are telling them that you are condemning them. 

¹neg·a·tive

 adjective \ˈne-gə-tiv\

: harmful or bad : not wanted

: thinking about the bad qualities of someone or something : thinking that a bad result will happen : not hopeful or optimistic

: expressing dislike or disapproval

The negative connotations, (words, tone of voice and posturing), may lock the person receiving the comments into shackles of self-loathing and negative beliefs about themselves.  If the Receiver has been in those shackles long, then you may be reaffirming and justifying their presence.  The positive style of communication works just the opposite, giving the person hope and increasing their awareness of you and what you want from them.  Once they can become truly aware in their soul, in their spirit  - and if they love you – they will try to give love back to you, by listening and perhaps opening a dialogue about changes and needs.

Often, people think that they need to tell another person about the other’s negative “qualities”, to teach the receiver about what and how they are…and how they should be.  As though, the person does not realize that they have faults.  The Teller might love the Receiver and think he is helping them.  Most people know they have faults.  If they have not changed them after many years, they have either accepted them as normal and okay, or they have a problem with them, and they are having difficulty changing.  It is possible that they do not care, but most people I’ve known have mental and/or emotional blocks to changing their bad habits because of these invisible shackles that have them bound into a loathsome identity created and strengthened by the so called well-meaning people who continue to tell them how bad their problem is.

Remember that everyone looks at life through a different lens.  Like theater lights – they can shine white and bright, or you can put a colored film across the light can and get a different colored light on your life’s stage.  You can put a stencil across the can and get shadows of things that are not really there…they are just suggested images…shadows of things that seem larger than life itself.  We do not know what lens a person sees with.  The person telling the “facts” to the receiving person might see things that the receiving person is not capable of seeing, and visa-versa.  Both of their lens’ present life in totally different colors and/or shapes.  This is not to say that either person is ‘wrong’.  They are different.  And communication is difficult, and sometimes impossible.

If one person has a certain pile of trash that has made their filter green – and they are trying to communicate with a person who has rose colored with flower stenciling on his lens…they can say the same words and feel very different things.  They might never truly see ‘eye to eye’.

Don’t beat each other down in the name of love.  Know that each word that comes out of your mouth will be tested and you will be accountable for them; both the letter of the word and the spirit of the word.  Take into consideration the person you are speaking to.  Try to speak to your audience; Try to know their lens; their filters.  Try to share the half full glass and thereby share love with that person.  Do not hate people in the name of love.

Mind Discoveries

I locked myself in an air-tight mental Tupperware container for forty three years.  Emotional trauma is a bitch.

I can't remember if I discussed the sources of that trauma, and they don't actually matter.  People experience pain and hurt and become damaged.  We cannot change these things.  They are in the past, they are what they are.  But we don't have to live in the aftermath forever.  God gave me a life and he says I deserve to live it.

I've always known that there is someone watching out for me;  Someone who is smarter and wiser and loves me. The Holy Spirit does these things, but, what I am talking about now is not spiritual.  It is my mind.   I enslaved part of myself  when I was twelve, because I truly believed that I could not exist with a portion of my personality left out to live in this world.  Problem is - we need all of ourselves in order to operate optimally.  Perhaps much of my lifetime of confusion and fear was because pre-adolescent me was trying to protect herself.

So many parts - and they are all important to the whole.

An amazing side effect of this uncovering - is that I don't feel like the pathways are clogged up with obstacles anymore.  I feel like a new part of me has been released and is happily carrying on.  In fact, she is dancing!  Stretching her legs and making plans for the future.




 

Life and Death and War and Cards

Last night I went with my husband to play cards with an elderly neighbor.  He fell and broke his leg a little over a month ago and loves the card game Biribba.  It is a Greek game (or Italian - depending on who you ask), much like rummy on steroids.  He has been playing the game since his childhood.  It was a way to pass the time when the Germans would not allow Greek children on the streets during WWII.  George considers it a war game and he plays very well.  My husband and George were at the top of their games - amassing many many points, while I trailed behind, enjoying the experience.

Towards the end of the night - I did not know what exactly I was beginning to feel, but I was in awe of George.  Not that he played so well, but about his history - so many stories about Greece and war and family and survival in wartime - and the fact that a broken leg from a fall in the garden might now be the end of his life.  He is in his mid-80's and the leg is infected and antibiotics are not working.  His coloring is yellow and jaundiced.  He was in a good mood during play, but I think he became tired towards the end of the game.  It can take several hours to finish a game.

I'm nervous around people who are near death.  When I visited my grandparents and my mother as they were just days from their ends, it is an overwhelming sense of helplessness I feel.  I guess I always feel I want to help somehow.  And when I can't - I get a manic desire to jump on the table and do a happy dance...to entertain and make people laugh.

I know two people who have had the opportunity to be present at a person's moment of death; felt their last heartbeat, smelled their last breath.  My step mom said she felt it was a very special time - precious.  My husband felt the same when his mom passed.  Is there an energy transference?  Is it felt?  What happens?  What is it like to die?  Maryann said she held her dear ones in her arms and loved them as they faded away.  Boyd's mom was in a coma, but he felt her pulse as he held her hand.

Not a very cheery post I suppose.  But, I want to be able to give positive energy to people, and I don't in these situations.  Instead I feel overwhelmed - and so I avoid the situations altogether.  And that is just not nice.

Suggestions welcomed.