I hear my quick steps on the concrete sidewalk. The crickets are singing their night song, and in the distance a hear a bird and her beautiful morning call. It is still dark outside, the air is warm. The sky is clear and I see the stars. I look for the moon and see it, contemplating in amazement how people have actually been there to this far away place. The light from the moon is bright and I can see the shadows on it, the morning is quiet. I can see the outline of the trees against the dark sky and the lights in the distance from a town far away. The dogs are happy and keep up with me sort of prancing with that familiar spring in their step as their nails click on the sidewalk. I reflect on life, my life. I consider the miracle of my body, my life, my place in history, the absolute perfection and skill in how I was made, how I came to be here at this moment in time. I thank God for everything in my life, for the gift of today.
I was in awe the day before watching the monitor as the nurse scanned my heart, my amazing heart, the center of my body and what it is doing on the screen, watching it work continually without rest. I was reminded of the power of God. The power that created me... my heart, my body, my mind, and soul... a true miracle.
Life is so fragile....
Things can change in a second, mostly unexpected, and then life is usually never the same. There is no going back to the seconds, days, weeks, years before. That part is over forever. I learned this in an instance, a split second after what I thought was several days of a migraine related aura, and my doctor explaining I had experienced a stroke. The stroke luckily occurred in my eye, not my brain, and so I was spared the debilitating effects of a brain stroke like the ones my dear Grandmother experienced so many years before. I have thought of her so often since this happened. I remember her crying and telling me she just wanted to die after months confined to a wheel chair and in the need of care from others. I understand now, Grandma, I love you.... it must have been so hard going from being so active to total dependancy on others and lacking the ability to do anything physically she could do just moments before her massive stroke during church services one Sunday. She actually had made a family dinner we were all attending on the farm after church like she did so many times.... no one felt like eating her dinner that day. It changed all of our lives permanently.
Thank you, Father, for sparing me....
I was sent as a direct admit to ICU the same day, and as I walked in with my papers in hand for a battery of tests, the desk nurse asked who was I there for. ''Me," I said... wondering why she asked that assuming she must be new. She admitted she had no idea how to handle me, and asked that I walk around the corner to the nurses station. I guess patients do not normally walk into ICU with paperwork to be admitted. I was in shock. A stroke work-up is what they called it.
At the end of the day, I was released and came home trying to process what just happened, wondering why the doctors were saying things like, "I'm really sorry." I thought sorry about what?? I feel fine! No origin of the plaque causing the blockage in the artery of my eye was found that caused my stroke after numerous testing and several doctor evaluations of the results. Questions swirl in my mind and I begin to really take it all in and seriously consider what matters in life, and what doesn't matter.
Changes........
I understand when issues occur in the body, there is a deeper meaning. These are only a sign of something inside that needs changed... inside the mind and thinking. I gave myself two days to cry and accept. Then I set out on a mission, my life mission, to find healing for my body and more importantly a change in my thinking. It is easy to follow mass thinking that reaching a certain age means this or that, or wondering if we have done anything worthy, etc. I had done this, I knew I had. The thinking, I have lived longer than I have left, loomed in my thinking. That was wrong thinking and it had to go!
I started researching everything I could about the event that happened in my eye, and how to prevent this from ever happening again, or anything else that would get me off track from living my life- my dreams. I bought a few books by a doctor, Brooke Goldner, MD, and began studying and making massive changes in my diet. I watched again my favorite documentaries, Forks Over Knives, and Game Changers, and remembered the teaching. I already knew what I needed to do, and it was simple to just do it. I want to live, and live in good health, not be dependant on doctors, medication, feeling awful, incapable of doing things I love doing.
All negativity must go...
Whether in thought, action, social media, work life, home life, and especially in self-talk, negativity has to go. One cannot live a meaningful life with good results by allowing those things to creep in unnoticed.
Awareness is a full time job, and is a lot like the work of the amazing heart beating in my chest.... always on the job, never taking a break, continually working. When we place awareness in second place to everything else, other ideas take over and soon become habits, and for the most part not good ones. Before you know it, there you are, in some sort of place you never expected and certainly do not want.
Luckily we can change that and the immediate change will produce immediate results! Warning signs happen for a reason, and it is in our best interest to listen intently to those warnings. Not paying attention to those warnings cause a repeat experience!
What really matters..
One thing we must come to truly understand is this is the only life we get. Our body is the one and only body we live in while we are here, and if we do not actively take care of it, we will suffer and limit our ability to live well and do things with and for others. Our time on earth is limited. Some of us are here a long time, some not so long. It is extremely important to go for your dreams. I mean now, not later. Not if and when whatever... now. Not when you have the money, the time, the _______, NOW. Now is all any of us really have. We cannot ever go back to the life before whatever event has changed things, we never know what the future is going to be, or if there even will be one. Right now is where we are and right now is where we must act.
Are you living your dream? There is only one today, only one right now, and only one you. Are you taking care of where you live, your body? You better be, it's the only one you have! Are you studying to grow and improve your thinking, your choices, your life? It is the only way to gain understanding and reach your dreams.
Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, whatever is happening, you can do greater things than you ever have. You and I have more potential inside than we are ever aware of. Shake off that programmed mindset and break out of the prison of mass thinking! Change is inevitable and growing is a choice, a good one.
What do you really want for you life, the only life you have? Complacency will never pave the way to your dreams. Mass thinking will keep you trapped. It doesn't matter what anyone else is doing, it's your life that matters. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It is what YOU think that matters. We really do have the pen in our own hand and we write our own story every day we live. What story are you writing?
I will have my life...
That is my decision, and that is a committed decision I have made to do everything in my power to live my dream and my life.
Make that decision for you. Join one of my programs, we all need a mentor. You need a positive person in your corner showing you how to win and keeping you on track!
You matter! xoxo
