PRACTICE

Practicing being aware of my feelings, digging out the roots and freeing up the soil.
Truly realizing where my emotions are coming from and freeing others from the blame and realizing that it is my thoughts of the situations that keep me stuck where I am. They may not have "done me right" but I am doing myself in by not seeing that by not letting go I am keeping myself in limbo. Seeing my own involvement emotionally in what ever happen and forgiving myself for whatever is keeping me stuck so I can let it go.
What is keeping me stuck? Is it that my dad told me that I would never be able to follow through and make good on anything? Does every time I have quit at something go back to this or does it go back further? Was the thought there before he said it? If it wasn't why did I believe it? If I follow through from the last chapter that we come to this earth with the thoughts that need to be healed and pick our parents to bring up and then enable us to heal those thoughts then my dad saying that was just the first situation to bring up a reason I was here to heal. My dad did not cause my thoughts. He gave me awareness of a healing that I need to do. If I did not already believe it I would not have been affected by it. He was only bringing up what I needed to heal...
So no more blaming my dad for doing his purpose towards my healing. Whatever his behavior mirrored off from me to him was his to learn and not mine to blame. As for me, its taken me many years to realize that I need to start being aware that I have a thought that I will fail and that means I can not follow through. For me, a lesson to practice... follow through. Continue this blog, read on and in other areas of my life such as weight loss, exercise and creative work become aware when the thought comes that I might as well give in since I will fail anyways. To heal that thought by repeating the now mantra of many, "YES I CAN."

THERAPEUTIC GARDENING

I en joy gardening.
While living in Virginia Beach my only choice was patio gardening in pots. Not the same as digging in the dirt, wiggling toes in the soil and breathing the garden scents but one works with what is given.
This year I have been given fertile New Hampshire soil. Soil that has just been waiting to grow. Add to that a spring and early summer with abundant rain. So, I garden.
Gardening has always been a mental exercise for me. Time to just play, time to push your body while the mind soothes. Today it was more. Two and one half weeks into recovery from surgery that removed my internal womb I am learning the art of therapeutic gardening. Recovering from major surgery is giving me the chance to know my body. I've learning to know when it needs to rest before the signal that rest is necessary. I'm listening to it's beats.
In this strange way by listening to the body's signals the mind is also heard clearer. Not as a separate entity that orders the body to respond to it's whims but as a part of the whole. When the mind/ body is working together there are no thoughts of what has happen or what will happen; all thinking is of now. The mind instead of living it's small ego world has become the caretaker. It is more alive than it has ever been feeling and sensing what the rest of the temple is living. The feel of the turned dirt, the coarseness of the weed pulled, the beauty in the new growth... therapeutic, very soulfully therapeutic... living in the now and growing stronger with ever breath.