By practicing self-compassion.

There was a time, most of my life, really, when I thought the answer was in loving others until it hurt, and if it did not hurt then I must not be doing it right.

I had to learn that true compassion must include ourselves. When we can be gentle, kind, and loving with ourselves then the love that the world needs will flow out from us as if we were mountain springs. In that flow, needs cannot help being met, hearts touched, and the world changed for the better.

Well, if I thought it might be my last, that argues that some great inescapable kaboom was about to wipe us all out, or how else could they know?

So, taken that way, I would spend every moment of it with my husband and my animals until the end came — or didn’t.

I am reminded of the quote, oft attributed to people including, but not limited to, Mark Twain, James Garfield, Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill, and Seneca. “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

That sounds like good hygge to me, Diane!

I am glad you posted as I wanted to respond to your post on the house but am not sure where it got buried. I have it still in my inbox, but when I go to it, it sends me to this page anyway.

“The house that Mark built” sounds not far off our first house! Painting a room was fraught with peril — the first time we went to paint the kitchen, we had to tear out back to the studs from four feet up and below.

The reality began to set in when my husband went to replace the old nicotine burned counter tops. I was on the phone and heard frantic yelling, which is very unusual for him. I ran in and found him holding the entire countertop up with the cabinets in pieces around his feet. They had fallen apart when the top was lifted. Then we found out why the pipes had frozen — there was no proper wall behind the sink cabinet, which was on an outside wall. It was just scraps of board, newspaper, and drywall mud!

Thirteen and a half years later we had turned the two bedroom one bath disaster area into a charming three bedroom two bath cottage. Itcwas so hard to leave it for the same reason you mentioned — all the love we put into it — along with blood, sweat, tears, money, time, splinters, and hope.

It is a very different feeling here. This house did not need us to remake and redeem it.

Your encouragement means a lot to me, that the perfect place will be waiting. I needed to hear that, especially Friday morning. Your timing was perfect.

The market is zilch there now, and any good place gets snapped up before it hits the mls listing! We can only trust the timing and get our ducks in a row as much as possible here and with financing. Then we wait!

The affirmation Palm suggested helped, too. It helped me see that all our struggles trying to save this place and keep it up was loving it, even if we felt more fear than love at the time. Love takes many forms.

So now I am opening my heart more to what is to come…and waiting.

Thank you…

Thank you, Cara Anna, for sharing this journey with me. I love how you say, “Forgiveness has its ways,” since it does look different in each case.

I once read a book called The Four Things That Matter Most by Ira Bylock(sp?) He was a hospice doctor who had seen how important it was for people to close the circle in their own hearts by saying these four things before they lost the chance. The things are, “Thank you, I love you, I forgive you, and Please forgive me.” The stories were beautiful and touching.

When my husband’s father, from whom he was estranged, was about to go into brain surgery, he could not leave me as I was too ill and needed help to do almost everything. Plus, he knew his reception by his mother might cause more distress.

He wanted to know what to do, what to say when he called. I suggested the four things, with which he was also familiar.

He said them to his father as well as his mother. With his father, there was as much reconciliation as I think was possible. He was also able to send his father a CD of pictures of our life here with some of his favorite music as background since he was no longer up to much. That was a blessing to both.

With his mother, it did not go so well but was more rejected. And when they moved, she did not give us their new contact information.

My parents lived here when I read the book, and I asked them to read it, too. They did, but pooh poohed it soundly.

So I think you are right, forgiveness must take many forms. The important thing, I think, is to figure out what will release our hearts. ❤️????????????

Thank you, dear Ose. I will look up the article!

I spent this afternoon working on the class, which turned out to be very helpful. I came away thinking perhaps I am not so far away as I thought from where I want to be on this.

The anger over it really is not a trouble to me, and really, I think my biggest grief in this is that I cannot safely be the daughter I wish I could be to them in their old age.

In the end, we must bow to the choices of the other, even if we do not like those choices, because they are not ours to make.

One super helpful tidbit came in a video by Frederic Lushkin. I shall post it to all, I think it was amazingly and beautifully simple.

Thank you for sharing your heart. It is received with deep gratitude.

Your reply brings tears, Pilgrim.

I feel as if forgiveness is a doorway I am being asked to go through but which I am unable to pass as yet. It is a path, a process, but I am not to the freedom bit yet.

I do not wish them any harm; I have no desire for vengeance. I wish them well and cared for, from my heart. And I grieve that I cannot be the person who will do that for them.

It is the letting go part of forgiveness I cannot seem to reach!

I am going to write on it soon. Thank you.

We used to sell in summer at farmers markets near here, Ose. We sold tomatoes, homemade jams, heirloom garlic, handmixed spice mixes, Zuchetta Rampicante Tromboncino, and cool handmade drinks. We stopped when my health went blooey.

Sadly, the markets around here struggle. It is a huge farming area but mostly Big Ag, as they say, and only a few smaller producers, and even fewer organic ones.

Some of the larger more established markets in the city areas are now taking the food assistance debit cards for low income, which is nice. It makes healthier food at a more reasonable price than health food stores more widely available to those who take the opportunity.

Oh, dear, Manda! Attack of the Killer Garlic Clove…I know it well. We grow heirloom garlic, and we have discovered there are indeed differences in the potencies of their bite! Not long ago, I used some Pskem to make a garlic mayonnaise, which was tasty but had unforeseen after effects on my poor husband, especially. Pskem is an awesome garlic cooked, so tasty it makes you want to eat the pan, too, but eaten raw it is an angry biker gang in the GI tract.

Love the poem. “Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet.” Perfect.

I just caught a three part video webinar (about ten minutes each if that) by Tara Brach on the NICABM site. Good stuff!