At the moment, I am seated on a comfy sofa given to us by dear friends who were getting a new one and knew we could use it. There is much life left in it, and this keeps it out of the landfill. Their love in offering it and bringing it over, helping get it inside and our old sofa outside, all in last summer’s heat, add to the comfy feeling of love that accompanied it.

True, there are a few worn spots, and it is not new.

Gratitude for all that it is, however, means I don’t even bother myself with what it is not!

Yes, finding the halo and getting early treatment was wonderful! I am glad for you.

Mine went undiagnosed/misdiagnosed for about twenty five years, so no quick antibiotics fix. I never had the bullseye, but I think I know the exact tick who infected me — shared inadvertently by a very loved Springer Spaniel who we lost to the disease in 1995.

I am healing using all alternative methods as that both fit my body best and was where the most convincing success stories of healing were. When the Lyme doctor I saw who ordered the tests said I would be on a high powered anti biotic cocktail for anywhere from six months to twenty years, that was another confirmation that I was choosing the right path.

Lyme has really just been the portal to healing for me, a very challenging teacher who won’t let me slack off on learning things like self-compassion. ????

I have not yet figured out how to do a time out for a rooster! Lol They are almost identical brothers — Welsummer father and Barred Rock mother. Their father’s name is Gouda. They also had a brother named Timex (because of his alarm clock tendencies), but he went a new home with a friend whose hens needed a rooster. They have at least four nephews, two of which are named, Gabriel Oak and Michaelangelo. I have to name the other two still.

Now you see why a) egg production is down and b) why we simply cannot treat the roosters as farm folk ordinarily would! Not only are we not killing them, we are praying for a new place where they will have a shelter to move to and room to free range safely. I just love watching their antics in the yard!

Thank you, Palm, that is EXACTLY what I want! Our first house was not a happy house until suffering transformed us and then, through us, the house. I took to writing verses and statements within the walls as we practically rebuilt it, and after that, oddly enough, we saw a lessening of the oddball delays and obstacles we had been seeing.

By the time we left, it had become a lovely cottage, and it was purchased by a man who fell in love with it after he hit his head upstairs on the slated ceiling while viewing it. Apparently, that was common for him at his grandmother’s house where he grew up, so it felt like home!

I am working with changing my relationship with fear, too, Ose. What a process it is!

We need to remember that — change is always a process. Too often I fret at myself for not going faster, but really, self-compassion has gotten me much farther much faster than my Push-Me ways.

Perhaps fear is simply my inner child pleading to be heard…and loved as is? I truly must admit I have historically been quite bad at listening to myself. I am learning!

I am so happy that you saw a shift in your interactions. That kind of awareness when we experiment with a new way helps encourage us to keep going, that what we are doing is good and healthy.

Thank you for being you, dear Ose, exactly as you are.

Yippee Hooray, Manda came in! Oops. Manda caught flu. Am I allowed to be grateful for your flu because it gave you the chance to stop in? (I always miss your shining presence when you take a break.)

How are your arms doing?

Thai Chili Lemongrass soup is a wonderful respiratory booster, if you can find any. I once had it burn an embyronic respiratory gunk right out if me!

Wishing you soft pillows, soft covers, warm house, and cuddly Jack Bear to restore you to health!

I have had ongoing pain for years now, too. You are right that it can narrow your focus, especially when it is flaring badly.

Good does come out of pain, thogh — through wanting to learn how to reduce it through life change, I found this site, which is such a blessing! Then last fall through wanting to get rid of more pain, I found the Headspace site and started using meditation as well. The Pain Management pack is helping me learn new ways to relate to the pain, which helps, too.

Pain is actually one of the most powerful catalysts I have had in my life to seek another answer and embrace new and healthier ways of approaching my life, pain or not. For that, I am grateful, despite being a bit dinged up. ????

Yes, dear Diane,

Oh, yes! You get it, the relaxing…then the boom!! Ugh! It meant there was never any way to feel safe, to relax, to know where to put your foot to avoid other people’s landmines. Relaxation is not possible in such circumstances.

It actually rewired circuits in our young brains to experience that mess. Those circuits then cause ongoing misfiring where we sense danger when there is no real cause expect both pain and loss when, again, there is no present threat.

PTSD studies have advanced so much farther in recent years. Also, when you add the trapped quality into the mix, be it a POW or an abused child, you get the wrinkle of CPTSD.

However, there are a number of ways to heal this damaged wiring, as I am finding of late. They have proved both the trauma damage AND the healing post treatment via the use of functional MRIs! Isn’t that beyond COOL??!?

(Sorry. I had a little Geek out moment there.)

I have found that the inability to relax, that sense of being on alert most of the time, is directly related to the tangle that makes up my pain issues snarl. One hynotherapy meditation I do has you tense your hands, feet, stomach, chest, face, and jaw, then take a deep breath and hold it before releasing. I got a real ah-ha moment when I realized the tensed up feeling was how I felt most of the time. I had never noticed that as the pain and tension felt normal to me.

I knew Anxiety ramped up my pain levels. I have lately found that a lot of stored shame from the dysfunctional upbringing and relationship triggers the rise in Anxiety, thus triggering the pain. And when I worked with the Shame as a body sensation, I learned it was experienced as Terror in my physical body. I could not understand why I experienced Shame in my body as terrified uncontrollable shaking, but I sat with it anyway. Now it makes sense as so much of the stored shame was delivered in an atmosphere of aggression.

Love the oils story. Another way we are similar! I have been annointing myself with oil I infused with Self-Heal this past summer as it deepens emotional healing. I added frankincense, too, because it felt right. I annoint my heart, throat chakra, around the eyes, and third eye, then my husband annoints the pain spots I cannot reach. The ritual is helping, I do believe.

I don’t know if any of this will help you, but I felt like I was to share it, so if not you, then whoever else! ????????????

Gentle loving hugs and the benediction of Peace. ????

Are you familar with the verse that says, “You have caught all my tears in your bottle?” It is a reference to lachymatories (sp?) which were popular many many moons ago. If you spend some time googling it, you might have some fun. I looked it up after seeing some in the museum at Oberlin and getting curious.

The idea is that our tears are so precious to God and our suffering so near to the Divine Heart that we would be worth our own tear bottle.

There is no general guideline as to what counts either. We are the only ones who deem one pain as more worthy of compassion than another or as unworthy altogether.

Pethaps that is what self-compassion really is in the end — learning to view ourselves with the eyes of Love that the Divine has always had for us.

You never see the Good Shepherd yelling, “Would you shut UP, and stop that infernal bleating already!?! You’re all right! I told you that before!”

Nope. Instead, when our scared bleating is heard off on the other side of the hill, even if our wanderings have taken us there, the Good Shepherd searches until we are found then carries us gently and with joy.

Learning to see myself with that same tenderness and love is grace indeed.

Thank you, Nancy. Part of the difficulty is that I am still healing from the Late Stage Lyme and just not up to the amount of physical and emotional effort required to make the house over like HGTV. I am happy to be managing to do housework again on a lighter level and not under pressure, but the Show Ready level is out of the question. No can do!

We also only have one vehicle which is with my husband about an hour away. That presents a snag in being able to leave with dogs in tow even if I could handle the cleaning.

My thought is that new thinking will generate new answers — I just don’t know what they are yet!