THREE DAYS LEFT (actually just realized that it is only two days left, so much for my orderly…

THREE DAYS LEFT (actually just realized that it is only two days left, so much for my orderly countdown)

Is it crazy and totally wacky that I put the truth about my upcoming mastectomy on an auto reply email? Why the hell not, in honor of my grandmother’s silence for fifty five years and likely the shame around losing a breast at thirty seven years young and not being able to talk about it ever, here’s to her. Here’s to the countless other women and men who have not felt like they could speak openly about radical life changing events hiding behind our walls of Pottery Barn catalogues and the illusion of the perfect lives some magazine has told us we are supposed to be living. Raw honest truthful dialogue is what frees us from these illusions. It is what makes us human. It is what connects us.

I have seen this in the countless stories I have heard from the thousands of women my business has had the privilege to take care of in the privacy of a treatment room where the safety of the comfort opens endless floodgates of joys, heartaches, trauma and life coming at us.

What has been confirmed for me in these last days before ZERO DAYS LEFT is that everyone has a story and for some reason my story, my writing has given permission for others stories to be let loose out of the box they have been locked up in. This really makes my heart sing because I know that the depths of my relationships have become deeper and more sacred because of my need for honest truthful dialogue. I just simply don’t enjoy superficial happy talk bullshit relationships anymore. Maybe it is my age, maybe it is my cancer, my traumatic events I use my writing to become more in touch with, but what I do know is that life is short and too meaningful for me to get wrapped up in crappy connections that don’t make me feel good.

One of the exercises I created for myself many years ago that gets me so pissed off when I forget to apply it is this energy exercise. After or during or even in the anticipation of an interaction with someone (or something) I notice how it makes me feel. A three (3) means energized. A two (2) means neutral and a one (1) means depleted. Obviously we can’t avoid all ones in our lives, but we definitely have plenty of 1 experiences that we can avoid or change. Sometimes we forget or simply don’t even consciously understand that we have choices in almost every experience. ‘1’ experiences, ‘1’ connections are not healthy or helpful on a regular basis, but for some reason, maybe it is self worth or martyrdom we allow them into our lives and keep them there like an anchor stuck in the rocks. Ones don’t have to be just human connection, it can be something in our homes we look at everyday that we don’t get a good vibe about.

An example for me is flowers. When someone brings me flowers, or when I buy them for myself which is a lot because I love them, it is a definite 3, happy, energizing and joyful as I cut them and put them in a vase I love and in an area of my home where I will get to see them all the time. As they start to fade, as their petals start to turn brown or fall off, they are less energizing to me, but not quite a full blown 1. I usually leave them standing just a little past the 2 phase, but I can tell when it is time to throw them out because they just don’t give me the same pep in my step anymore. None of this is really in my face conscious, it is just a feeling. I am not walking around my house numbering things, I am just using the numbers as a way to easily define how much we have the choice to control. How many things do we have in our homes that are these types of things? Photos, gifts given by someone we don’t enjoy anymore, items that cause pain or anger, but yet for some reason we don’t release them.

This is what I mean. My question for me is why do I hang on to them? Even if I don’t want to throw it out, can’t I at least remove it from my daily interactions?

Removing 1’s from our lives is not always easy, but why aren’t we all consciously at least trying to add more 3s? I am baffled by our human nature to gravitate to 1 thinking instead of surrounding ourselves with beautiful and gorgeous 3’s.

Are we not deserving? What is it?

Here is a quote, my very 3 friend, Chris, sent me by Eckhart Tolle that sums it up nicely:

“When you complain (1 thinking), you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation, change the situation, or accept it. All else is madness.” Sing it aloud! My madness was accepting bad behavior, but my challenge was that it was family. What are you supposed to do with family bad behavior? The reality is that I would always feel really shitty, I mean dark and headed into the abyss after the interaction. I accepted it, but after while it just wasn’t helpful to either of us so I tried to change it but creating clearer boundaries, having a better plan when I knew there would be an upcoming interaction, but after while that wasn’t working so leaving it was the only option for sanity. In the spirit of total truth, it has crossed my mind that the reason I got breast cancer in the first place was because of this interaction. This of course is an entirely radical thought for many so this is one of my thoughts that I just will put on the box for later.

Today I am a 1. I am tired. I have created too many appointments, I have driven too much, so many friends want a piece of me before I go in on Sunday or a piece of me when I get home. The intent is really divine and kind, but I don’t have anything left in me except to write so after tonight I am shutting it down. I will write and post, but the phone is going off and the emails and facebook and texts will go unchecked because it is the only thing I can do that will bring me back to my joyous happy 3 where I am most comfortable.

Every person I have met and spoken to has been so lovely and I can feel the energy surrounding me as I embark on this frightening experience. I know I am cared for and cherished by people who love me and this gives me my magic carpet when I can’t come up with my own. Writing gives me a total 3 immediately. I can not explain where all of the words, the stories are coming from other than a very open heart and when my heart is this open, the creative source is the most brightly lit.

I hope that this particular story today gives everyone who reads it a pause to look around their worlds at the things and the people and even the food we eat and realize that every one of these interactions requires decisions and choices that only each of us as individuals can make for our wellness. As I am writing this, one of my favorite songs came on the radio by Madeleine Peyroux called “Instead” from her album Bare Bones.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/instead-lyrics-madeleine-peyroux.html

How perfect in its serendipitous timing. Serendipity happens when my heart is wide open to the infinite possibilities ahead. I know there are many.

“Instead of feeling bad

Be glad you got somewhere to go

Instead of feeling sad

Be happy you’re not all alone

Instead of feeling low

Get high on everything you love

Instead of wastin’ time

Feel good ‘bout what you are dreaming of

Instead of trying to win something you never understood

Just play the game you know eventually you will you both look good

It’s silly to pretend to have something you don’t own

Just let her be a woman and you’ll be her man

Instead of feelin’ broke

Buck up and get yourself in the black

Instead of losing hope

Touch up the things that feel out of whack

Instead of being old

Be young because you know you are

Instead of feeling cold

Let sunshine into your heart

Instead of acting crazy chasing things that make you mad

Keep your heart ahead, it’ll lead you back to what you have

With every step you are closer to the place you need to be

It’s up to you to let her love you sweetly

Instead of acting crazy chasing things that make you mad

Just keep your heart ahead, it’ll lead you back to what you have

With every step you are closer to the place you need to be

But it’s up to you to let her love you sweetly

Instead of feeling bad

Be glad you got someone to love

Instead of feeling sad

Be happy there’s a god above

Instead of feeling ‘lone

Remember you are never on your own

Instead of feeling sad

Be happy that she’s there at home

She’s waitin’ for by the phone

So be glad she all your own

Get happy…

Watin’ for you by the telephone…

Don’t get…

Back home.”