Final words on Screaming for Help!

Continued from Part Seven…

It’s been a long journey, and while the healing is not yet over there is now light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m still seeing the physio once a week, still doing the exercises daily, still waking to stiffness and pain (though it subsides relatively quickly with massage and movement), and still unable to do a down-dog!

Update: I did actually do one this morning, and it was painful in my shoulder, but not my elbow! What I found though was that bending my elbow while weight bearing is still quite painful. Still, I did a down-dog! Woop-Woop!

But I’ve made huge strides in healing, and have faith that I will make it through to full recovery.

I learned that I am innovative! When there were things I couldn’t do one-handed I found a new and sometimes hilarious way to do those things.

I learned that people want to help, and I learned how to ask for help when I was unable to innovate new ways to help myself.

This experience blessed me in so many ways.

I had been frightened of hurting myself, as a single person in a still sometimes foreign country (not always understanding the ins and outs of benefits, rules, policies, etc…) and as someone with a cat who relies on me to be here to feed him.

This was something that had played on my mind. “What would happen if…”

Now, I’ve been there. And everything was OK. Not always comfortable or by any stretch easy, but OK.

The people around me rallied in ways that I never imagined possible.

I felt the Love from those around me, some people who were no more than acquaintances before the accident stepped up, pitched in, and helped me in ways that left me humbled and filled to the brim with gratitude (and often tears).

Some of them stepped up, helped, and faded back into the background, happy to have done their part for another fellow human.

Almost more than the friends who came to my aid, these Good Samaritans showed me how easy it is to give Love to those in need without becoming attached. I appreciated this lesson and am looking forward to returning the Love in the same fashion where needed in the future.

The greatest blessing has been the new friendships or the strengthening of other friendships as a result.

These beautiful souls showed me that it’s OK to ask for help, and that when asked, help will be forthcoming.

Asking for help was hard for me, it still is hard for me, but when there were no other options I asked and I was never refused. This knowledge touched me so deeply and made me feel less alone, not only in my town and my life, but as a human being in the world.

It was one of the catalysts that reminded me that we are one Love, and that we are all at our essence only Love.

My heart is full.

There were also friendships that fell away during this time, and that was OK too, it felt like the natural order of things, and I felt Love for the experiences we had while we had them. I wrote a post on how crisis helps release what could have been a heartbreaking experience much quicker and so for the timing of those friendships that fell away…I am grateful.

The whole experience felt like a re-birth of sorts.

The shedding of things that no longer felt right, things I’d wanted to be free of for some time and didn’t know how to be free.

There have been so many “A-ha” moments during this journey, so many things that I’ve learned about myself and what makes me happy or unhappy, and I feel as though I have shed much of the muck I’d been holding onto that was not serving me at all.

Some of the highlights:

Unfulfilled at my job.

This I knew, I knew it, I could feel it eeking into every area of my life tainting it with frustration, uncertainty, and unhappiness, but I felt completely stuck in it.

I am absolutely certain that the fall and break in my arm was the answer to a prayer to not be at work when a change happened that would cause the already full workload to double.

And I wasn’t there, I have been blessed to be absent for the first three months of this change. Not the greatest way to do it, but I believe 100% that the fall and the break was so severe because my desire for a solution was so desperate.

And…Like the story of the man in the flood who drowned and raged at God for not helping, when God said “I sent you two boats and a helicopter” or however it goes, I’m also certain that there had been other gentler options ‘sent’ to me over the months preceding but I had not been able to see them through my desperation for a solution.

It took me nearly four weeks of pain and recovery to shed the ‘sludge’ of feeling hopeless and stuck. I’d been feeling stuck with little hope for many months, years even. I had no idea how to move forward.

After four weeks away from my main source of hopelessness, I finally had an epiphany moment and realised that there are many options available to me. Even options I’d previously discounted as ridiculous now appeared not only viable but exciting.

Epiphany:

I didn’t have to earn what I was earning, or buy a house that cost a certain amount, or even live in the same province, because the country – and really the world – is open to me. Earning considerably less on paper in a town where I could afford a beautiful home means I would be much “richer”. Seems laughably simple but until this happened, and I had some distance from where I was, I couldn’t see it.

I had been stuck on numbers, on proving my worth by the amount of yearly income, or the worth of my house. Yet that income did not allow me to buy a home in this town, it wasn’t enough. So in reality the dollars meant nothing, I was financially poor and I felt it.

This realisation also showed me how easy it is to get “stuck” in an unfulfilling job when vacations are slight. A week is not enough, you barely shed the stress from the week before, and you’re back at work again. Two weeks was not any better, nor three. It was no wonder I was never feeling like I’d get “out”, I’d forgotten what “out” felt like.

Four weeks before I remembered that there were options. Four weeks. This is how we have a society of stuck people who feel unfulfilled and unable to see the light.

I’d bought into the notion that I was “older” now and needed “security” whereas my younger self would have blown that job years ago, and moved onto something more interesting.

Love Learning!

I like to learn and grow, I like to feel challenged and to change things up, I like courses, and new opportunities, and contributing my thoughts, ideas, and knowledge to enhancing the workplace.

Yet, I was caught in the longest job I’ve ever held and the most stagnant job of my life with no development and growth potential and where my thoughts, ideas, and knowledge were not welcomed in the environment at all. And I live in a town that is financially unviable without the job. Not ideal!

It appears as though I will be returning to this job in a few short weeks, though in my heart it does not feel possible or logical as the next step in my life. Perhaps something will come along before then, or shortly thereafter. Perhaps there will be a peace in returning that will allow me to see the next steps more clearly.

Right now I do Love not working so much I’m completely content where I am now.

I am an introvert.

Well I knew this too! Though the knowledge and acceptance of this is only fairly recent for me (within the past couple of years).

I have reconnected with the feeling once again that I LOVE being at home, that I am happy to be at home for days on end without leaving my premises, and would be overjoyed to be able to work from home so that staying in all day is an option!

I recharge by being alone, sometimes sitting in absolute silence for hours on end, just at one with my thoughts.

A day filled with nothing but my thoughts, a book, and my keyboard is a very good day for me. A great day even.

Some days, over the past months, I have wondered how I ever fit work into my day, when Reiki, meditation, writing, reading, soaking in a bath, the joy of cooking, taking a stroll, all together take up a good 8 hours of my day.

It’s true, I’m not sure where work could possibly fit into my lifestyle – at least work outside of the kind of day that fulfills my heart, soul, and spirit.

I realised how important it is for me to have ample time to be alone, to simply “be”. I’ve not felt as happy, as calm, or as full of love and loving energy for years – incidentally, since the last time I quit an unfulfilling 9-5 and travelled for several years!

This means that I likely won’t find fulfilment in a 9-5 job and will need to find another way to sustain a living. Unless I can find a 9-5 with great people, in an environment where advancement and learning is a constant, and with a door I can close (!), then 9-5 is not the answer for me. Certainly an open office concept with no space for an introvert to recharge is never going to jive with me.

I have made peace with this notion, and am now open to the possibilities.

I feel a bit like I just met me again for the first time after a long period of distance, “Hello, my name is Ali, and I am most fulfilled be-ing…”

Writing is vital to my health.

Again, not a new concept for me… more a reconnection to how deeply this is true for me.

Writing gives me the most joy of anything that I could do, or have done, in my life.

All types of writing, such as writing for the novel series I’m working on, which started last year with the NaNoWriMo, and any and all non-fiction such as this blog, or my journals, or the stories I am working on for memoirs. All of it feels good to me.

Some days I tap into that “zone” and laugh, cry, feel awe, or feel indignant, right along with my characters, or have those profound “wow” moments when writing philosophical thoughts, I feel like the luckiest person alive to have been granted the gift of those moments. I never want them to end and I greedily want more like them.

I have found that if I go for a few days without writing, or reading, then I get grouchy, uncomfortable in my own skin, and irritable. It’s only when I pick up the keyboard and start writing again, or read something that makes me think about writing again, that I realise what has caused the unrest within me.

This is a good reminder of who I am at my essence and who I need to be to feel fulfilled. Published or no, I am a writer.

Learning new things is important as is following the good feelings as they occur (a.k.a. reconnecting with Love)

During this time of healing, growth, and away from an unfulfilling job:

• I have become a Master level Usui Ryoho Reiki practitioner.
  • I start my day, every day, with a Reiki and meditation practice and I feel more connected than ever before.
• I am part way through a Reiki for Animals course as a supplement to above and to further enhance my knowledge of Reiki and its uses.
• I have started creating meditations that I would like to hold as classes.
• I am over half way through A Course In Miracles (which I started earlier this year) and am gaining in enlightenment.
• In alignment with the point above, I am reconnecting with the works of Neville Goddard, Abraham-Hicks, Louise Hay, Dr Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, Dr. Joe Dispenza, and others.
• I am about to start a web development course, both for use on my own sites, and with the potential to start an at home business to create web sites for others.
• I have decided to have a baby through artificial insemination and am just beginning to walk that path. (More on this in another post!)
• I have decided to move to Nova Scotia next year.
• I am also open to the signs along the way if another option presents.
• I am following signs and working out my next steps by how I feel, not by what “makes sense”.
• All of this is about me reconnecting with myself, with Love.

Letting Go…

And perhaps most importantly, I’m not holding too tightly to any “plans” allowing my intuition and feeling to guide me from this point forward.

I have an idea of how I would like my future to look, such as a house in Kingston, NS (Or NS in general), two to three children through birth, adoption and/or foster care, to be financially independent so that I can be a stay at home mom, and do only what feels good to me: writer, Reiki practitioner, meditation teacher, website developer perhaps, and potentially running a wellness centre.

Building the picture in my mind of the house, family, financial freedom, and occupation of my time is a wonderful inspiration. However, I understand that holding tightly to the details is not helpful and closes me off to potential opportunities that would be equally as fulfilling.

If Kingston, NS, turns into anywhere else on the planet, that’s OK with me. If the family I desire comes to me in some other wonderful way, that’s OK too. And if financial freedom looks like a 9-5 job that I actually enjoy and allows me to shine, then I’m not going to complain!

Reiki, meditation, and writing are already a part of my present so will continue as long as I feel good about them into my future, but if at some point they feel more like a burden than a blessing, then I hope I won’t need another broken bone to shed them!

Feeling full of Love, feeling happy and fulfilled are the only goals I have at this point in time, and I want to carry those with me into each and every day.

This is what I have learned during the three months of healing, with many thanks to an excruciatingly painful broken elbow I have connected more deeply with myself, with Love.

Warm smiles and Love,