Challenges and choices

I was not sure whether to write a blog this week or not but eventually decided that it was right to do so. The last few weeks have been full of challenges, physically, mentally and emotionally and they took away all my energy and I then spent several days just resting. Unfortunately some of the challenges are still unfinished like the heating refurbishment and the shower that does not work.

My 80th birthday brought its own challenges. How was I going to cope with this milestone? Would I continue my life in the same way or would I take more time out and rest more? Dementia runs in the female line of my family and generally started soon after the 80th milestone birthday and I am very aware of this. I would not like to be in the state my mother was when she was diagnosed with dementia.

I have decided to do some tidying in my home and change some pieces of furniture for others to make it easier to store items I wish to keep. This will take some time however as the kind of furniture I like is not always available but I will keep looking. But it is a choice I have made as the challenge of putting a 3 bedroomed bungalow into a 1 bedroomed flat is very difficult.

Another choice to make is whether to continue writing blogs and possibly new books as I do love researching. Another choice is what to do with my photos. I generally get the best ones printed and make scrapbooks but I am already on scrapbook 2 this year with more photo prints on order. I do find that the time it takes to make the scrapbooks can be therapeutic and also bring back good memories.

Other choices to make are either to put myself first all the time and take care of others or help others only occasionally. I am the kind of person who will always help others so I don’t think putting them last would work. It is part of my soul plan to care for and help others.

I love to teach as well and am still doing this remotely but feel it is something I can continue with for the moment. After all we learn something new each day. I have started to take more care of myself, visits to an osteopath who does myofascial massage and also a visit to the dentist. I have started to use my etheric weaver more as well. So I am choosing to take more care of myself.

While out with my son this week we saw a butterfly we had never seen before. It was white with its wings closed and then it opened its wings and there was a wow from us both. It was a purple hairstreak butterfly. Nature brings its rewards. So those kind of walks will continue as long as possible.

Resurgence

It is over twenty years since I was gifted with Reiki but in the last few years I have almost forgotten about it. I have been busy with other things during the last few years mainly writing my blogs and books. But one day last week I was sitting reflecting on those years when I felt a surge of energy and a feeling that I must come back to Reiki. Talking about this to others I discovered that many of them were also thinking of doing the same whether it was with Reiki or some other form of natural therapy.

I have felt that people are starting to wake up to see that there can be a different world out there. We don’t have to eat processed food, we can grow our own or buy organic food. I know it is generally more expensive but what does your health mean to you? Some foods can be grown in the smallest garden if you make the effort.

I have a problem with most allopathic medicines so have to rely on natural ones and I soon discovered which work for me and which don’t. Every one of us is unique, none of us have the same chemical or physical make-up and we need to bear that in mind when choosing foods and medicines. It is the same with certain foods, which make my illness worse not better so you soon learn to avoid them.

Perhaps it is time we took responsibility for our own bodies and lives and stopped listening to others who try to tell us what to do, what to eat and what to wear. Take time to reflect on your life style. Can you find things that you can change to make your life better? Can you grow some food on your window sill if you don’t have a garden? Can you walk or ride a bike to work instead of using the car?  Can you get out into nature and walk through the woods or on the hills? There is so much you can do to lead a better life. Think about it and change what you can change.  One must be the change one wishes to see in the world.

Taking things for granted

Earlier in the week I was thinking about this blog and found a really good word for the title. Now it escapes me and I have had to use the words ‘taking things for granted’. However I was looking at what we take for granted, here in the UK at least. Most of us take for granted that we may have a job, a house or other residence, enough food and enough clothes. We take for granted the electricity and gas that power our homes and we also take for granted the water we use. Some of course have other sources of power and some even have a well not piped water but we do have water.

So what else do we take for granted? We often take our relatives and friends for granted too. We expect them to be there for us when we need them and can get upset when they don’t help. We take our public services for granted. I know we pay for them but we get cross when they don’t work. We take for granted that our politicians will do the best for us even though we know they won’t but we seem unable to get them to change.

One of the main things we take for granted is our health. Although many of us have various kinds of health problems we expect them to be dealt with by doctors and hospitals, but don’t fight for the nurses to have better pay so they can do an even better job of looking after us. But the health problem hit hard this week. I have been having a lot of pain and swelling in my hands and wrists and am waiting to see a consultant. But I have been busy sorting out lots of paperwork from years past and this has not helped. I woke up the other morning unable to use my left hand at all and my right hand only a little. Have you ever tried to wash and dress yourself with the use of only one hand and the partial use of the other? It was quite difficult and it brought home to me just how much we use our hands and take them for granted. We use our hands to wash and dress ourselves, to clean our teeth, to prepare food and cook it and to do so many other things it is too long to list them.

So what do you take for granted in your life? How do you deal with things that go wrong unexpectedly with what you take for granted? I love to read your comments some of which give me other lines of thought and different ways of perception so thank you all for those comments and keep them coming.

 

What a week!

I woke up last Sunday with a sore throat. This is unusual for me as I don’t normally get sore throats and colds. So why now? I have moved house and area and now live higher up than I have done for years. I am north west of where I was before and it is colder too. I also live near large open spaces where the wind blows strongly and brings with it all kinds of things. So how much difference does the area you live in have on your health. I remember having colds as a child but things were different in those days just after the end of the War. We were not so molly coddled either and went to school with colds and old rags to blow our noses on. Tissues were not invented then or if they were they were a luxury item like toilet tissue which was definitely not as we know it now.

So my sore throat developed into a heavy cold and then a cough and in the end I resorted to old remedies to help. An elderflower linctus  made by a friend and the old fashioned Vick vapour rub (mainly Menthol and Eucalyptus). I remember using Vick for many years as my mother rubbed it onto my chest before I went to bed. But these old remedies have worked and I am much better now.

There is something about old remedies. It is so easy to turn to the chemists counter in shops such as Boots and buy the modern version of pills and linctus for coughs and colds. But I have noticed recently that this firm are making more traditional remedies too. I feel that many people are fed up of remedies that have so many side effects that you need other medicines to help with those and so many are turning to the more natural old fashioned remedies which we know work safely. Our mothers knew a lot of these and it is good to still use them and know that they work.

Do you make or use the natural herbal remedies that your mother used? Would you be happy to share them?

 

Forgiveness

Sitting in a coffee bar last week I overheard a conversation. A woman had been waiting for her friend to arrive and when the friend arrived she said she was sorry she was late but the traffic was bad. The woman who had been waiting said that she forgave the other woman this time. So how easy is it to forgive? And what do we mean by forgiveness? A dictionary will say it is about letting go of anger towards someone who has hurt you in some way. How do you define forgiveness?

In some countries, people who are due to be executed because they have murdered someone can be let off if the victim’s family forgive them. In this country there are schemes for a victim and the perpetrator to come together and talk and also forgive each other.

Should we be more forgiving? And should we let crimes of many years ago be forgiven too?

If someone hurts you in some way and you are angry, this anger will eventually eat away at you and affect your health. This is surely a good enough reason to work with someone who has hurt you and forgive them. As a Reiki Master Teacher I have worked with many people about their anger and about forgiving others. You cannot move on unless you forgive. We are all spirit in a human body living a human style life but we must learn to be more perceptive of what we do to others and be prepared to forgive what they do to us.

Are there things that happen or have happened to you, or to others that you could never forgive?

 

Spring cleaning and letting go

A friend made a comment about my last post and the way the leaves and catkins from last year were still clinging to the trees. They don’t want to let go, she told me. For some unknown reason nature is doing what we do all the time. We do not let things go, whether they are physical things, mental or emotional things.

Spring is well on its way now and it is time to clear out all the things we no longer need. These can be items such as clothes, household goods and bric a brac. Or they can be emotional things or thoughts that are no longer right for us or even friendships that no longer work for us.

I have started on my spring cleaning already. I have lots of craft items I no longer use and knitting wool I can no longer use either because of my arthritis, so all of these will find a new home soon. As for emotions such as envy and hate, these also need to be dealt with as they can cause stress and illness if ignored. Forgiveness is essential if you want to move on and envying others can be resolved by counting your blessings, something some people never do. Letting friends go can be hard and some people fear being alone for a while until new friends arrive. But this is the way life works. Change is essential in whatever form so we can grow and mature and move along our path in life. Don’t hang onto things just for the sake of it, there is more to life than that and there is more on the way, lots of positive things too if we look beneath the surface.

Here is a photo of forsythia taken last spring to cheer us all up.