Changing The Thought "I Hate My Life"

This morning when I woke up, I did what I have been doing the last few mornings: I chose the thought "Life is good" to replace my morning default "I hate my life."

This is a vulnerable confession. This is part of my journey since losing my daughter. Choosing this new thought each morning is a challenge, but it definitely is helping me face each day more fully.

I know from experience and from my studies that all-out positive thinking doesn't really help—and can even harm—if you don't believe what you're thinking. Trapping your true feelings beneath pretty thoughts leaves grief and pain crying silently in the depths of your soul like neglected or abandoned children.

But substituting one partially-believed thought ("I hate my life") with a more positive partially-believed thought ("Life is good") can shift our focus and feelings in a self-nurturing way without denying our present reality.

It is painful for me to think "Life is good." How can life be good without Caety? How can life be good when I have lost my precious child? How can life be good when she did not get to continue living here, where she enjoyed so much of this world?

Yet I know there is a glimmer of truth in "Life is good." Family, friendships, caring for others, giving and receiving love—these are all still part of my life, and they are good.

So I step forward on that truth, that chosen thought, wincing with discomfort and effort, like someone learning to walk again as they heal from a hundred broken bones.  ♥    

The day after I wrote the above—before I even had a chance to post it—grief suddenly dropped me into a hole so dark I couldn't even see the glimmer of truth in "Life is good." 

I slept as much as I could (the only way I felt relief), cried a lot, and breathed through the intense pain in body, mind, and heart.

Eckhart Tolle says to accept everything—even to accept that you cannot accept. Some days I cannot accept the way life is. At those times, I accept that I cannot accept. No sense beating yourself up for not being able to stand.

Six days later, I am able again to awaken this morning and tentatively tell myself "Life is good."  ♥    


Photo: Caety, Stephen, and Ryan, July 2011

Life is good Beach Wave Heart T-Shirt (Pacific Blue)

Of Course I Don't Know What I'm Doing

Ever since my daughter died last November I have alternated between periods of intense pain and desperate distraction. It has taken me this long to even say or write the word "died." It sounds too final and real. I don't really know how to go on.

So of course I don't know what I'm doing.

If you've read my long and meandering blog post from July you know that I want to write about Caety. I still feel like part of my purpose is to finish the book I started writing the day she was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at three months old. And I want to share her writing with the world as well.

But I can't bring myself to enter that dark space.

So I distract myself with TV shows new and old, and write about other things, occasionally slipping in a word or two about my much-missed daughter because sometimes it just leaks out.

Most recently, a piece that started out innocently enough - Friday Favorites: What Movies Do You Love And Why? - quickly turned into a mini memorial. I should've seen it coming. Luckily, the tagline of the site I'm writing on lately is Speak Freely. Write Your World. That works for me.

So, since I am distracting myself with writing on this new addictive platform, I thought I'd share some of my latest work with readers of my blog (all eight of you).

Those of you who are writers or fans of earning money at home might be interested in these essays about my new adventure as a Bubbler (yes, you read that right):

Learning My Audience On Bubblews (And Other Thoughts About Writing)

It Takes Me Forever To Write A Bubblews Post

Sunday Share: Two Pin-Worthy Pages


I've also written several articles about relationships. Here are some of my favorites:

The Get A Good Relationship List

Relationship Ready And Receiving The Gifts Of The Wait

Do Women Really Have Too Much Masculine Energy Or Is It Something Else?

The complete list of all my Bubblews posts so far can be found here. If you're interested in writing for Bubblews, too, and want to help me earn twenty whole cents, you can use my referral link.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate it more than you know.  ♥

Photo by Ryan Myer. All rights reserved. 

Open Hearts Spiritual Direction

photo by Meagan Nicole Photography

One of the things I love about facebook is that I have found soul friends there who brighten my days with their writing and conversation, challenge my thinking and doing and being, pray and send love when I am in need, and help me find my way when I feel lost. Some of them I have met in person; most I have not.

It is a remarkable world here in cyberspace. It is a giant, enormous world, with so much love, and so much pain. Behind these screens are living, breathing men and women, boys and girls. My prayer for all is that in-person hugs and love and friendship abound. My hope is that as we encourage and teach and share with one another via this medium, we will all grow and change, and people will draw closer to each other spiritually, emotionally, and physically. We need each other. And the good news is, we have each other!

I confess that I have become a fan of those images with inspirational sayings on them that some wonderful people send through my newsfeed. A couple weeks ago I was experiencing "inspiration overload" and felt rather annoyed by them. Then I realized it was because I was taking some too seriously, and others not seriously enough. When I opened my heart to receive, I found that my heart led me to take some lightly (perhaps I didn't agree with them, or wasn't ready for them, or felt too "triggered" by them, and that's okay) and to take others deeply, thoroughly, into my being. There is so much available to us for our personal and spiritual development, and we get to choose!

So, in the spirit of spreading the love, I have created a page, Open Hearts Spiritual Direction, where I will share glimpses of my journey and invite you to share some of yours as well. I will also be posting some of those inspirational images, as I have just discovered photobucket and am finding great pleasure in discovering and co-creating meaningful works of art. :) My goal is to post a blessing each morning and each evening, reminiscent of the morning and evening vespers in monasteries and other sacred gathering places. We will have to imagine the sound of the bells.

I hope that you will consider joining me.

With love,

Melanie ♥
                 

Listen to your dreams (waking and sleeping),
Follow your heart (it's quietly leading),
Live out your passions (answer the call),
Discover your joy (feeling it all),
Open to love (let it flow in your heart),
Now is the moment (create a new start).

"The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a person’s life, to get behind the façade of conventional gestures and attitudes which one presents to the world, and to bring out one’s inner spiritual freedom, one’s inmost truth." ~ Thomas Merton 

Open Hearts Spiritual Direction Walking with you while you find your way.

To learn more about spiritual direction or to find a spiritual director in your area visit Spiritual Directors International.