my personal integrity, honesty  and ethics. 
Its amazing to me how many co-workers and bosses that I've had are willing to comprimise on these, and how annoyed that they get when i turn out to be a stickler for ethics even when I seem like such a free-spirit kinda gal!

also, cheesecake.  its also amazing what passes for cheesecake with some people... when you eat the cheesecake that I bake, you can listen and hear your arteries slam shut!

~peace
shannon

my children are aged 26-35.   They live in Utah, CA, WA, and Thailand.   So, whenever I have been able to see them all in the same room at the same time, I cry with joy.


~peace

craziness!!!!

so, instead of going to see/hear the Dalai Lama when he was here in Seattle, I was in a hospital bed. I ended up there after a little series of poor choices of words when talking to the consulting nurse. All I wanted to know is if I could stop taking my migraine medication abruptly without any unwanted consequences..... a few hours later I was strapped into an ambulance. Its 5 days later, they still haven’t decided if I had a heart attack. I felt a lot like it was ‘much ado about nothing’.

I do know that I haven’t felt well for the last month. Well, a lot of the time I have felt from bad to terribly terrible. But not life-threatening type terrible. No tests so far have been conclusive one way or the other. My mysterious heart.

The did have to ask ‘the question’ when I was in the hospital about if I wanted to be resuscitated. Not so much. Not that I thought that would be an issue last weekend. but, I do have my passion pink DNR bracelet on. Ya never know.

i had a thought.
(I've been deep in migraine land, so haven't been around lately)

anyway, my fabulous idea is that we have an annual
International Fair Day

this would be just one day when everything is fair.   So then no one would say "Life isn't fair"   It would be "Life isn't fair.  Except for April 21"  or whatever.  Or "who said life would be fair on any day other than April 21?"

Of course, thinking about it more, I realize that this concept could cause International problems.   We might try to get someone in say, Japan, to be fair to us on their April 21 as opposed to the April 21 that would apply according to our own time zone. 

I still think its a good idea. 

I do try to be fair to everyone all the time.   Maybe not always with myself as far as self-criticism and all that. 

ok, its not a perfect plan.   I'll work on it.  

I am listening, again, to Pema Chodron's cd set "don't bite the hook" and she speaks about not being able to tackle the 'big things' until we can deal with the ' bourgeois' obstacles like having a person who is too tall in front of you at the theatre, or getting a flat tire in your Mercedes, or your flight from New York being 15 minutes late.  that is so true.  how can i pretend to love and embrace the faceless 'others' when i am still shaking my fist at people who have more than 10 items in the grocery line, or who are taking too long to order their complicated beverage at Starbuck's?  While Hillary supporters are shouting at Obama supporters?  While Greenpeace members are shouting at NRA members? 

so, to answer the question, I'm working on being more compassionate with the slow grocery checkers and the people who use the HOV lane with only 1 person in the car to pass up traffic.   I can still do what I do at work, making a difference in the lives of mentally ill addicts but I can't pretend to be playing a big game if I'm also contentious down the road at the mall when i can't get a parking spot.

~peace

well, i am going to jump in and say that as a champion adapter, i believe that there are some things that should not be adapted to.   I won't adapt to wars, poverty, unkindness, bigotry, dishonesty, littering, oppression, unchecked anger, water-boarding, etc. etc. etc.  I will continue on my path, working toward my own 'improvement' and having a positive effect on the world around me, but no, I don't plan on adapting to the world as it is now or the world that seems to be coming.

~peace

that you do survive.  the heart mends itself to some degree, it doesn't go back the same as it was.  its important to know that you survive and feel love again, and that comes with doing it a time or two.  years ago I worked on a suicide prevention hot line, and it was so sad when teenagers called to say that they were suicidal because their girl/boyfriends had just broken up with them.  hopefully, you become softer and not harder. 

it would be when my 17 year old daughter got pregnant -      there was a lot going on that was bad but the worst part started toward the end of her pregnancy when we found out that there was something terribly wrong with the baby.  The adoptive parents bowed out (couldn't blame them) when we found out that she would have only 50% chance of surviving the birth, and another 50% chance of living a year if she survived the birth.  It was a missing piece of a chromosome.  It causes various things, including many medical ailments & disfigurements, and profound retardation.  Plus, I had my daughter to think and worry about.   This was about 12-13 years ago.  The thing that I recall  helping me the most was reading Jack Kornfield's "A Path with Heart."  I don't know why, it just was there and saved me.  (the baby survived, although she does have terrible medical problems, and is profoundly retarded.  the adoptive parents who bowed out, bowed in again a few weeks after the birth.  Chloe is an angel, obviously not in this life for herself.  my daughter grew up and had two beautiful boys)

 

about pain

I am in a lot of pain.  this particular round started slowly on Weds and has been building daily since then.  In my neck.   which gives me an awful headache and some nausea as accompaniments.   As far as I can recall, I never had this particular sort of neck pain before my car accident in 2002.   It gets painful every few months, but nothing that approaches what it is now for several years.  that isn't the point, though.

A lot more years ago, I was thinking about what would be a fitting thing to put on my gravestone. At the time, an apt saying was "boy, she could really take the pain!" meaning physical, mental, spiritual, etc.  I seem to be able to ‘take' more pain than most people are.  Quite an achievement, aye?

I was raised by a mother who didn't and doesn't believe in emotions, or especially expressing them.  unless you are her and you are angry.  then its ok.   but, the rest of us are not her so emotions are a terrible sign of weakness. 

I remember once when I was about 4.  I had fallen out of my bed, and then split my eyebrow open on the frame of my bed.  I was bleeding enough that I needed stitches, but I was afraid to wake my mother up.  I remember sneaking into her bedroom as quietly as I could (and. believe me I knew how to be quiet!) and stood there by her side of the bed, bleeding and in pain but being afraid to wake her.  Was it worse to bleed all over the floor or wake her up?   While I was trying to decide I guess the feeling of being stared at finally woke her.  We all ended up going to the hospital and getting my stitches.  I didn't cry though.  I didn't cry the next year when I broke my arm either.  (although I never rode the red stick horse that threw me off again) 

my dad cried at birthdays, father's day and Christmas when he opened his gifts.  My mother made fun of him, of course.  she called it ‘blubbering'.   (I learned to open all gifts hiding behind a chair or the couch or in my bedroom in case I had some uncontrolled spontaneous emotion that could possibly be the target of her ridicule) 

this is not meant to be a list of all the things that I have born (some literally) without complaint.  I know that I am and have been extremely blessed in comparison to a huge amount of the world. some of my pain has allowed me to be more understanding of others who have been to hell, or who are still there.  I've been to the place more than once where you think that its better to stay numb than feel anything ever again.  But I came back. 

So what is the point of this?  I don't know yet.   I'm hoping that I will continue and find it.