Question Mark or Exclamation Mark

If you & I give ourselves a couple of quiet moments to just sit down, take a really deep breath & just be, what kind of things come immediately to mind afterwards?  Maybe it is the getting ourselves at times to calm our minds in the first place that is the bigger challenge.  Do we try to edit, rationalize, analyze or just be okay with the thoughts that come to us after we spend time in quiet reflection?  My experience is that most times I have a zillion reasons why taking quiet time cannot be a possibility.  And for sure, once I finally do enter into quiet reflection I have over the years tried to indeed edit, rationalize & analyze the feelings.  Also, I have denied feelings at times because honestly I have either not felt strong enough or ready enough to meet them head on when they are the truly uncomfortable feelings.  They are the epitome of cutting through all the cluttering yet ultimately unmeaning thoughts & feelings & actions & getting to what really matters.  The what really matters thoughts, feelings & actions are at times difficult to meet head on because often it can mean that we must make changes to our lives for one thing.  It is the easiest thing in the world to cling to the old ways of thinking, behaving & being.  Is our first response to change resistance?  We are each beautiful originals so we each get to answer that question for ourselves.

The thing that I learned vividly many years ago was that I cannot outrace my feelings.  That is really just another way of saying that it is impossible to run away from our inner most feelings.  It is a little like burying a treasure ourselves & knowing exactly where it is yet denying that we do in my experience.  Emotions can be exhausting at times, right?  Dealing with loss I have found to be an ongoing challenge that I decide each & every time to meet head on in the present.  To say that the loss of people dear to us is heartbreaking is an understatement.  For me though either numbing out or trying to run from my feelings surrounding loss does not work at all.  I have learned to find the way that best honours my loved one to stir in some love in quiet, behind the scenes ways that celebrate their lives.  And I let myself be as sad as I am for as long as that takes.  At the same time though, I always find that there is a natural magnification of the beauty in the world as well.  That is the gift that I have found within not denying, editing, analyzing or running away from my feelings during times of loss.  It can be really easy to miss the gifts of beauty.  I have found that to be especially true if I am too busy trying to run away from uncomfortable feelings.  It is when I go ahead & meet the feelings head on that the moments of beauty are as vivid as a neon sign. 

Illness I believe is loss as well.  When we or someone we love becomes chronically ill, we can be met with feelings in most cases of profound loss.  Everyone is an original so we feel this loss in different ways & deal with it in our own way.  I know that I battled my feelings big time when I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.  It is not as easy as saying that I had to get to a point of accepting that I have type 1.  Instead, I found that I had to work through my feelings surrounding this disease that I loathe & finally let it be what it is.  That might sound the same as acceptance but I kind of don’t think that it is.  The reason I think that way is that it is more of a continuous letting it be what it is kind of thing.  In other words, I did not wake up one day & just come to accept it.  I find that some days are better than others with the type 1 beast & my feelings surrounding living with it.  Every day though on some level I make a decision to let it be what it is without any denial that I have it or knowledge that I have to manage the crap out of it to better my health odds, analyze the disease or my feelings or try to run away from feeling the full range of emotions that come with fighting type 1.  There are so many illnesses besides type 1.  My heart goes out to anyone battling any type of disease as well as the families that support the battle warriors.  The battles that we each fight together with either type 1 or any disease is way beyond merely exhausting I believe. 

Right now I feel sad, strong, exasperated & grateful all at once.  The sadness is the most natural feeling in the world because a few days ago yet another friend lost her earthly battle to the cruelty of cancer.  I have lost 3 friends to the cruelty of cancer in the past year.  Each of these 3 friends this year though have had in common unshakeable faith, grace & an unbelievable gratitude & nurturing way of caring for others even more profoundly as they became sicker & sicker.  They each had a peace because of their unwavering faith.  They each said in their own beautiful ways that we are more, so much more than our bodies.  Every single act of kindness that these ladies received during their fight was met with indescribable gratitude.  Each friend gave a life time’s worth & then some of love & strength to all of us left behind & that to me is absolutely amazing.  It is hard to be sad & stranger yet it seems even more difficult for people around us at times to just let us be sad.  Maybe some people cannot handle being around others who are sad.  Other people have their hearts in the right place in that they want to cheer us up because they want to see us happy.  Is it natural to be happy all the time though?  For sure we can appear to be happy all the time.  The key word is appear.  How real is that?  We each answer that question for ourselves.  For me, I choose to live my life in bold colour with every single natural emotion.  If someone wants to cheer me up this week that is very nice yet ultimately I know I am sad because I lost a friend & that is sad.  For me it is the most natural thing in the world to feel sad about that.  I do not at any time feel just one emotion at a time though & I would think that this is true for most of us.  I mentioned that I also feel strong.  Many of us have differing beliefs especially where faith is concerned.  My steadfast, unwavering belief is that there is a God & there most definitely is heaven.  The strength that I have I know does not come from anywhere inside myself.  The strength is given to me through God’s grace & I am indescribably thankful for this.    All I know is who & what I receive profound, never emptying strength from. 

At the same time, I feel exasperated.  That is the closest word that comes to mind yet it still does not quite capture the feeling.  I feel exasperated that all these illnesses are not only still with us today, but worse than that that the numbers of people being diagnosed with serious illnesses appears to be increasing instead of decreasing.  I ask myself why that is often especially since there are brilliant minds working together on the cures.  Where are the cures?  Where are they?  People are suffering…moms, daughters, sisters, fathers, sons, brothers, friends, neighbors & our human family.  Someone has got to find a way to cure chronic illnesses.  That is what I want to hear about when I turn on the news each evening.  I personally do not want to continue to hear over dramatic, gossipy nonsense on the news but rather I want to hear about cures to diseases. 

Finally, I add with an exclamation of emotion that at the very same time I feel big time gratitude.  Remember how I mentioned earlier on that if I feel all my feelings for what they are that the gift comes?  At least one gift like that came yesterday.  I was having yet another medical procedure.  While that was happening, my husband was in the waiting room to drive me home afterwards.  My husband has been working double shifts for 6 weeks & was able to take yesterday off to help me.  That is the first thing that I am hugely thankful for.  There is no one that I feel more comfortable with at my best & worst times than my Dear Heart husband.  He understands the things I tell him & he understands when I am quieter than usual that this means something too.  He gets as well that there are times when I will blurt out a joke when I am stressed yet sees beneath the laughter that I am freaking out.  He sees beyond the surface & I love that big time!  At one point when we were driving to the procedure, in my exhausted, stressed state I told him that we may have to pull over because I could be sick at any second but that I would let him know.  He said, “Are you serious?”  Before I knew it, my response to him was, “it is an exclamation mark not a question mark!”  Then we both laughed big time.  It was great to have a little moment of decompression with the laughter together.  I was so thankful to have my husband with me through the good & bad times & all the times in between.  He is so calm & steady as it goes so it really is a blessing to be with someone who provides such an “everything is going to be alright” feeling especially since I am more of a react to everything sort of gal.  Here is something that I love sharing with you too.  While my husband was waiting in the waiting room, he told me that something lovely happened right before his eyes.  He told me that 2 older gentlemen showed up to the office.  The one gentleman was driving the other fellow.  The fellow who was the driving the other chap said that he was happy to change his plans around that morning to help the other guy out.  The other guy said that he really appreciated this especially since he had just asked for the ride the night before.  My husband thought they were likely related.  To his surprise the gentleman receiving the ride said to the gentleman giving him the ride back & forth that, “it is so thoughtful of you to drive & wait on me.”  The driver simply smiled & said, “That is what next door neighbors are for.”  What a kind & loving act.  From personal experience, I can say too that we have the best next door neighbors that you could ever be blessed enough to have.  A couple of years ago I had a non diabetic related emergency & ended up having to go by ambulance to the hospital late at night.  Our next door neighbors were over in no time offering to babysit for us no matter what time of the night it was.  My husband was so grateful because that way he was able to come to the hospital shortly after I arrived.  When we moved to our home just over 7 years ago, I was expecting our third son.  These same next door neighbors came over to introduce themselves & in the same breath said that if I went into labour & we needed a babysitter to look after our other 2 children until my parents could get here they would happily help out.  There is such goodness in people!  We can get into a funk sometimes & have some unfortunate interchanges with folks that we would rather not but I find those unfortunate interchanges are overshadowed big time by the kinds of examples like those ones of neighbors helping neighbors.  There are lots of examples like that & I know for sure that I do not want to ever forget the importance of appreciating & loving others all the time.  The story that my husband shared of this selfless neighbor helping out at the hospital really was timely on so many levels.  First of all, I had been not quite myself on Monday afternoon after I was nearly hit head on while driving to pick up our sons.  Thankfully our sons were not in the car with me at the time because I was literally shaking as I imagine a lot of people would be.  An impaired or distracted person driving a large truck drove into the wrong lane & was coming straight for me & I had nowhere to swerve to as there were only 2 lanes (his & mine) & he kept driving straight into me & I beeped the horn like crazy trying to get him to realize what was going on.  Somehow at the last second he just barely missed me.  I was certain that I was about to be hit by his truck.  It freaked me out & my reaction was to feel angry with this person who could have hurt both of us.  The feeling of that stayed with me even though I did not want it to.  Then after my husband shared the story of the waiting room with the neighbors, my perspective returned & as well as gratitude.  I realized that it is kindness that counts & it overshadows other moments big time in my life.  I have so much to be thankful for & I am thankful…big time!

Beyond thankful, I choose to live my life as an exclamation mark & not a question mark.  That means to me embracing all emotions head on & being okay with them.  It means that I never question the meaning of this or that or wonder if there is a meaning to life in general.  Instead, I live my life knowing that there is meaning & I “get” what it is for me & I live that life gratefully with an exclamation mark!

My heart’s hope for you is that throughout all the feelings that you go through that you have kind family members, friends, neighbors & even people that you don’t know well that remind you that the good outweighs the bad every time.  And may you & I remind one another that feelings are natural & that we can choose to live our lives as an exclamation mark with our full range of feelings instead of a question mark!

Smiles,

Saundie :)

Let's all be exclamations of kindness in the world.  The world needs more of this!  Next Monday's sharing is "The Ankle Bone is connected to the Collar Bone."      :)