What is your strength?  I receive an email with this question as the first sentence.  It got me thinking, what is my strength. There are so many meanings of strength, but what in my heart do I believe my true strength to be.

I feel like my real strength is the ability to learn.  Even at fifty years of age I still love to learn.  I don’t want to know it all; I don’t want to be so stuck in what I know that I can’t learn new ways. It has become a challenge to find better ways of enjoying life.

I feel we get stuck in a routine of how we should be instead of learning how to accept the differences that life throws at us. It is so easy for us to get stuck and not see or dream of a new and better way to look at what is going on in our lives.  I find that it is easier to accept the negative than to hope for the positive.  Why have we become so short-sighted?

This weekend I found myself internally fighting with the limited fear-based beliefs I had pounded in me.  Why do we look for the wrongs that can happen instead of the rights?  Why do we feel like we have to look forward to disaster instead of looking forward to new ways to handle the ups and downs of life? I have found that it is acceptable to bitch and complain than to express wants and desires.

I felt I had settled into my routine of life that I had to be miserable when something new is introduced.  Why can we not look at the what if’s in living positively? What is wrong with seeing a positive gain? The strength it takes not to be sucked into the bullsauce of the mundane world is an almost superhero act!

What if all that is happening,  is happening in a significant way?  Wow what a concept, huh? The mess of life is the healthy way to live.  Bam! What??

My mom was a worrier, and she had to have everything in life in a controllable way, she passed that anxiety on to me.  The rebel in me hates that I have to be in control of anything but me, myself and I.  I hate feeling I need to be one step ahead of everything in life.  I would much rather hope for the best and be surprised at the end. I claim to be the real guru of the hippie spirit.  I love being that laid back, take life as it happens, meditating selfless person! What a weight lifted when we stop running ahead in life and making sure everything goes as planned.  Control, control has become the new jail for one’s self.   Ughhh I don’t want to do this crap anymore. There is no control in a life that has only one end.

So that brings up a worry I have had for a few days.  Are we responsible for the life and death of those in our lives?  Meaning do we have the right to decide how death will happen to us?

I have a little fourteen-year-old dog, and she has been my little friend.  She is showing signs of distress, and I have a feeling it may be cancer.  She eats well, but her bowels have a hard time keeping things firm if you get my meaning. I’ve nurtured and brought this dog back from the brink of death many times.  She hasn’t been the healthiest since I have owned her.

I hate taking her to a vet because they usually cause her more distress.  I know she is hurting at times and she can’t hold her poo-poos at times.   I wonder if I need to let her go, but my selfishness and my heart won’t let me take her to a cold vets table and have her poke and prodded.  I can’t have them give her a shot and take the life out of this little body.   Do we become God and make that choice? Life is so precious, and I can’t decide for her when it is time for her to head back home.  I decided to keep her pain managed and allowing her the time she needs to decide when she wants to go home.  And that is the way it should be!

As a child we enjoy the moments, the day, the now. As an adult, we harp about how our kids should take care of those toys they have received, yet we can get to carried away in how we teach our kids to respect their stuff.  As an adult, I am finding I panic at the thought of everything.  I feel I must hang on to everything I own or have with an iron fist.   I watch as others have no issues with losing a beloved animal or watch as something they care about gets taken away. I am learning to let go.  If it is meant to be in my life, then I will enjoy it.  I want to allow that control of materialism to go.

Is it fear of not doing the right things or the fear of the unknown that we fight with when we have anything different come up in our lives? Why is change such a challenge?

Life is a lesson on how to allow life to flow. When I start to build damns of control, I find myself in a panic.  I see that I do not have to have all the answers.  It is good for the mind, the body and the soul, to go back and be childlike, it helps to fight off the unsure. I can learn it as I go.  I don’t have to run out ahead of life and try to control what will be no matter what.  I am okay with sitting back and watching as life unravels.  Life is happening the way it is supposed to happen at this moment.

WWYHS