Friday, December 22, 2023

Look up and Around Instead of Down

 

Don't focus downward at what isn't. Look up and around at what is. 

Written December 21, 2023 ( yesterday)

Sometimes...it just feels like the world is out to get "me".  Rationally, and spiritually, I know it is not but my mind just chirps in there to say, "See, I told you so. Life is going to ensure that you never catch a break."  Difficult things happen, they do, and they are not personal.  I know that.  I do. Yet, it feels so personal sometimes dragging my focus and attention down into it. 

My cat gets  sick right before Christmas and I am in the existential crisis, I go in whenever a pet I love gets sick.    "What do I do?  Do I break the bank, possibly traumatize the animal that is so easily traumatized, to do whatever I can in an attempt to save her, knowing full well, as in the past, that there is a good chance I won't save her? Or do I let her go, naturally, the way she seems to know how to go?" What is best for her?  Nature is obviously telling her, "Go hide somewhere until I am ready for you." She is listening to that inner wisdom that is so much greater than any veterinarian science could be. 

Yet ...if it is just a furball caught somewhere it isn't suppose to be, causing all this, or something else that can be easily treated...I need to do what I can.  The trouble is...we don't know what it is. ...we may never know what it is. What do I do?  I am taking her back to the vet in a bit and I am hoping that she can appreciate my concerns and help me decide what is best for my cat. 

On top of that a family member had a serious accident and fractured his leg.  We are happy that it wasn't more but as a result we had to cancel the trip we had booked together in January. Though I didn't have the opportunity to focus too much on the future, now that the potential of getting away from all this is gone, I am missing what I never had. My daughters are suffering, as well, and I don't know how to help them. Christmas is so hard for them.  This cat thing might be too much for one of them. I don't know how to approach that. I am not feeling well ...know I am doing too much in order to stay afloat financially...costing me physically. The recyclables I put out this morning are blowing across the road and I do not have the time or energy to go out and pick them all up. Sigh! So today I seem to be focusing downward. All energy is being pulled into this little black hole of negative thought related to "me" and my personal story. 

It is what it is.  All these events will change and move across my moments like the cardboard boxes are doing across the neighborhood and they will not last. They have nothing to do with "me" unless I make them. I need to lift my gaze up and away from the magnetic pull of this dark hole and look at the rest of space...the infinite, expansive canopy of Life that this black hole is just a tiny insignificant dot on.

There is so much more than this.

I share here in confidence that no one...other than those responsible for putting up the false high numbers on the stats page...are reading this.

All is well

December 22, 2023...Today

My gaze  is moving, as are the actual events that I have been reacting to.  Had an amazing vet...very holistic and family centered in her approach, empathetic to the financial strain on pet owners,  and willing to go over and beyond with that in consideration.  After ruling out so much it was discovered it was an impacted furball causing the problem...now in the colon...meaning that it is making its way through the GI tract and likely out. Not out yet...so we are not completely out of the woods ... but we will be , I am sure. And man...I was almost ready and willing to follow my gut and let my cat go. Sigh. I will be picking her up at three.  :) Sure it cost some but the problem was found this time and more than likely resolved by now; it could have cost more, and I don't have to worry about another trigger for my daughter. I am more than willing to pay for the amazing service I got. Happy.  

Awe...I am reacting still, aren't I?  I am reacting to the turn of events...as if external events  and not me, are responsible for my inner state of being. Just as the cat getting sick was not responsible for my sadness, her getting better is not responsible for my relief.  I simply closed up and opened up in response to what my mind was telling me about these events. The sense of undisturbed peace is and always was in me.  I was just not feeling it when I allowed mind to pull me down into the dark hole because I closed up to it. And when I open up again, I feel it.  Life events are just triggers, that's all. It is the personal mind that tells us to open and close, that keeps our gaze down on little me's dramas etc. Without the personal mind's involvement in "the tide of affairs of men", there would be no reactivity, no closing.  We would simply stay open. 

Thought I would share.

All is well 


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