I Need Your Help Again

QUESTION:

I needed to connect with you once again. I am down and I have your tools. Everything is helping that you so graciously guided me through. I had many years of personal empowerment from your support. But I have hit another bump in the road where I feel over whelmed and lost. I would like to connect by email or phone with you to share what I am now facing.

I am looking to re-ground myself and I need to get my footing. My home is now too big for me to manage so I am selling it. My dog has been ill. I would like to stop my suffering about his suffering. As I am writing to you he just threw up.

RESPONSE:

It is easier to connect via email.

QUESTION:

Thank you for getting back to me. I am keeping a journal and it is helping some. But each day I wake up feeling like I cannot go on. Each day it is very different, never the same fears or worries of depression. I have never felt bad in the morning before--this is new. I fear that my brain is drying up and because of that there is no hope. That might be true but me worried about that happening is only hastening the brain loss. Well there it is. Today in a nut shell. Thank you for listening.

My aging is taking my full attention. I want to get back to my earlier feeling of well-being and I know it is in me to do it but it is not happening. I am under the weather. I am either depressed or fearful and up tight. What do you think?

Warmly and appreciated,

ANSWER:

           

All of us have fearful moments. If we are worried about brain loss, we should remember that the brain has the capacity for neuroplasticity, which means that the brain can produce new neurons and neural patterns indefinitely even in old age. However we have to exercise our brain just the way we do the rest of our body. Anything new helps to renew the production of neurons in our brain. If you’ve never done crosswords before, now it the time to start doing them. If you’ve never played card games before, now is the time to start doing them.

For instance, I have just taken up the piano which is very difficult for me. When I feel discouraged that it is hard to learn something, then I remember, good then this is really going to help improve my brain.

And if I let my fear escalate into a panic attack I put on my thinking brakes immediately and turn from thoughts about how afraid I am to some nursery rhyme or some inspirational poem. I have committed many poems to memory just so I have something to think about instead of my fear. For instance those I have learned include the 23^rd Psalm, the Gettysburg Address, Desiderata, IF by Rudyard Kipling, Crossing the Bar by Tennyson, Milton’s sonnet on his blindness and Invictus. The next thing I’m going to memorize is the Ten Paradoxical Commandments by Kent Keith.

And I try to remember that I am not alone. There is always someone, some human being that I can connect with in some small way, say hello to--even if it’s only the person standing next to me in the Post Office. We should not allow negative and downer thinking. As soon as we catch ourselves doing it, we can chose another thought and some more positive action, no matter how humble.

A. B. Curtiss

THANK YOU

Thank you for your leads. I will try crossword puzzles. I also do drawings. I am going to start the piano.  Staying busy also helps me. I still use

‘Green Frog.”

I have my business and a couple are moving into my house and that is bringing up my mood. I also have been listening to the 4 agreements. I want to be better but just when things are getting better for sure,then I cast my eyes on things in the far off future and loose all my feelings in my fingers and legs.

Or I notice an cut on my finger and then see my aging bringing me more and more challenges. I’ve just got to find a way to be a better person for myself in this aging process. I want to feel loved, safe and secure and that I can handle suffering like my mother did. I need a community of friends that are going through the same thing that are helping each other to stay strong.

I must admit that I have times I feel really good but I see that these times come from events outside of myself. I want to find peace and comfort from just being alive. I want my comfort to come from inside me like Eckhart Tolle 

When asked what life is; a great sage said that life is like the fragrance of jasmine carried on the spring breeze. I want that kind of awareness. Then I want to be able to handle my emotiond so I can least  retutn to a  neutral state of conciousness. I want neutral to be enough if that is all I can reach.

I do not want to need a party.  When I freak out, I want to be able to calm myself.
I do not want my fear to take me to depression because I cannot handle my fear.
I want to feel my healing growing inside of me rather than the decaying. I want to respect myself.

I have found that listing wants helps me. Thank you for giving me things that really work. One think I know it is that it is... dealing with it works better than not.

FINAL COMMENT:

Sounds like you are headed down the right track. Just remember that when you are going in the wrong direction the smallest positive thing you can do turns you 180 degrees in the right direction. A small positive action or thought has great power. It’s not the greatness of the thought or action that matters. A simple acknowledgment of your intent to do better is enough.

 “I’m doing my very best today, even though it seems I haven’t accomplished much. I have taken a step in the right direction. Tomorrow I may take two steps forward or even backward. No matter, right now I am intending to be better. And I I will concentrate on my intention, not my fear.”

A.B. Curtiss