I just had a very clear thought. “It’s Daughter Journey time.” And so I abide…
My dad has throat cancer. Cancer. He begins chemo Monday. I don’t even believe it. I cannot watch this man deteriorate. I watched my grandmother deteriorate with Alzheimer’s and I can’t imagine seeing my dad weak in any capacity. He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t get sick. He just gets to work, and get’s work done. In a way, this diagnosis is making him take a break and focus on himself and his health rather than the external things he spends his energy on, which is pretty much just working. Somehow working, doing something. Very similar to my great-grandfather who had skin cancer, but I was too young to understand what chemo was. I just knew he had cancer and was going to the doctor to get it treated. Looking back, that man (my great-grandfather Pap-pa) never complained either. One of his arms was grossly oversized with open sores and scabs and spots from the radiation. I never heard him complain. And to think what he was going through when I was just a little kid hanging out with her Pap-pa. And my Mam-ma! That woman is a saint to me and I didn’t realize it until after she passed away so I can’t tell her. I can pray to God to tell her I suppose.
I have always been up and down about being “proud” to be part of my family. I was really embarrassed of them for so long, and this is in addition to the typical teenage angst when everyone sucks. I mean, my mother was not setting a good example for how to live your life. It wasn’t stable. We moved a lot. Maybe that’s why it’s hard to accept the house I live in is my home. My home. My stable home. Like my counselor says, “You are the dam holding back all of this water, and you just have to keep being that dam. It’s gonna be hard. You’ll have challenges but you just have to keep being that dam.” Or something along those lines. I don’t want to quote her because I don’t remember exactly what she said. But she has said “you are like the dam; keep being the dam.” If I am a dam, then the water I am holding back involves the messages I received from my mother growing up. I am selfish. I am not good. I should act better. I should be a better older sister. I don’t appreciate anything my mother does for me. I’m talking third grade and I’m hearing these messages. Like WTF did a third grader do to deserve such nastiness? So, those early messages that affected me on a soul level are still playing in my mind today.
Why would anyone want to be friends with someone like me? I’m not good enough to be someone’s friend. Look at how I act. No one would want that in their life.
It saddens me when I read that back to myself, about me not being good enough to be someone’s friend. That I think I’m inherently bad and damaged. So this is the message playing when I’m working, trying to be creative and come up with good ideas because I’m a good word idea person–but I haven’t been lately. And I realize it’s because these messages are filling my head and causing me doubt and anxiety. Those messages are sabotaging, or trying to, sabotage the creative part of my spirit. Because I do find joy in writing most of the time. And with joy, comes God. So according to the ladies I’ve been spending time with that is the enemy trying to stifle my spirit. But God has ultimate power. So talk to the man with the ultimate power and ask Him for help. Did I just give the definition of prayer? Well, with my dad’s cancer I’m going to be praying more. I’m really going to try to make a point to pray for him, and for a few others who I know need some help. We have faith in Him who has the ultimate power, so we’re gonna chill with Him and tell him all our worries and where we need Him in our lives and He will answer our prayers. In His time; it may not be in line with what we had in mind, but it will resolve the needs we once had. And I don’t think there’s a limit to your prayer list — I can tell Him anything, as detailed as possible, with names and addresses where prayers are needed and then I’m stopped in my tracks because according to the ladies (they follow the Bible, so I suppose according to the Bible), He already knows my needs. This is something I grapple with – that he knows my whole life, but it also makes sense because whatever His plan is for the world is so intricate and involves minute interactions and connections that may mean nothing to us but they are a part of His plan. So in that case it would make sense if He knew your whole life because then he can put you where you’re needed. And where you’re needed is your purpose. These are my beliefs in a nutshell. Can anyone relate to any of this or am I just weird af? And, you know even if it is “weird”, the people who think it’s weird are probably people I wouldn’t want to associate with anyways so why does their opinion even matter? It doesn’t.
In RFT we’ve been talking energy. Energy and where my energy goes and how to harness the energy around us to change our thinking, to purify our thoughts so that they are clear and in line with our end goal, purpose, etc. – is that what we’re trying to get to with RFT? I wish I knew what I should be expecting to feel and experience by reading RFT, but I guess it’s different for everybody. There’s no play book. I’m worried my lack of meditation is ruining the whole process. I feel like if I were meditating I’d be getting so much more out of the book and out of the daily messages. It’s just so hard for me to sit still. Three minutes – I timed myself the other day. I should set a timer for 5 minutes and increase it by 1 minute each day. Then I can ease into meditating and training my brain on how to sit still and silent.
My activity level is nada. I know I need to at least start walking to get started. When I picture myself running, I think of how far I am from getting to that level. And that level wasn’t all that great. It’s not like my goals are super ambitious. My previous level was like 13-16 minute/mile just depending. I think I’ve done a 12-minute mile on the treadmill but I’m not certain. I’m feeling the nudge to work out, to move my body in some way. The easiest way I know is to walk. And strength training is important, too. I can do that with Preston. We can make a commitment – but commitments scare me. They seem so final and rigorous and not understanding that sometimes life happens. You have to be perfect to keep a commitment. The thought of that is bringing on some major anxiety. Maybe we start out slow, something I can keep to. Like workout any 3 days of the week. They can be in a row, done in the beginning, or wait until the last three days of the week. It’s totally up to me. This sounds like something I could possibly commit to doing.
If I were to tell the ladies (group of ladies from church) this they would be all about it. But according to the ladies and the Bible, the Holy Spirit is working in my life and good things are to come. I just must remain faithful during the challenging times. But like with my dad – my prayer is to ease his symptoms and his side effects while they kill the cancer. I just have so many prayers. Do I write them all down? I do have to journal for RFT and there is nothing wrong with journaling my prayers – 2 birds, 1 stone. Okay, I’m going to do that now.
Until sometime soon,
K
