2024-Why Struggle? Week 31 - My Practices - Part 1 - LEGging

Why Struggle? podcast with Barbara J. Faison shares ideas, insights, and simple practices to live an intentional life and thrive. Enjoy meditations, affirmations, and practices along with musings from daily living. This is an episode about my Learning Evolving & Growing.

Transcript

Greetings and welcome to the Why Struggle Podcast.

I'm your host,

Barbara J.

Faison,

And my intention with this podcast is to offer ideas,

Insights,

And inspirations so you can live life better.

Greetings and welcome to 2024 Week 31,

My Practices,

Part 1,

Legging.

Life is so much about what we focus our energy on.

Dr.

Wayne Dyer's quote is one I remind myself of.

When given the choice between being right or being kind,

Choose kind.

Yep,

It's also one of my guiding principles.

In Episode 2024,

Week 24,

I talked about my beliefs and life philosophies.

One of them I call learning,

Evolving,

Growing.

Legging,

Baby,

Equals practice.

I hope you enjoy this excerpt from my book,

E-book audiobook,

Why Struggle,

Life is Too Short to Wear Tight Shoes,

Called Learning,

Evolving,

Growing,

Legging,

Baby,

Equals Practice.

Chapter 26,

Learning,

Evolving,

Growing,

Legging,

Baby,

Equal Practice.

When I initially wrote Why Struggle,

I was convinced that life was about discovering yourself.

I even named my publishing company In Search of Publications based on that belief.

The longer I live,

The more I believe that we are here to discover,

Create,

And accept ourselves at each stage of life.

Aren't humans lucky?

We can make a different choice anytime we decide.

We don't have to have a bad day.

We can choose to have a bad moment.

Again,

Even a bad moment is a conscious choice.

Notice the use of words,

Choose,

Conscious,

Decide.

I believe words are powerful and I choose mine carefully.

I have always been very curious.

I have always been a creative thinker.

I have always enjoyed sharing information with others.

My curious nature has propelled me down very interesting roads and for that I am truly grateful.

One of my traveled paths has been the road of meditation and creative visualization.

For years,

I dabbled with quiet time and struggled with making it a part of my daily practice until 1995.

I was so desperate for peace of mind that I pledged to spend at least 10 minutes in silence in the morning.

In a few weeks,

I was more relaxed and able to accept things I could not change.

I tried many forms of meditation and began using visualization exercises to add more focus.

I usually sense things or hear thoughts versus seeing images.

The daily practice has helped me become calmer and more confident.

Meditating daily greatly changed my life.

Simply put,

Meditation makes me a better person for me and for the people around me.

Taking a few minutes to sit and be still allows me to gain clarity and make better choices.

It's not during meditation that I receive my ideas.

It is because of the daily practice of meditation that I am more open to sense,

Hear,

Or feel something that may be helpful.

The practice of meditating regularly opens you up to opportunities you might not see otherwise.

When I wake up in the morning,

I usually have tons of ideas running around in my head.

I know it is because I planted seeds at night before retiring and simply by doing meditation or deep breathing,

I have a garden of ideas waiting for me to share with the world.

My morning ritual has changed over the years based on where I am and what I choose to focus on.

Generally,

I include some type of meditation either guided,

Silent,

Or walking along with verbal affirmations and gentle stretches.

I have also started a practice of life scripting where I proactively write about my desires in a journal.

Most mornings,

I walked Lacey,

My furry sister,

My 12-year-old Yorkie Poo who moved in with me when my mother came to live with me in May 2012.

I've moved away from so much planning and now I set clearer intentions and move in a specific direction based on my intentions versus sticking to a specific plan.

As a former planner,

I'm still working on this.

I have also learned that just when you think you have some control over life,

Life changes and you have to adjust and go with the flow.

I had no idea how much my life would change on the morning of September 11,

2001.

At 7 40 a.

M,

I received a call from my mother who lived in Albany,

Georgia which was about 200 miles away from where I lived.

My mother has never been an early riser so my heart initially jumped when I saw her name on the caller ID.

I immediately knew something was wrong.

Mom told me she saw blood in her stool.

I took several deep breaths and started to tell her what to do.

I don't remember the details but I do recall that at one point she stopped talking.

Later I found out that mom had passed out.

I called 9-1-1 from my home in Stone Mountain,

Georgia and was patched through to 9-1-1 in Albany and an ambulance was sent.

Mom's neighbors were amazing and helped my brother and I stay calm while we both packed to get to Albany.

I know my years of meditating helped me get through that experience.

After several lengthy hospitalizations over four months,

Mom settled into a rehabilitation center in Atlanta and moved into my home three months later.

Prior to that call on 9-1-1,

My mother had never had a major illness so experiencing pain was new to her.

My mother maintained her beautiful spirit and energy over three years during some very challenging times.

After years of avoiding dialysis,

Mom decided to start treatments in September 2014.

In December 2014,

I married T.

D.

Robinson and I now have two sons,

Dwayne,

12,

And Tyrell,

22.

My life went from being a single woman to having a mother,

Her dog,

A husband,

Two sons,

And all that goes along with these blessings.

I believe my mother wanted to see me in my new roles as a wife and mother.

I felt her loving spirit watching over me as she adjusted to being away from her home,

Church,

And all she knew back in Albany.

My friends loved my mom and she truly blessed so many people while she was on this earth.

I had the chance to learn how to cook food I had no interest in when mom tried to teach me as a young girl.

My husband is glad I learned how to make many southern dishes like collard greens,

Turnip greens,

Speckled butter beans,

Mixed with black-eyed peas,

And others.

Mom used to make a great sweet tea with cinnamon and mint and she should have sold the recipe to someone.

I had a had an appreciation for being in the kitchen that I would never have had as a teen.

Thank you God for this blessing.

Taking mom to doctor's appointments,

Dialysis three times a week,

Grocery shopping,

Shopping,

Holidays,

And just daily living are memories that will stay with me forever.

Mom would always have to know the names of everyone that she met when she was at the doctor's office or in the hospital.

She knew how to make you feel special and radiated such love and warmth.

As much as she didn't enjoy dialysis,

She embraced it and was a bright light at the center with the patients and staff.

We had a rhythm to life and things were flowing smoothly.

I went into the office twice a week and took her to dialysis on the other days and my brother also helped with the scheduling.

Mom rarely complained about anything.

It just wasn't a part of her nature.

She'd mentioned that she was tired of dialysis a few weeks prior to her final hospitalization.

I went home right after work on July 29,

2015.

Listening to my personal guidance system is what got me home instead of going to my usual sound vibration meditation class.

When I arrived home,

Mom was on the sofa and I asked how she was feeling.

Mom admitted she was still having a pain in her neck shoulder area.

We went to the emergency room and she was admitted to the hospital that night and remained in the hospital in the cardiac care unit,

CCU,

As they tried to stabilize her blood pressure prior to her surgery.

While she was in the CCU,

Mom made more friends with the doctors,

Nurses,

Nursing assistants,

Other family members of patients,

And the cleaning staff as she learned and remembered their names.

The doctors and fellows that checked on her were amazed at her energy,

Spirit,

And enthusiasm for life.

Her surgeon called her a young 80 and agreed to the surgery after evaluating and watching her zest for life.

On Wednesday,

A week after she was admitted to the hospital,

Mom had surgery.

She had complications while in surgery and we were told she coded four times.

Her surgeon was thoughtful,

Compassionate,

And honest with us as he told us that they were unable to close her stomach and the 24 hours after the surgery would be crucial for her recovery.

He told us he would be very honest with us as they monitored her and she was put on 24-hour dialysis.

Slowing down and paying attention is crucial to life and I'm glad I was able to notice all that happened next.

On Friday morning,

I went to walk Lacey as we do daily unless the weather is inclement.

Lacey refused to walk.

Talk about timing.

I'd left my cell phone and as soon as I went back in the house,

The surgeon called to say he needed to speak with us.

I knew what he was going to say.

I called my brother and waited for him in the CCU conference room.

The hospice nurse and social worker came into the waiting room and I had to smile when I saw their names.

The same as two of my co-workers and spelled the same way.

Kelly with an E and Meredith.

My mother was surrounded by her family and a caring team as she transitioned due to complications after surgery on August 7,

2015.

The next day,

Lacey was back to her usual active self and we walked the neighborhood.

I was on the phone with a friend talking about how grateful I was to have had my mom with me for three years when a beautiful butterfly landed on my wrist.

I smiled.

I felt it was my mom's spirit letting me know she was okay.

Many of my friends also saw butterflies around this time,

Often by their doorway.

My mother,

The sage of life,

Touched so many lives and her beautiful presence is still felt when I hear her words of wisdom from my family and friends.

I am eternally grateful for having my mother with me for over three years as I learned how to navigate my new life as a wife,

Caregiver,

And mother.

Listening to mom's loving and encouraging words were like a salve on a wound when I felt discouraged or unclear of which direction to go.

Slow down.

Take your time.

Stop running around like a lizard were some of my favorites for my mom.

Mom's dog,

Lacey,

Is a beautiful reminder of her spirit every day as we head out on our daily walks.

End of excerpt.

Since I wrote this in 2017,

Lacey has also left this world.

I learned so much from that beautiful soul about slowing down,

Noticing simple things around me like a flower blooming,

And being excited when you see someone you love.

I still have my morning practices which now usually include meditation or breath work and gentle movement using qigong,

Walking,

Or going to the pool for a water workout.

I heard recently that we make around 35,

000 decisions a day.

That's a lot of thinking and deciding.

Slowing down to think about the kind or right statement from Wayne Dyer helps.

It requires being fully engaged with life and the moment.

How can I be kind or more kind in this moment?

Leave a comment where you're listening to this podcast or an observation or reflection.

Reviews

It is lovely to hear how grateful you are for your time with your mother. A real description of “precious moments.”

This was just so moving. Thank you for sharing about your journey with your Mom. So beautiful.
Blessings 🙏💕🦋

Outstanding experience for me. I’m so grateful. Slowing down, appreciating each moment, accepting and being led instead of forcing and rushing choices and actions … so important. 🙏🏻