Hanging By A Moment

Ever heard people say "If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?"

There are times that failure is unavoidable, and descending into the grief of loss is, initially, a plunge into emotional hell. What follows are fear and panic, shock and denial, anger and depression. We fly in and around the fire of disappointment like frantic moths hanging by a moment.

Flying toward the flame

They were a young couple. He is 17 and she is 15. They had known each other for a year and were thinking of marriage. However, because of many problems, they were unable to do so.

One Sunday afternoon, they climbed the fire escape to the roof of a twelve story structure. Facing each other, they held hands, then they stepped off the edge, and fell to the concrete below.

When asked why they did it, the mother of the boy said, "They were too young to know that if you just keep hanging by a moment, your troubles, whatever they are, will pass."

Of course, I do not believe that all problems will pass with time. However, the mother have a point to think that most problems pass with time. It is not that problems simply disappear, it is just that with time we, somehow, manage to work them out.

Hanging by a moment is a big issue. One of the main reasons for suicide is the failure to progress from disturbing emotions. Difficulties and obstacles have ways of wearing us down. The resistance that arises and blocks our path creates stress and tension that tires even the strongest. Thus, there is a need to have a strong character and a gutsy personality to continue hanging by a moment against the pressure over an extended period of time.

However, this ability to continue on and not turn back is a condition for succcess in conquering problems. Withdrawal is a shortcut or quickie solution. Something difficult needs lots of time and sustained effort. To overcome them, it will be necessary to fight the good fight.

It takes a certain degree of maturity to understand this. It calls for a level of understanding that many persons have not yet reached. This is making connections, which is the result of awareness of what reality is all about.

People who flies where they can extricate themselves from the struggle, later on, turns to frustration and become like animals in the desert--hopeless and confused.

The truth, there is a way out.

Hanging By A Moment does not mean to sit and bear the pain. It means making every conceivable effort to find a way out. Most people "wait for someone to feel me" and take that away from me.

Image via Wikipedia

Hanging By A Moment means to bear whatever the suffering is at the moment, while being content exerting all that remains to work out the problem.

It is to be tough in handling pain and pressure, from which we also get to boot in the sense of restarting a new life. It is working solutions while praying.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Why Does Every One Hate Me? 6 steps to diffusing anger.
• Be responsible for your choices
• A Guiding Presence

Remember:

1Sam 12:16........Stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes. Luke 18:27.........The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. Num 23:19.........God is not a man, that He should lie. Has He said, and will He not do it? Jas 1:4..............But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

Climbing The Colorado Peaks

I lived in Colorado for two years, just an hour drive from the Rocky Mountain National Park.

Being in the presence of those majestic towering peaks, peaceful valleys, and pristine alpine lakes always puts me in a state of awed gratitude. Gratitude for both the beauty and the ruggedness-the grandeur of the massive mountains, the delicate, vulnerable beauty of the wild flowers, and the raw splendor of uninhabitable stretches of frozen tundra.

Our lives are similar to this impressive landscape. We all experience peaks of excitement and exhilaration, valleys of assimilation and rest, and chilling wasteland of depression and despair.

Climbing out of the pits and up the peaks is one of our main occupations as human beings. Our objective, our trust, is overall progression. For often, to reach a peak, we need to take a circuitous route that can include doubling back and losing ground. At such times, you have to keep asking, "Am I moving forward and upward?", a helpful self-awareness exercise.

Quietly close your eyes and visualize where you are in your life today. Are you climbing a difficult slope toward the top of a peak? Or are you camped in a verdant valley? Or are you struggling in a seemingly bottomless pit?

Allow yourself to be wherever you are. You are doing just fine, right now. Then, very gently, invite into your presence a supportive and encouraging Being who wants to assist you. If you are content where you are, continue to relax and enjoy the peaceful presence of your loving guide. If you would like to move out of the spot you are in, ask the Being if it will help you make the change. Agree to your Being's help and follow its guidance only if you feel totally nurtured and accepted by it.

Life is a series of ups and downs, and it is our responsibility to comfort and protect ourselves during this inevitable process. We have what it takes to become peak-conscious rather than pit-bound.

Lastly, learn to honor and accept life with all its peaks and valleys. Variety is sometimes awesome. Trust yourself even if you are in the bottomless pit. Have confidence in your abilities to cope creatively with challenges.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Gavin Esler's heaven on earth
• Embracing outdoorsiness in the Colorado Rockies

Reframe Family Pictures

Almost all us have moments in our past when we felt loved and supported. Remembering those good times facilitates healing and bolsters our belief in our own loveability.

However, if we are suffering of guilt over how we have been parenting our children, it is especially important that we accentuate our functional behavior in order to build on it. In learning to lovingly re-parent ourselves, it is a good idea to look at the family album we carry inside our heads.

Some of the snapshots will evoke happy memories and warm fuzzy feelings while others may seem more like potshots aimed hurtfully at us. A great many of our internal images were developed when we were young and had child's less-than-powerful perspective. As adults, we now have the authority to reframe painful memories much the same way we might change the frames of pictures displayed on the piano.

Give yourself some time to mentally browse through the photos you have accumulated from your past. Choose one or two that seem to call attention. Very gently become the child you see there. Even more gently ask what the child wants and needs from you.

Are you willing to fulfill the wish? If you feel loving and protective of the child, allow your adult self to comfort in the ways the child requests. But, if you do not feel good toward the child, you can bring into your mind's eye a protector who does feel love for the child. Allow this individual to care for the child.

With the help of either your adult self or the protector you call in to assist, redevelop the uncomfortable snapshot into a picture in which the child is safe and happy. Sense the feeling of that life from that viewpoint. Then absorb and claim those feelings as rightfully yours. Now, put your new memory in a picture, in a beautiful, valuable frame and display it in a prominent place.

There will be times in your life you find yourself reverting to the distressful feelings of the original picture. Move your thoughts to the new one, stay there, concentrate and remind yourself that as as an empowered adult, you can reframe your child's painful experience. We get so used to seeing these framed pictures that we eventually just accept them as reality. But if we remember they’re really framed pictures, we understand that we can reframe them any time we choose and in so doing open up a whole new way of seeing the world. We suddenly see something we’ve been looking at forever in an entirely new light.

Accentuating the functional encourages us to trust ourselves. It give us a surplus of strength we can draw on for support when we need to look at dysfunctions in our life. It aids healing process and bolsters faith for the best.

Prayer:

Lord, heal my aching heart
Give rest to my spinning mind
Keep peace in my difficult soul
Ease my pain and bind my wound
Amen.

Pampering Sarah Is Permissible

When I ask women, who seem drained, what they do to pamper themselves, many of them respond uncomprehendingly, as though I have just spoken in a foreign language.

To most of us, pampering brings to mind diapers or what we do for others. The idea of indulging ourselves is an alien concept. If it does occur, we avoid the idea because it smacks of being spoiled or selfish. After all, we've been taught to be givers rather than receivers.

Sarah, a colleague, is a workaholic and married to a man who is still a little boy in terms of accepting responsibility at home. By the time she agreed to counseling, Sarah was, in her terms, "a raving, ranting bitch." According to her, the bitchiness came from her anger at being the only adult in the family shouldering career, housework, and childcare. In the process of attempting to change her husband, Sarah had totally neglected herself and her emotional safety net was virtually nonexistent. Her nerves were frayed to the breaking point and she was lashing out in frustration.

Her family and friends encouraged her to stop working so hard, instead, to start taking care of herself and to learn to believe that she is worth pampering. It was very difficult for Sarah to let go and step into such change. With no other option, she began by allowing herself one hour a week in the luxury of a body spa. Eventually, she realized that the pampering made her more confident, rested and happy. Following that, she cared for herself in small ways, such as saying no when she feels like it, and in interesting ways, like saving money for a travel to Thailand.

Her husband and children adapted quickly. They have accepted Sarah's need to take care of her. Consequently, they agreed to take responsibility for her other chores. Sarah is now happier and healthier.

Like Sarah, Sarah Palin is a woman, and hails from a blue-collar background. In her speech to the Republican convention, Palin pointedly described her family as working-class, saying her husband was "a lifelong commercial fisherman... a production operator in the oil fields of Alaska's North Slope... a proud member of the United Steel Workers' Union." Like other women, she is required to pay attention to varied and unexpected occurrences. Thus, it is possible that the demands of the current political campaign exceed her energy, and that the $150,000 expenditure on clothing and make-up of Gov. Sarah Palin must be her way of pampering herself - coping creatively with the demands and difficulties of America's massively huge 2008 Presidential Campaign.

Weave a pampering pattern into your safety net. Make a list of ways in which you would like to pamper you, and then, start with small steps. Have the courage! Indulge! You are worthy of receiving as well as giving. Pampering and taking care of you is a healthy thing to do. You'll be better with it!