Puzzle Pieces of Life

This morning, after I made my "to-do" list for the day, I began to feel tension fill up my shoulders, the back of my neck, and up into the back of my head. Oh, joy. Did I just create a chain reaction of resistance in my body? Isn't that what tension is? Unlike other times when I just had "flare-ups" with no known cause, I was very aware this time that I was resisting many of the tasks I wrote on this list. But once the tension came on, I was stuck with it. 

I might as well tell you what I've been thinking about this last week.

I've been comparing my life with jigsaw puzzles only on another level than what I described in the chapter titled "Jigsaw Puzzles" in my memoir, Appearances.

In November of 2015, during Black Friday, Amazon had sent me an email that their Amazon Fire tablet was on sale. I bought it. I absolutely LOVE it! Immediately, it found all the Kindle books I had on my older Kindle plus the Audible books I purchased. However, I rarely have time to read any Kindle books. I am too busy reading all the posts on Facebook along with all the emails I get in between trying to get all the tasks on my to-do list done. I have a bookcase full of books I rarely get to touch.

I get Facebook and emails on my Fire in a different format than on my computer which makes it easier to browse through them. I still have to return to my computer to share certain posts onto one of many Facebook pages I manage, but I can quickly check on family and close friends. It can't do EVERYTHING my computer can do, but it does a lot. 

While everyone else is using iPads and more expensive tablets, I am satisfied with my Fire. And for relaxation before bed, while I listen to an Audio book, it has jigsaw puzzles for me to do. You can do the puzzles at multiple levels of complexity 35, 70, 140, or 280 pieces. I started out with 70 and advanced to 140. I also do the same puzzles over and over again with the hope of being able to complete them a little faster.

I have never played a video game, but I'm sure these puzzles are an equivalent. I'm addicted. They allow my mind to zone out. When I am doing the puzzles, I'm unaware of my thoughts. Perhaps this is not a good thing. It's important to be aware of your thoughts so you can steer undesirable ones into positive ones.

When all the tasks on my to-do list get overwhelming, I have to go for a walk, visit a neighbor, shift gears... or do a puzzle. Maybe more than one puzzle. At night, when my brain won't shut off, I can do a puzzle or two as well. Oh-oh. Could I be developing Electronic Puzzle Syndrome?

Puzzles. I could easily divide all my tasks up on single puzzle pieces and then try to fit them all together.

For a while I went from writing lists to writing tasks on little sticky notes. Then I needed a change and wrote individual tasks on little pieces of paper. Recently I started with lists again. Maybe not a good idea.

With puzzles, I get to see what the finished picture is before I get started.

I have all these pieces (tasks) I've been taking on (volunteering, researching, studying, writing, promoting, publishing, etc.) but I can't see how they are all connected. Should they be? Yes, I know, "should" is one of the 10 forms of twisted thinking. I'll have to let that go.

I want to know... what does my finished picture LOOK like? Self-confidence? The feeling I get when the knowledge I acquire ends up helping someone I know or will soon meet? 

Is there a way to eliminate the pieces that don't belong in my picture? And if 140 pieces is too complex and stressful, what if I made my life a 70 piece puzzle instead? Or a 35? Or are there many finished puzzles with similar shaped pieces?

All the puzzles on my Fire tablet have the same shaped pieces even though there are different pictures so after awhile I become more familiar with them even though they are different colors and patterns. After I learn everything I am trying to learn right now, will it all become easier? Like the puzzles?

And then I saw it. Page 258 in Vianna Stibel's Theta Healing book. (Yes, I'm studying Theta Healing right now, too. -- Ooh! I am actually reading a real live book!) 

Vianna describes the Indigo child as follows:

"In major decisions an Indigo can become almost flighty. This is because they are born with many traits of an artist. They are easily confused about what they want to do in life, assuming that they have to pick only one specific career."

This has been me my entire life! No wonder!!!! Then I started to read more about Indigo Children. (Yes, more research.) The more I read about Indigo's the more I found me in this category of human beings. 

Years ago, when I first started to read information about Indigo Children (because I have extraordinary nieces and nephews as well as an extraordinary son), I had never entertained the notion that I could be one, too, which includes the following additional characteristics: 

I have always been sensitive to energy and hypersensitive even neurologically (with a label of Fibromyalgia). I was empathic as a child and took on all the intense emotions of my family members before I was old enough to realize I had been doing so. While other kids were being mean and pulling pranks, I never understood why. Weren't people supposed to be good? I felt like I landed on the #wrong planet and withdrew into my own little world.

Oh dear, now I'm getting caught up in adding another Label to my existence. But at least I really like this new one!!! It explains so much!! It makes me feel so much more NORMAL.

Does anything in my post resonate with you? Maybe you're an Indigo, too? Or a Gold, Silver, or Rainbow Child? Please comment below.

What's in a Label?

Whenever I felt that there was something wrong with me, I wanted a label for it to feel validated. I accumulated a lot of labels (mostly with abbreviated letters) such as “PMS” for Premenstrual Syndrome, “EBV” for Epstein Barr Virus, “CFS” for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, “FMS” for Fibromyalgia, “ABS” for Adrenal Burnout Syndrome, & “PTSD” for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Maybe someone was onto something that by saying the entire words it would have too much of a negative effect on a person. Some of the labels I acquired were too complex to be abbreviated such as “Spondylolisthesis” and “Osteoporosis”. There is currently no abbreviation for High Cholesterol or Mitral Valve Prolapse.

Every body part has been labeled. Every function of our bodies has been labeled. Did you ever stop to think about how perfectly our bodies were formed? That each cell in our bodies has their own intelligence? That individual groups of cells form organs? That all these organs form our human body? That our bodies are not solid? How many times did you read that our bodies were something like 80% water? And that our bodies express themselves physically just like they express themselves emotionally? And that the adverse labels we get for our symptoms has a negative psychological affect? This was a huge wake-up call for me.

According to the holistic doctors I started to go to, most of the symptoms which I got labels for were secondary to energetic and organ imbalances in my body. The goal in Holistic medicine is to treat the CAUSE vs. the symptoms. Menopause? How about hormone imbalances that affect my mind, emotions, and my ability to cope. I started on a grand experiment after being told that all the ‘afflictions’ I had been labeled with were merely symptoms of underlying nutritional needs, eating foods that did not harmonize with my body, and energy imbalances. Just by strengthening my body’s ability to handle STRESS, and learning to replace the old dysfunctional psychological tapes with empowering ones, a lot of symptoms would go away. Didn’t I write about this in ‘Appearances’?

Then I let challenging events in my life pull the rug out from under me every time because I had not learned how to balance and empower my inner spirit. And while I type this, how better to explain it than the repetitive accidents I kept having… beginning with the fall off the stool in Delano when Dennis up and left, followed by all the accidents I kept having on the farm and at Silvia’s house.

I had tried many different avenues in the pursuit of optimum health, including Ayurvedic, Chinese Medicine, and nutrition in combination with Kinesiology. Each one of these avenues were focused on balancing physical in-balances which still kept me focused on what was wrong that I needed to make right. What DIDN’T work was the conventional medicine route that found labels for the symptoms of every different ailment I was dealing with and getting medications for each of them. And then I realized that the Holistic approach was doing practically the same thing… for me, anyway.

What I really needed to do was get on a regular exercise program, meditate, do Reiki on myself, eat wholesome foods, drink more water, and visualize the cells of my body as happy colorful orbs floating freely through space; and TRUST my body to heal itself. And while I was doing all of this, get some real true-grit psychological counseling to change the emotional/mental dysfunctional patterns I felt were imprisoning me (yes, Bo Lozoff’s ‘We’re All Doing Time’).

But do you know there is a detriment in doing that, too? There are labels for those of us who don’t seem to fit into the mainstream of society. We so want desperately to belong somewhere that when we don’t fit in, we look for a reason why. One example is Aspergers (which runs in my family) and the chain of reactions that comes with it. I believed I was unlovable because my father, who displayed Asperger personality traits, couldn’t love. We figured this out when my nephew was diagnosed with this genetic “abnormal” trait and we were able to link it back to my father and his relatives. Perhaps in this case, the label was a cure, because my nephew got some awesome therapy and counseling. Then there is ‘bi-polar’, a term used to describe people who are moody or alternate between being super energetic and exhausted. I think I was a blend of both.

Do you have any idea how many afflictions a person can end up with because of the simple belief that they are unlovable? Add to that how many failed relationships they participate in, like I did. Ultimately I have to give myself credit (something Wayne told me to do) for enduring all that I’ve endured and trust that I am much stronger than I ever thought I was. I’m still here. I survived.

Now the biggest challenge of my life is not physical. It is EMOTIONAL/SPIRITUAL. Unless I learn to love myself the way God loves me, my cells will not feel loved and I will not be able to fully heal. And because I have a stubborn streak in pursuit of perfectionism, I WANT TO LEARN HOW TO DO THIS AND I WANT SOMEONE TO SHOW ME HOW, and because patience is not one of my virtues, I want someone to show me NOW!

“I WANT TO KNOW WHAT LOVE IS AND I WANT YOU TO SHOW ME” (Foreigner)

From page 198 of "Love, Life, & God: Getting Past the Pain"

What are some of the labels you have acquired in your life? Are you willing to release them? Click on the "comments" below and share some of yours.