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My Walk on the Wild Side

My walk on the wild side spanned the past eleven days, encompassing not one, but three walks. How am I defining wild? I’m referring to a natural state, untethered by conventional rules. However, it doesn’t mean unruly.

The Basis for This

I’ve always been a very spiritual person, whether sitting in church as a child, enthralled by the light streaming through the stained glass windows or walking alone in the forest. I have a deep, abiding belief in God and His plan for me. This belief extends to a network of spiritual guides, helpers, angels, and loved ones who are always with me. Intuitive thoughts guide my life and brought another loving soul my way recently, The Healing Hummingbird, Meredith Johnson. She performs shamanic and reiki healings. Furthermore, I was led to engage her to heal three aspects of my life.

The House First

How did I know the house needed healing? First, it felt heavy. Second, there were so many electrical disturbances during Zoom calls and even phone calls, I felt the house needed  clearing. Although Meredith normally used Zoom for this, we decided a phone call was more stable. I have an app, Otter.ai, which both records audio and creates a text file. With my iPhone on speaker in one hand, I carried my iPad with my other hand. Otter on the iPad recorded all the information and messages Meredith relayed to me from Spirit.

One concern was the numerous animal heads on walls. The bull elk communicated to Meredith that he felt crowded and needed a space just for him. Afterward, I moved all the stuff elsewhere. I feel calmer and Mr. Bull Elk looks happier to me.

Consequently, now the house feels calmer, my electronics are much more stable, and it even helped me talk to Wayne, my husband, about his feelings during his stressful recurrence of cancer.

The Dogs Came Next

My second walk on the wild side was the shamanic healing of our dogs. We have three; Daisy, Dynamite, and Sugar.

Daisy – the American Bulldog

Daisy, a young dog, arrived in Wayne’s Georgia hunting camp years before we married. Her rear right paw had been mangled in a trap. Of course, Wayne took her in. He was unsuccessful finding her owners and brought her home with the intention of finding a good home.. You know where the good home is – here.

Daisy – Before her Shamanic Healing

At the time, Wayne placed her in the dog kennel with Dubba, the male Brittany. Being a bulldog, Daisy is a physically powerful breed, not the best choice for an elderly household. But the most difficult trait was her barking, almost nonstop. Meredith found all her chakras were closed, except the throat chakra, hence the barking.

Daisy – This morning I had to wake her up!

Since her healing less than five days ago, the barking has all but stopped. Furthermore, she is much calmer in all ways.

Dynamite – the Beagle

Dynamite was bred to aid deer hunting. Before coming into our household, she had lived in a communal, raised, kennel with a pack of beagles. Her name alluded to her incredible stamina and tracking ability. Dynamite is sweet and loving, especially toward me, but she appears to be stubborn. In actuality, she had energetically stopped up her ears to protect them from all the noise in her young life. Also, she showed Meredith that she was trained with a stick and hand signals. Now I use hand signals to direct her. She responds more quickly to my requests and seems even more loving.

Sugar – the Brittany

Finally, we have Sugar, our three-year-old Brittany. Although I knew she and I are very close, I didn’t realize how close. When I’m away from the house, if I am distressed about something, Sugar can feel it, becoming anxious too. We have an energetic cord that binds us, which was mostly healthy, but there were some dark spots in the chord that made Sugar overly anxious. It was especially noticeable when I arrived home. She would emit a little cry as she ran circles around me. Now, she is calmer, happier, no longer crying when seeing me after I come home from grocery shopping.

My Healing

My walk on the wild side was so healing and informative, I’m going to write a separate blog about it. I invite you back here next Friday for the full story.

Continuing to Heal,
Dawn

Finding Joy When Life is Stressful

Finding joy when life is stressful seems impossible. Yet these are the times joy is most needed.

How I Found My Joy

Inspiration for joy came to me in many different ways. All these ideas have one thing in common – taking action.

  • Connection with positive friends
  • Looking for beauty in nature
  • Noticing synchronicity in everyday occasions
  • Asking for help

Connection with Positive Friends

Although I’m a caregiver to my husband and elderly mother, I also choose to surround myself with positive friends. This is the primary way I find joy when life is stressful.

One example is a nearby cousin, Tom, whom I’d only seen at sad occasions during the last year. His brother and parents passed just before and during the pandemic.

Look for L. Anderson, my grandfather

Tom called me to ask a favor of helping him deliver his car to a mechanic shop located between our respective homes. He enjoys eating out and offered to take me to lunch in gratitude. Our conversations centered around sharing past adventures and our mutual interest in the family genealogy. We made a pact to discover the location of our great-grandfather’s home in the late 1800’s.  We spent a Saturday afternoon at the local county historical library, pouring over platte maps.

Looking for Beauty in Nature

During 2020’s restrictions, I discovered nature in my yard. It was wonderful to visit the many plants, some that I had installed specifically to attract butterflies and birds. In contrast, the declining health of my husband and mother pulled me farther out into the world of nature.

Although I walk every Saturday morning with a gardening friend in the gardens of Bok Tower, this week I twice answered the call of a wilder place. Last Sunday I went to a local state park and took my dog, Sugar. The pain in my arthritic knees reminded me that I have walking poles hidden under my husband’s hunting camo in the garage.

When I decided to head to Bok Tower’s wilder side, Pine Ridge Preserve, I dug out the poles, cleaned off the cobwebs and brought them with me. As I used the poles to steady my stance and distribute the force away from my knees, I thought, “Why have I ignored these tools hanging in the garage four years!”

Noticing Synchronicity

There have been so many instances of synchronicity, it’s hard to know which to share. Mostly, I’ve been drawn to reach out to like-minded people through my online groups.

One such person is Miggy Rodriguez, of Infinite FlowInfinite Flow. I’ve known her over a year, liked her Facebook comments both on our private groups and in our personal pages. Finally, I reached out and we had long telephone conversation. She asked me where I lived in Florida. Although she lives in North Carolina, her father lives right here, in the same small town I live in. And her sister literally lives off the same street as me. That’s extreme synchronicity.

You might wonder why that brings me joy. It’s rather simple really. For me, synchronicity is proof of a higher power guiding and helping me.. helping you.

Asking For Help

This has shown up in myriad ways. Not only have I asked friends for help navigating the complex medical world of my husband’s cancer, I’ve learned how to ask for help in small ways too.

Now is the time of oak leaf drop in Florida. I asked my landscaping person to help me by blowing the leaves on our circular drive into piles. When I checked on his regular lawn care tasks, I found him raking the leaves into piles. We worked together to get them into a garbage can.

When you ask for help, joy is doubled. Both people benefit in this giving and receiving exchange.

Final Thoughts

This coming week, consider finding joy when life is stressful. It’s a combination of a choice in your thoughts and taking positive action.

Smiling,
Dawn

Three Tips on Finding Your Values

There are many, but today I’m sharing three tips on finding your values. This step is crucial to living a fulfilled life. For me, I had vague ideas on what was most important to me.

The Three Tips

  1. Understand the concept of values
  2. Explore your personal values
  3. Hone in on your top three to five values

What Are Values Exactly?

I want to be clear, I’m talking about personal values that serve as the basis for our goals toward achieving fulfillment and ultimately our life purpose. This article on Physiopedia.com is an in-depth explanation of personal values and beliefs.

Furthermore, values are what you feel is important to you.

How Do Values Affect Me?

If your thoughts and actions are in synch with your values, you are happier, that is, you are calm, centered, content.

Conversely, if your thoughts and actions are based on the values of others, you may be anxious, unsettled, jittery. Empaths are often unduly influenced by the values of others. My blog about empaths will help you discover if this is your reality.

How Do I Discover My Values?

Here is a list of values with further hints on using it. Now, let’s get to it!

  • Gather a notepad and pen or pencil
  • Find a quiet place and sit upright
  • Close or soften your gaze
  • Take three slow cleansing breaths
  • Relax your neck and shoulders
  • Sink into your hips and feet
  • Notice how your body feels
  • Slowly open your eyes and start reading each value aloud
  • When a word resonates somewhere in your body, write it down

My Three Values as Example

Here are my values; Honesty, Tranquility, and Purpose

If I follow these values in my thoughts and actions, I’m extremely happy and carefree. It’s fairly easy if I’m alone and in complete control of my environment. Rather, since I don’t live a monastic life alone, I often struggle to live these values.

Let’s see examples where I’m successful:

  • Honesty: I use my love of creative cooking to create a healthy, gluten-free, dairy-free salad for lunch.
  • Tranquility: While caught in Interstate-4 traffic, I tune into the Spa channel on Sirius XM, smile, and calmly allow merging traffic to, well.. merge.
  • Purpose: Quiet morning time is spent meditating and writing my blog.

Now for the opposite:

  • Honesty: Feeling stressed, I open my overhead kitchen cabinet where ‘fun foods’ like wasabi peas and dark chocolate are stored and grab something, stuffing it in my mouth before anyone sees my loss of control.
  • Tranquility: While caught in Interstate-4 traffic, I tune into the 70’s on 7 channel on Sirius XM, pound my palms on my steering column, and switch lanes over and over to ‘get ahead’.
  • Purpose: Quiet morning time is spent checking email, all my social media channels, reading newspaper headlines and getting sucked into someone else’s drama.

Is There a Theme Here?

Absolutely. The theme is self-care. Once I discovered my values, all I needed to do was practice self-care by respecting myself and these values. And yes, I fall off my self-care regimen all the time, forgetting to honor my values. Above all, I start again.

May you explore my three tips on finding your values and use the list of values to discover a calmer way to live with ease.

With honesty, tranquility, and purpose,
Dawn