I find it interesting that at least a few of you have had issues with vertigo/balance problems lately because I've been having the same problem. I'm fine as long as I sit in one position, but as soon as I change positions (standing to lying down, lying on by back to lying on my side), i get moderate to severe vertigo for a few to several minutes before it settles down.
Odd that so many of us are having that problem... ?
Calling in a blessing and praying for all in need of Healing. I pray and ask that we be given strength, be comforted and know without a doubt that we are Loved, Supported and that all we need is there for us...for the asking. I ask for it and I give thanks for answered prayers.
I have a walking stick, although its meant to be used as a hiking pole and is not too sturdy. There's a volunteer carpenter who does projects for the organization I serve with, and I'm thinking of commissioning him to make me a wooden walking stick, which would be sturdier and have more character.
You've mentioned St. John's wort before. Is there brand you trust? I know Jeanne doesn't like us discussing brand names on the forum, but there are so many untrustworthy supplements out there.
I heard from @UnkP. He is better!
Hello Jeanne! Thank you for thinking of me. And thank you, and the forum family for the healing and love energies you have been sending me. My ear infection is slowly getting better, and this morning i woke up without the feeling of utter doom. This is the first time in what seems like weeks, that i feel semi-normal. What a relief! I hope to return to the forum soon, but in the meantime, please give my love and gratitude to everyone. I am thinking of, and praying for us all in this difficult time.
I can attest first hand to how your healing prayers work. So send away, angels.
@jeanne-mayell so happy to hear this good news. Prayers for healing and peace will continue,for Unk-p and everyone of us. ❤️
@coyote ... You are on my mind today, and along with that came a remembrance of a friend from college. He was born with a physical disability that left him wheelchair bound. While he couldn't participate in normal college things, in normal college ways, he was a presence on campus. We were both English majors, and listening to his thoughts through essays and stories made you realize just how much he paid attention to the smallest things, and truly, the smallest things affected him in ways much different from the rest of us. In the winter, we would hurry to class and get into a warm building as quickly as we could. Yet he could roll only so fast ... slower, even, when the walks were covered with snow. Where we could quickly get into a building, he would have to struggle to open a door against snow and wind, and maneuver his chair in through the slush and ice. When we would huddle under umbrellas while walking across campus, he got wet. He always wore a look of determination veiling frustration. I wish I were still in touch with him, to know where life took him. But I hope he still wears that determination and is still writing. And I think that's why you and he connected together in my mind. Through his inabilities and limitations, his mind and voice were clear, and he was an inspiration for all those who took the time to watch him and listen to him and pay attention to him. It almost seemed as if his internal power grew as his external power struggled. I hope you can find your internal power and voice, because it will be a gift to a world that chooses to recognize it and pay attention.
Thank you for the replies. I know. External, physical struggles can refine the internal and create soul beauty, and that's part of my journey right now.
But I want to make this clear: I have no intention of letting disability be a permanent state. We're at a stage in human evolution where we can start shifting our bodies and external realities in ways previously unimaginable, and I think part of the message I'm supposed to convey is how this healing can be brought about. That's why I'm doing the work I do, instead of sitting alone behind a desk all day. If I isolated myself and became sedentary, I would be wheelchair bound, deaf, unable to swallow, and possibly blind by the time I'm 40, and that's not a life worth living, just like it's not worth it for humans to inhabit a planet of hyper-acidified oceans and noxious clouds of chemicals that is devoid of complex plant or animal life.
I parallel my journey with the biospheric crisis because that story gives me motivation and makes sense to me. I'd set myself up for failure if all I did was passively wait around for the doctors - "the saviors" - to come up with a miracle drug. Similarly, we won't heal the planet if all we're doing is applying a mechanistic mindset (electric cars! cap-and-trade! geo-engineering!) all the while waiting for the experts to swoop in to the rescue. I could write a lot more about this, so I'll just say that healing is multidimensional, interpersonal, and can never be achieved by a single genius (you can probably guess that I'm not a fan of Elon Musk or Bill Gates).
I deliberately wrote that I don't intend to let disability be permanent, because I don't know if my journey will end in success. We also don't know if the Great Turning will be fully realized. In Active Hope, Joanna Macy writes eloquently about the necessity of recognizing that success is never guaranteed:
"Why might failure and frustration be necessary parts of the journey? Because if we stick only with what we know how to do, what we're comfortable with and confident about, we limit ourselves to the old, familiar ways rather than developing new capacities...The good news about frustration and failure is they show that we have dared to step outside our comfort zones and to rise to a challenge that stretches us. What we're doing here is reframing frustration and failure in a way that encourages us to persist rather than to give up."
It's been some time since I've posted here. In large part it's because this period of unraveling in our nation has been so extremely hard to bear. It has reached a new pitch now that my husband and I have to work our jobs, homeschool my youngest kid, and manage virtual schooling for my eldest thanks to COVID. And now that the election is around the corner, I'm finding myself in heated arguments with my parents and cousins, all of whom voted for this current administration which has been the author of so much pain in our lives.
I'm finding myself less resilient these days. I wish I knew how to feel less angry and more patient, but every day is full of challenges to my peace of mind and it's gotten so hard to stay afloat. I finally snapped at my parents who continue to preach devotion to Trump even though both their daughters have felt huge hits to our psychological health and financial stability due to Trump's policies (and/or lack thereof). Of late, when they put their latent racism on blast on Facebook, I feel duty bound to say something, if only to show mutual BIPOC friends that I will not let that kind of thinking slide unchallenged. But it's also draining to keep explaining why racism is something we all need to care about, how conservativism has spawned authoritarianism, etc. and at the end of the day, it all compounds my frustration at the echo chamber they live in.
Once again, just as I had in 2016, I feel orphaned. I want to feel comfort in the knowledge that Spirit has the wisdom to lead us through this time and right all wrongs, but I've never felt as skeptical in my life as I do now. 1/