I share this with you, my dear readers, with hope this may be of help to you if needed...especially during such challenging days as we have now, when isolation can make us wonder where we are in our lives...where our inner self really is...so this may be one of the most important things you have ever read...
For you see, there are periods in our lives when we may find ourselves wondering who we are and where we're going...trying to understand our inner selves. And usually our revelations of gaining a deeper understanding of ourselves comes on the wings of facing the greatest challenges we may have. Like when the realities of our journeys are darkest.
By the time I reached my forties, years had passed since Patches and I had done The Ride. I had been dealing with the terribly painful spinal cord disease nothing could be done for. No one knew how much worse it was going to become other than it would become VERY worse. And though two rounds of bone marrow treatments helped my plummeting blood counts, transfusions were still needed. Then the first bout of cancer I had involved three surgeries on my left foot due to a cancerous tumor found within. So I was still having one surgery after another...with many more yet to follow. My nature though is not to dwell on these things, yet keep embracing the fight of my present, pouring as much enthusiasm into living as possible with gratitude. And of course I still had Patches too.😃
However I hit a place where I wasn't depressed, but because I continually had to surmount so many tough challenges since I was a young child, I suddenly realized I was tired...and I didn't really know myself. I hadn't had a chance to. I knew I was a fighter...full of love, a sense of humor, an artist, horse lover with spunk. Yet beyond those?
Full self understanding eludes us all no matter who we are...until we reach a place within where we want TO understand our inner selves and to seek help, but how? Where?
I found mine in my beloved book, "A Touch Of Wonder," by Arthur Gordon, I have often referred to here. You see, Mr. Gordon had also found himself at this same exact place, only he was REALLY struggling with it, for he was depressed. One does not have to be severely challenged to feel this way. Or be a Little Person.
To keep this from getting too long, I will be paraphrasing...
Mr Gordon went to his old small town doctor, and poured out his struggle. The doctor, a wise perceptive man asked where he was happiest in his life. For him, it was the beach near them. At that, the doctor took out his prescription book, wrote out four prescriptions, folded them, and told Mr. Gordon to pack a lunch and go to the beach the next day by 9am. Then he was to look at one of the scripts every three hours. [So I went to the beautiful farm where I had Patches with my "A Touch Of Wonder," book in hand.]
The first prescription had the words, "Listen Carefully." Mr. Gordon climbed a sand dune. He realized there were tiny sounds below the larger ones, if he listened carefully by sticking his head into the sea grasses. [So I stuck my head into field grass as Patches chomped on grass nearby.]
Mr. Gordon realized if you truly listen to something outside of yourself, and silence the clamorous voices and noise within, the mind rests. Then, as he gazed upon the ocean, he began thinking of the immensity of it. [I lay on my back and gazed up at the vast sky.] Mr. Gordon realized that by thinking of all the natural things like oceans [and sky] bigger than us, there is a sense of peacefulness to hold onto. [Like a separate peace.]
At noon Mr. Gordon took out the next prescription, and it said, "Try Reaching Back." "Back to what?" he wondered at first, then realized it was his past obviously. Yet because the doctor had Mr. Gordon go to his most "happy place" (the beach), in his life, he realized the doctor meant for him to focus on happy memories. Positive memories. So he lay down in the warm sand. [I laid down near Patches again in the warm field grass.] By deliberately reaching back holding his happiness places, Mr. Gordon realized little flashes of power...tiny sources of inner strength came forth. [When I did this, for the first time in my life, I suddenly grabbed hold of all the many special "happiness places and people" interspersed throughout my unhappy childhood I had kept buried with the unhappiness. Several of which have been shared here. This was big for me.] As he remembered, he felt a sudden glow of warmth within.
The next three words were more like a command: "Examine Your Motives." At first he felt a bit defensive, saying to himself, "What's wrong with wanting to be a success, or having a certain amount of recognition?" Then his inner voice he had reawakened spoke, "Maybe those motives alone are not enough."
Suddenly Mr. Gordon realized his writing, and much of his life had lost it's spontaneity. He realized his sense of giving something, of inspiring people, had been lost at a almost frantic clutch for security. If one's motives are wrong, we can lose our way. [I realized how much my life had been spent fighting the challenges of dwarfism, with a very sad and often violent childhood, and then all the many years of never ending physical battles. My fierce determination to plunge back into life so hard when free from hospitals became my motives to keep rising above the challenges. I never knew my inner self because I was trying so hard to keep surviving.]
"Examine Your Motives," Mr. Gordon thought, was the hard part of the "treatment." This challenge
to reappraise, was meant to bring one's motives into alignment with one's inner self and being. But the mind must first be clear and receptive to do this, thus the quiet self discovery with the first two prescriptions.
Mr. Gordon recognized the powerful therapeutic progression in these words the doctor prescribed, and their value to anyone facing difficulty, or seeking self discovery. Finally, as he walked across the beach, he read the words on the final prescription: "Write Your Worries In The Sand." So kneeling in the sand, he wrote the words, one after another. [Since I obviously was not at a beach, yet being a typical artist, had brought a sketchbook and pencils with me, I wrote mine down.] Then Mr. Gordon turned and walked away from the troubles he wrote in the sand, knowing the tide would soon come in and wash them away. [I tore the page I had written mine on into tiny pieces, then let the wind blow them away. I found myself.]
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