Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: intention

  • Connecting the Dots

    Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted – a paved road or a washing machine? If you concentrate on finding what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.

    ~ Rabbi Harold Kushner

    Training has brought to awareness profound truth that the presenting problem is not the problem. We are, in mindfulness, continuously reminded not to take our problems personally. Everything is connected. Emotions are generated from “past similars” because emotions are stored in our bodies, however, the most powerful triggers are almost (if not always) outside of our current conscious awareness.

    The following is my journal entry on March 7, 2025 after a night of sleeplessness:

      Most of us are aware of the idea that someone cannot see something until they see it. Matthew 13:13 says it this way, “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand”. I have consciously been working to unwrap an emotional knot for the past several years. The triggers have become more and more amplified.

      This morning early as the mist scooted across the surface of the water after several days of fierce winds, I could see!

      I had the sense the onset had to do with a friend’s stress with her adult daughter who had undergone childhood trauma, but it was too nebulous and did not seem to fit with my friend when I shared my sense about it with her. It has taken a lot of time with the triggers getting more intense to gain baby steps of understanding. One of the most significant insights occurred in January when I realized I had held her responsible for things she had not done.

      This morning’s additional insight might just have set us all free.

      I had blamed her for not seeing what someone else had done, and continued to do even after I had asked him not to. But the pain and now the freedom within the precious insight was never about either of them, it was about my own childhood trauma!

    Immediately after writing I spent almost an hour of precious tearful sharing with my sister about all of this. It comes as no real surprise that she had been awake since 2:30 am — thinking about childhood sexual abuse!

    We know our older sister was sexually initiated by an uncle when she was preteen. We talked about not our not knowing consciously of a sexual initiation experience, we know we were both sexually aware very young. Many years ago when Janis was seeing a therapist we learned it is common for siblings who are secondary or indirect victims of sexual abuse to have emotional reactions. These can include anger at the parent for not being able to protect the sibling, as well as anxiety and helplessness and the urge to control events, and/or fear about the future.

    Our older sister’s death about 5 weeks ago was quite likely a significant catalyst. In infinite gratitude for all of this to finally come forward in awareness for release.

    I had opportunity to share some of it with a friend who is currently navigating strong triggers in her own home. At the end of our Zoom call I emailed her my journal entry along with an audio recording of Tricia Barker leading a release of deep soul wounds and reclaiming your power. This piece is for clearing wounds of rejection, abandonment, betrayal, and even injustice that can be powerful imprints, not just from this lifetime but from past ones as well. I had listened to it the day previous to my insight.

    This morning I am listening to a radio broadcast with Barbara Brodsky speaking on how we awaken. Barbara says first you have to acknowledge it is happening and it is unpleasant, scary. Next, you have to have compassion for yourself and the other/s to see, literally, how anger and fear and separation arise. You have to see that they have no solid substance, and that if you do not have compassion for yourself, you cannot hear the other.

    After having received what I emailed to her, my dear friend sent a text message, “It has been a while since I have connected dots like this about my life experiences. I feel so free and connected.”

    Interestingly I had written in my March 7 journal entry how that morning’s insight might just have set us all free….

    May all beings come to the end of suffering.

  • March 5

    She was swimming in memories of the previous year when their dear friend had undergone back surgery while they were all “snowbirds” in Florida. The surgery on her friend’s back was successful but it proved to be too much for her friend’s ailing heart and her friend had passed not long after returning to Michigan.

    “It has popped into my mind to look and see what day it was I went to the hospital,” she shared with their mutual friend. “I have not yet taken time to, but I know I have the voice memo I had recorded.”

    She looked on her phone. It had been exactly one year ago — March 5!

    (Her friend passed four months later on July 5.)

    John Lennon said, “There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be”.

  • Comb!

    He was visiting friends in Florida when he lost his comb. He borrowed one and went with his friend on an outing.

    While they were on the outing, his friend’s wife went for a bike ride. Almost home, she sees a comb on the sidewalk, stopped to pick it up, took it home and disinfected it. When he got back to the house she presented the comb to him, telling him she had found it on her ride.


    The story of manna from heaven is a classic biblical story. Of course, it was not the comb he lost. Before heading home he found his comb in the pocket of a pair of shorts he had worn. The story demonstrates the way we are provided for in surprising ways.

    After escaping Egypt the Israelite people were in need of food, and he was in need of a comb!

  • The Whole World

    Last week we heard a Vince Gill song that haunts me. The title is The Whole World.

    I finally found the lyrics online this morning after a very busy bike ride with a soulful download of information and insight I might call A House Divided. I wish I had stopped to grab my phone so I could record the whole thing. I never capture it quite as it came through, but it began with something like this:

    For the past few years we have literally lived in a house divided for one-third of our lives. The floor plan is sometimes called “zoned” with the primary suite on one side and the guest suite on the opposite. In the middle is the living/cooking/dining space. In our case, John and I have the guest suite, which works wonderfully because other than when we have guests we have a room for my meditation and John’s music.  Speaking of music…. Vince Gill’s mournful voice singing The Whole World resonates profoundly. Here are a part of one verse and the chorus:

    I’ll never hate you

    If we disagree

    Well brother you’re breathing

    The same air as me

    Feels like the whole world’s

    Got a broken heart

    We sure could use

    A brand new start

    How the hell did we wind up

    So far apart

    Seems like the whole world’s got a broken heart

    Before my ride his morning I had also seen a message about “Four resistance actions (one was yesterday) that are being planned across the US.” That message, too, set my heart on a path of singing the chorus of The Whole World.

    Just the simple asking John about what we could do for dinner today got twisted up. What he thought I was saying was not what I was saying at all and it was a major undertaking for us to get clarity!

    In NLP we learned to notice language and the impact of it on the real people engaged in it. It was understood when John says, “Coke tastes better than Pepsi” he is not saying anything about Coke or Pepsi. He is telling us something about John. A simple change in language can help tremendously, “I prefer the taste of Coke over the taste of Pepsi.” Few people speak and listen with this level of consciousness.

    If I wonder why this is such a challenging concept related to something as simple as what to have for dinner or a preferred brand of carbonated beverage no wonder the complexities in our world end up as issues being viewed across a great divide….

     

     

  • Handyman!

    Shortly after she posted the Sacred Story “Screwdriver” she mentioned the story to some friends she was on a Zoom call with.

    One of the participants on Zoom unmuted and said, “After my husband passed I would occasionally find Cheerios in places that I know no one had been or spaces that had obviously been cleaned many times since he had actually been there to have them. I knew it was his way of letting me know he was still with me. It sounds to me like you had a visit from a handyman.”

    Between the posting of the “Screwdriver” Sacred Story and logging onto the Zoom meeting she and another friend had been on a call with a dear friend who was navigating a very challenging situation with a neighbor. The neighbor had cognitive loss with no family support.

    The neighbor’s situation was triggering deep pain. The stress of not being able to really do what the neighbor needed to be done was causing her to experience some heart symptoms. Her own family was concerned about her and telling her she needed to step away from the neighbor’s situation. She was feeling helpless and hopeless about her neighbor being all alone!

    This friend had an especially raw spot for her neighbor’s situation because this friend had undergone her own husband’s Alzheimer’s disease…. and he had been a handyman!!!!

    Wow. The name of the friend’s husband’s business had been House Calls. It was immediately known who this “handyman” that had paid a visit was!

    “I will never leave you nor forsake you” is a Bible verse that appears in Hebrews 13:5 and Deuteronomy 31:6. It’s a promise!

  • Screwdriver

    As he came around to his wife’s side of the bed he saw a small screwdriver on the floor. He picked it up and put it on her nightstand. When he mentioned having picked it up to her later that day, she went in to see it. She had never seen that screwdriver!

    She looked up the symbolic meaning and discovered that in both Christianity and Judaism, the screwdriver relates to God’s purpose for people and the use of tools to fulfill that purpose

    In Christianity screwdriver is symbolic of God’s workmanship: People are made by God and have a purpose to do good works. It is about our not being harmful or sinful, but using our abilities for good. An additional meaning can be repentance and the need to “grow up” in Christ.

    Within Judaism screwdrivers, and all tools, are to help people fulfill a higher purpose. Especially noteworthy is how God may call people to do things in unexpected ways, and people should be open to this.

    I found this online: Examples of things found in places where it seems logically impossible for them to be include: ancient artifacts from a completely different civilization found in a remote location, a perfectly preserved modern object discovered in a fossil layer from millions of years ago, a living creature from a different ecosystem appearing in a totally isolated environment, a human footprint in an area with no known human presence, or a technologically advanced device from the future found in the present day; essentially, anything that disrupts the expected timeline or geographical distribution of objects based on our understanding of history and science.

    We can now add finding a screwdriver that does not belong to them right out in the open on their bedroom floor….

  • February 10 – This is the Way

    She was on a Zoom meeting with a friend. The conversation went to a location in rural central Brazil which they had both been at previously. Her friend quickly sent a text message with a short video to identify a location they were speaking about.

    That location was very relevant to the process they were engaged in.

    The date the video had been taken was on the video: February 10. She glanced down at the lower right had corner of the screen on her laptop.

    “Jesus Christ!” she blurted out. “Today is February 10.”

    They both knew they were being guided….

    Isaiah 30:21
    Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

  • April 7

    Manifest is a supernatural drama series on Netflix about the passengers and crew of a plane that mysteriously reappears after being presumed dead for years. The show explores the passengers’ experiences as they adjust to a world that has moved on without them.

    Screenshot

    This is the plot summary online: On April 7, 2013, Montego Air Flight 828 experiences turbulence and disappears. The plane mysteriously lands at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, New York, five and a half years later. The passengers and crew discover that the world has moved on without them. The passengers begin to experience visions and guiding voices, known as “callings”, that predict future events. Some passengers develop unusual skills, while others are left to deal with the psychological impact of the event. Michaela and her brother Ben believe there is a government cover-up and try to uncover the truth.

    They had been watching the series for weeks, but it was not until the last minutes of the last (20th) episode of the last season that they realized the significance: April 7 was their wedding date!!!

  • Corinthian Bells Wind Chime

    They were planning on buying a gift for friends who lost their mom recently when she suddenly asked him what they were doing for the funeral. He responded, “Maybe flowers?”

    Immediately she said, “Let’s get them a wind chime.”

    He went back and forth if it was a good idea and sent a text message to the friend’s daughter asking her opinion. “Mom would love a wind chime,” was the response. Corinthian Bells by Wind River was the brand of wind chime they selected.

    Their friend loved the wind chime. It was especially meaningful because on the tag from 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 was this verse: “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

    That was their mom’s favorite bible verse….

  • Do What’s Possible

    Father Tom Weston says, “We do what’s possible.”

    It has been what I call a wonder-FULL week. It was Divine Timing having Stacey arrive in Florida on the evening of the day my sister completed her transition in Michigan. I was delightfully distracted doing things we love: riding bikes, putting together jigsaw puzzles, and spending good time with good friends, ending our week with a day out on the water.


    Several days ago a friend shared Sadhguru’s dharma talk and included a link to “I Am” by Kirtana. It is track 3 on The Embrace album, not an artist or a song I had heard of previously, but this opening stanza says it all.

      Before the body, before the story
      Before the name
      Beyond the mind’s attempt to find
      Or explain
      Before the breath, beyond the sense
      Of pleasure or of pain
      And after death, and after death, I am

    It is providential we have been watching Manifest, a sci fi series on Netflix. Stacey did not get to watch the end with us when John and Larry and Linda and I binge-watched the last five episodes last night. (I promised my sister, Janis, I would not include a spoiler in this post so no hint to the ending. However, I am saying many of the themes in this series are dear to my heart.)

    A conscious living of the grief journey has been significant for me and Johnnie’s passing has been a growth catalyst. We only saw her once during the many years she lived in Texas where two of her sons reside. When she moved back to Michigan, my other sister (Janis) and I had opportunity to visit Johnnie once. Johnnie became quite debilitated with rheumatoid arthritis and was unable to even put in or take out her dentures. She had to move in with her daughter for a time before spending her last months in a nursing home. Our niece reached out to us last fall and I am so thankful Janis and I got to Ann Arbor twice before my coming south for the winter.

    Life while we are here in body is often complicated, confusing, and painful — the characters in Manifest certainly demonstrated this fact. But, even in all of that, they proved that life is beautiful.

    Johnnie had a peaceful passing, and for that I will be eternally grateful. She did it her way…. and Grace was oh, so present. These words about grace from Sadhguru’s dharma talk touched my heart:

    Sun comes up in the morning but for you to see sun you have to open the blinds…. So, if you want to see sunlight as grace, even to receive that you have to do something…. Grace is not something that is happening to this person or that person; grace is…. something that is always on…. Grace is always on…. It’s just on. Grace has no discrimination. Grace has no distinctive way of identifying this person or that person. It’s simply on. It’s simply life….

    Before the body, before the story, before the name; beyond the mind’s attempt to find or explain; before the breath, beyond the sense of pleasure or of pain, and after death, and after death, the I Am. We do what’s possible.