Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: relief

  • Empath

    She was catching up with Facebook while listening to the story of Heidi Craig who explains how she had a near-death experience while giving birth to her third child. Heidi said the messages she received helped her practice faith and forgiveness.

    At the exact moment Heidi was speaking about having suffered so much and gotten relief when she found a group for people called ’empaths’ a post from the Empath Sanctuary popped up. Here is the information in that post. Perhaps you or someone you know will benefit. Synchronicity is God’s way of remaining anonymous….

    (The image on the post shows the empath burnout cycle.)

    FEELING GOOD
    Start to recuperate
    Energy feels better
    Ready to get back into the world

    TAKE ON ALL THE THINGS.
    Not recognizing limits
    Over-commit
    Do too much

    BURN OUT
    You’re exhausted
    Can’t do anything
    Wonder what happened

    WITHDRAW & HIDE
    Have no energy for anyone or anything
    Don’t want to ‘people’
    But also feel lonely
    Feel stuck with no motivation

  • Learn, Grow, and Change

    One of the most extraordinary aspects of our humanity
    is our capacity to learn, grow, and change.

    ~ Sheryl Chard (Gratefulness.org)

    One week ago today I got a call from the son of my long-time business partner, Joel Bowman, asking who in Kalamazoo could take his dad to the ER.

    Of course, I am in Florida. A former student, Deb Doerschler, is also still in the south-for-the-winter location. Joel’s wonderful friend, Bob Kipp, was at their place up north. I suggested a neighbor who has been part of the behind-the-scenes support for the past several years. Thankfully, she was able and willing.

    Joel was admitted to the hospital that evening.

    I was so angry a few days later when Joel’s son did not even let me know that Joel had been moved to a skilled nursing facility. Two of Joel’s friends had tried to visit him at the hospital, and were told he had been discharged.


    The anger has born fruit. (Uncomfortable emotions have a way of doing that.)

    Wednesday night, seeking some inner peace around the situation, I was led to watch “The Roots of Anger” by Thich Nhat Hanh on YouTube. Here are my notes:

      You don’t have the right to keep your anger to yourself alone more than 24 hours.

      You should tell him or her but in calm speech. If you cannot do it, you can write it down on a piece of paper.

      Sentence one:
      I suffer. I am angry, and I want you to know it.

      (I don’t know why you have done such a thing to me. I don’t know why you have said such a thing to me. I suffer very much. I’m angry. I want you to know.)

      Sentence two:
      I am doing my best.

      (I am practicing mindful breathing and mindful walking, generating the energy of mindfulness in order to take care of my anger, in order to bring relief, and then I will be looking deeply into my anger to see what the root of my anger is. That is to see whether it is my wrong perception that has created anger, maybe because of some of your unskillfulness.)

      Sentence three:
      Please help me. I need your help.

    Thursday afternoon as I was doing yoga, awareness visited me and opened my heart. I had total body memory of the first night my mom was at an adult foster care home. After dropping her off, I had my best night’s rest in months.

    Relief from my uncomfortable emotions because she was not in her own home totally hid from awareness her uncomfortable emotions because she was not in her own home.

    Compassion for all of us washed over past, present and future.

    When I was able to speak to Joel while he was in the hospital he told me he had been taken captive, was being held in some industrial compound, and some kind of experiment was being conducted on him. I said, “I understand totally that from your perspective Western medicine might feel like that, but you are in Bronson hospital. Nancy Anderson took you to the ER because you were very sick and could have died if you did not get treated immediately.”

    I encouraged him to look on the walls of the room. Could he see a white board with his name on it? Yes, he could. He told me it also had the date and the names of the doctor and nurses assigned to his care.

    “It isn’t aliens who are taking care of you,” I assured him.

    To which he replied, “In a way, we are all aliens….”

    Profound awareness.

    These past years I have often been angry at Joel’s son and daughter-in-law. I have been an alien to the roots of that anger. The roots of that anger had been guilt and pain over my lack of awareness for my mom’s emotional needs during that time.

    And for all of these years I had been an alien to the forgiveness and peace awareness brings.

    Awareness frees us.

    Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’

  • Stacey and Courtney

    Sacred Stories

    She had traveled a distance, while wintering in Florida, to be evaluated for an intervention for relief from chronic back pain.

    She sent her friend an update via text message: “We made an appointment for the treatment tomorrow! And it just happens that Stacey and Courtney helped us out with the schedule.”

    FYI – Stacey is the name of the daughter of her friend, and Courtney is the name of Stacey’s daughter.

    She recognized the significance of the coincidence. Omens are everywhere….

    But God has blessed you, because your eyes can see and your ears can hear! Matthew 13:16

  • Relief!


    The Comcast saga came to an end late yesterday morning. Today my fingers are on the keyboard of my PC and I am connected to the SCS domain. The solution was actually simple. And it is what Donny, my customer service agent at my local Comcast store, suggested to me weeks ago: Swap out the modem.

    Relief is an interesting concept. Relief is defined as a feeling of reassurance and relaxation following release from anxiety or distress or assistance, especially in the form of food, clothing, or money, given to those in special need or difficulty.

    Alison, I’m not sure to whom this message of appreciation should be addressed, but I want someone within the Comcast organization to know what you did for me.

    I had been struggling between Comcast and my web host since October 18. On November 7, when I found you I had spent over 30 hours having to give the same information over and over, and never being able to follow up with someone I had spoken to previously.

    I was rude, frustrated, angry, and you stayed right with me and assured me you would not leave me until the issue was resolved.

    Although you were not able to resolve the issue that evening, you gave me your extension number and email. I became a real person to you. I cried!!! I mattered to you, and that matters to everyone.

    During this period of time I was struggling with the problem with my service we had two deaths in our family. People have a lot going on….

    You suggested we swap out the modem and when I got the new one the following morning, you were able to assist me to get the help from Kevin to activate it.

    I sent email and left voice mail letting you know we were successful. Then you called again to make sure everything was working correctly.

    Donny, at the Benton Harbor, Michigan, store was the first one to suggest we swap the modem. I wish everyone could work with you and Donny…. everyone deserves to!

    Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

    During these weeks of frustration I have said many times I recognized this as an opportunity. I have learned a lot. I learned we do not have to call Comcast and go through 30 minutes of being passed from one person to another only to have to tell them the exact information before getting to someone who cannot help you. Using the Comcast app on your phone, you can give the information once and request a call back. The appropriate person calls you back. Oh, my….

    Another learning has been to see how kind the conditions are. Regardless of how challenging, right here within the conditions is kindness.

    It is kindness to let it go each time no resolution was at hand.

    It is kindness to persevere and make another call when I had a couple of hours. (EEK…)

    It is kindness to remember nothing is a life or death matter—not even life or death.

    It is not denial to say not even life or death is a life or death matter. It is truth.

    Over lunch yesterday my dear friend, Jane Foster, shared that even having lived with cancer for over 35 years now she still bumps into a fear of death. “Will it hurt? Will I be alone? How will my husband handle things? How will my son get through this?”

    It occurs to me these are not evidences of fear of death. They are evidences of desire to control. We want to know. We want assurances. We want things to go a certain way.

    I sent out a prayer request:
    I have a precious client named Jessica.

    She is thirty-something…

    13 months ago she was told she had 17 months to live.

    Three months ago she was told she was in remission, but her most recent scan showed tumors on her liver.

    She has been at MD Anderson in Houston this week and if she is a candidate for an experimental surgery and treatment she will fly back down on November 17 and have the procedure on November 19. If there are no complications she will be able to fly back to Michigan on November 22.

    They were not very optimistic… Possibly extend her life six months.

    She asks for help with her mental state.

    Here is her Bitmoji saying:

    If you are inclined to pray, please add a special prayer for the mental state of all humans. May all beings know peace. May all beings love and be loved. May all beings come to the end of suffering.

    Pray for Alison and Donny and each of those who work in organizations that inflict such pain in the delivery of service. Pray for Jane Foster to embrace sacred life and sacred death. (See Corpse Prayer) Pray for Jessica as she navigates such turbulent waters.

    Pray that all sentient beings feel relief….

  • Grief and Relief: RIP Aunt Sharon

    Tender emotions here…. Some of the emotions are frustration. I have spent the past two weeks without resolution to my WiFi/Domain not speaking to one another. Twenty three hours on hold with Comcast, Comcast, Comcast, and Bluehost.

    Monday evening, Aunt Sharon Basham passed. I met with her family on Thursday evening, went to visitation Friday evening, and I had the honor of officiating her Celebration of Life today. Everything about that service touches other places deep in my heart. Aunt Sharon lived with her daughter, Tracey, and son-in-love, Bo. The family supported Sharon in her wishes to be able to live her life out in the home they all moved into together on her birthday in 2008.

    A powerfully relevant poem, “Two Mothers Remembered” by Joann Snow Duncanson, speaks of this unique bond when a daughter is a caregiver to her mother:

    I had two Mothers – two Mothers I claim
    Two different people, yet with the same name.
    Two separate women, diverse by design,
    But I loved them both because they were mine.

    The first was the Mother who carried me here,
    Gave birth and nurtured and launched my career.
    She was the one whose features I bear,
    Complete with the facial expressions I wear.

    She gave me her love, which follows me yet,
    Along with the examples in life that she set.

    As I got older, she somehow younger grew,
    And we’d laugh as just Mothers and daughters should do.

    But then came the time that her mind clouded so,
    And I sensed that the Mother I knew would soon go.

    So quickly she changed and turned into the other,
    A stranger who dressed in the clothes of my Mother.

    Oh, she looked the same, at least at arm’s length,
    But now she was the child and I was her strength.

    We’d come full circle, we women three,
    My Mother the first, the second and me.
    And if my own children should come to a day,
    When a new Mother comes and the old goes away,
    I’d ask of them nothing that I didn’t do.
    Love both of your Mothers as both have loved you.

    They chose some wonderful music. In the Garden, by Alan Jackson. And Supermarket Flowers, sung by Ed Sheeran.”You were an angel in the shape of my mum….Spread your wing….And I know that when God took you back he said Hallelujah, You’re home….”

    The Basham family is an amazing family. I married in to it over fifty years ago and I am so grateful….

    Tonight Stacey sent a text message: “Please hold energy for Doug. He’s frustrated with stuff breaking, weather, etc. I just want to be supportive of him. This is his dream that I’m along for the ride.” (See FaceBook Sailing Lady Gail or Adventure of Doug and Stacey.)

    We had opportunity for a voice-to-voice and I shared some from my journal this morning:

    D: Last night I was kind to the person at Comcast (8:30-9:30 pm) and Bluehost (9:30-11:00 pm) while still being honest about the frustration.

    D: What would you have me know?

    V: Ask Jesus for help. Remember the Sacred Story you published that there is an angel for everything?

    D: I am willing. I do see how my not planning to go to Indy for the Welcome Baby Party for Brian and Tegan was part of that greater awareness.

    V: That is ALWAYS happening. Even the challenging situation with your domain is kind. You can do everything you need to do—just not the way you want to do it. Yes?

    D: Yes.

    V: Do you remember this is part of the Sacred Darkness? Watch the one who wants to control. As Barbara heard when she was trying to save her neighbor from drowning,”Stop trying. Relax. Let LOVE do this.”

    D: Helplessness; confusion; grief. As I embrace that in myself I do it for all sentient beings.

    I reminded Aunt Sharon’s family of the importance of celebrating little acts of love and enjoyment and remembrance.

    It is OK to feel grief and relief.

    In closing, these words to Sharon, and to each of you, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done….”



    As I was hanging up with Bluehost I asked the guy what time it was where he was at. He said it was 8:00 pm and I responded, “It is 11:00 pm here.”

    We are not actually all having the same experience, even when we are having the same experience.