Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: scs-matters.com

  • Time Means Nothing at All


    Time has a way of slipping through our fingers. Looking back, we ask where it has gone. Of course, time means nothing at all.

    A woman who lived with us for several years had an old cassette with a song by that title. It was so long ago I don’t honestly know who did that or what the rest of the words are in her version, but I found a powerful song by that title by Lisa Mitchell.

    “Time Means Nothing At All” Click on the title to listen, or just read the lyrics.

    Do you know that I spend my days,
    walking the streets and lanes,
    looking through window panes,
    in and out of quaint cafes.

    Me and myself,
    we have an ongoing war,
    there is an ongoing love affair,
    giving up, keeping score.

    Well I hope that we find each other,
    before I lose myself,
    I hope that you get to me,
    before my own world does.

    See, me and myself,
    we have an ongoing war,
    there is an ongoing love affair,
    giving up, keeping score.

    And time means nothing at all,
    our minds are stronger than we give them credit for,
    Distance means nothing at all.

    Do you know that I spend my days,
    walking the streets and lanes,
    looking through window panes,
    in and out of quaint cafes.

    Me and myself,
    we have an ongoing war,
    there is an ongoing love affair,
    giving up, keeping score.

    Well I hope that we find each other,
    before I lose myself,
    I hope that you get to me,
    before my own world does.

    See, me and myself,
    we have an ongoing war,
    there is an ongoing love affair,
    giving up, keeping score.

    And time means nothing at all,
    our minds are stronger than we give them credit for,
    Distance means nothing at all.

    Most interesting to me is the timing of my remembering this. Last evening a friend shared the work of Ross Rosenberg: Narcissism, Co-dependence, and the Self-love Deficit Disorder. Wow…. Rosenberg has established new definitions of some challenging personality problems.

    For example, “Self-love Deficit Disorder” is his term for co-dependency. You can appreciate that these issues are on continuum. As you learn in Psychology 101, it is easy to see yourself in the descriptions of the pathology wherever you are on his “continuum of self” theory. Rosenberg addresses a pathological loneliness that fuels a pull to relationships that don’t work but are difficult to extricate yourself from. In one interview, he uses a term I had never heard of, Gaslighting.

    Gaslighting is best understood in the 1944 film of that name starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. Gaslighting is a manipulative, conscious, malicious covert strategy which convinces another they have a problem that does not truly exist.

    We can all benefit from an awareness of who and how we really are. Non-pathological levels of narcissism and co-dependency exist in each of us and being able to see what triggers us is crucial to being genuinely healthy. We can identify real problems we have had relating and choose to be self-loving enough to navigate our relationships honestly and skillfully.

    We all have a history, and most of us were gaslit, but when it comes to developing true self-love time means nothing at all…

    (See Psychology Today: 7-Stages of Gaslighting in Relationship)

  • ZViola

    Sacred Stories

    She was with a realtor touring a house. The home was new, but had been empty for three years.

    The daughter of the previous homeowner was there, and when it looked as though a sale was going to take place some personal contact information was to be shared.

    “What is your email address?” the daughter of the homeowner asked.

    “ZViola@blahblahblah.com,” she replied.

    The daughter of the homeowner began to cry. The home had been built by her father for her mother who passed without enjoying living there. Viola was her mother’s name.

    These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.

  • Freshly-lit Cigarette

    Sacred Stories

    Her dad had passed years earlier when she was alone one evening, driving in her car with all the windows rolled up.

    The smell of a freshly-lit cigarette lifted from the back seat and filled the car.

    She knew instantly her father was visiting.

    These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.

  • Layers of Illusion

    When I saw this photo and quotation from 11:11 Awakening Code on my sister’s Facebook page, I resonated to the truth and once again appreciated Emotional Freedom Technique, also known as EFT or just “tapping.”


    I have been participating in the 2018 World Tapping Summit for the last ten days. Learn more at thetappingsolution.com. What I value about the Summit is the wide variety of helpful subjects and applications that are appropriate for tapping. Tapping is easy, it is available, and it is powerful.

    Next month I will have the honor of introducing teachers to tapping as a way of bringing a better learning experience to their students. Always, it begins with us.

    A few days ago our daughter, Stacey, got a call from her husband in the middle of the night. She was visiting us as he began wearing a heart monitor for seven days to see what was happening while his heart was out of normal sinus rhythm. He has been being treated for AFib for several years, but has been out of rhythm for a few weeks now. Shortly after getting the monitor hooked up and falling asleep, he got the call that he needed to go to ER immediately. I’m sure he was not calm, but he did tell the doctor who called that this had been going on for a couple of weeks and since he felt fine could he safely wait until morning and call his cardiologist. He did that, BUT the cardiologist did not call him back all day.

    It was nearing 5:00 pm when Stacey, understandably more stressed about things because she was not there with him, called the doctor’s office and rattled some chains. The long and short of it is that the office did not return his call immediately because they had more information. They knew what his heart rate was. While it was rapid enough to warrant the midnight call for liability purposes, it was not higher than might have been expected for someone out of rhythm.

    Stacey was obviously relieved and also annoyed.

    This is where tapping comes in. We often are dealing with life’s circumstances we cannot control. The layers of illusion are burned away moment-to-moment and day-by-day. Life may not settle or unfold in a smooth path to the finish line. However, always the truth of who and what we really are reveals itself in those circumstances, not in spite of them.

  • Spring

    There is a hard truth to be told: before spring becomes beautiful, it is plug ugly, nothing but mud and muck.
    I have walked in the early spring through fields that will suck your boots off,
    a world so wet and woeful it makes you yearn for the return of ice.
    But in that muddy mess, the conditions for rebirth are being created.

    ~ Parker Palmer

    No phrase brings me peace of mind any quicker than “Spring always follows winter.” In Michigan this year, as many other areas of the U.S., this is certainly a welcome thought. Spring is on the way.

    In the Imagine Healing process you use your imagination to generate detailed images of the stages for what you desire: short-term goal, mid-term goal, long-term goal. Although it won’t happen exactly as you imagine it, because you are able to have seen yourself surviving and/or thriving, your body and mind and spirit know how to do that.

    I’m thrilled to say that the digital version of the steps of Imagine Healing for preparing for surgery is available on Kindle for $2.99 (https://www.amazon.com/Imagine-Healing-Guided-Imagery-Help-ebook/dp/B013EYIK3W).

    I’m even more thrilled to say this process is not limited to surgery or even to medical or physical challenges. That is what Parker Palmer’s quotation really inspires in us.

    Because the fields of life (relationships, finances, attitudes, culture) are so wet and woeful, although it almost makes you yearn for the return of ice, the conditions for rebirth are being created by the current circumstances. Our lives—our world—is ready for us to vision the improvement we long for in all areas of our lives.

    Spring always follows winter….

  • Silver Ladder

    Sacred Stories

    When she was just three years old, she was at the lake with her older cousins and fell off the dock and into the lake.

    Running for help, the older cousins returned with her mother, who expected to see her floating face down in the water. Instead, she was sitting on the doc soaking wet.

    When asked how she was able to get out of the water, she replied simply that she had climbed up the “silver” ladder.

    Of course, there was no silver ladder.

    To this day (some 60 plus years later) she still remembers clearly climbing up the “silver ladder.”

    These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.

  • Cultural Peace

    Time is at once a limited commodity and an illusion. We an spend time, waste time, deny time, and transcend time.

    At a workshop with Zan Henigan Lombardo, the focus was on how she let chaos in her life create something beautiful. Her work of art is an impressive 30-foot watercolor painting with an equally impressive 30-foot poem along the bottom, created by an even more impressive artist/poet/teacher over many years.

    As is the case in most group settings right now, the most recent school shooting came up. People from all walks of life are asking why, and some are asking what can be done. This morning I read again Glen Snyder’s article (Lion’s Roar is from the Buddhist perspective) which invites some possible answers to the question how. The article is titled Why We Go for the Gun. Greg Snyder is a Zen Buddhist priest and President of Brooklyn Zen Center. You may want to take time to read his article for yourself. Here is a brief excerpt:

    This is not to say we should not work for legislative change, organize to reduce homicides and suicides in our communities, stand up to systemic violence and law enforcement abuses, critically engage our own consumption of violence as entertainment, and actively address our nation’s child-soldier problem (that is, gangs). But these efforts alone will not change the soil in which this violence grows. We must illuminate this culture of domination, grieve our shared karma, and introduce the sacredness of spirit and all life back into our nation.

    Glen’s article touched a sensitive spot for me. As my husband is in the living room watching TV in the evenings, I am often in the other room working on a jigsaw puzzle. Hearing the soundtrack only of what he is watching, the movies he watches all sound the same. I hear two hours of gun shots, guttural grunting and desperate breathing, along with the repetitive use of the four-letter-nasty. I told him I don’t think they even make individual sound tracks….

    Reading Glen’s article, the thing that was most salient for me is how what I think, say, and do contributes to our collective experience. This morning I appreciated today’s thought from the Brahma Kumaris:

    The ability to enjoy one’s own company is one of the greatest gifts life has to offer. Learning to turn my thoughts away from all my responsibilities at the day’s end and take my mind into a state of peace and benevolence enables me to carry greater and greater loads without feeling the burden. When my inner landscape is full of beautiful thoughts, everything I do is a pleasure. Gently, I calm down chaotic situations and offer solace to troubled minds.

    Perhaps enjoying one’s own company and cultivating the sweet sound of silence is the how of inner and cultural peace….

  • Dinner is Here!

    Sacred Stories

    A missionary was serving in a third-world country. He and his family had very little in the way of provisions, living in the mission with about a dozen others.

    One day there was absolutely no food for any of them but the missionary kept saying, “God will provide.” When it was mealtime, they gathered around the table set with dishes and utensils, but they had no food.

    The missionary started to pray, thanking the Lord for the food and for their day.

    As he finished the prayer, someone knocked at their door. It was two women saying they were very sorry for being late and asking if they had already eaten. The missionary smiled and said, “Well, not yet!”

    The women came in, delivered a wonderful meal, telling how early that morning the Lord told them to cook for that family and they were sorry for being late because they has missed the bus!

    These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.

  • Support

    This week has been rife with lessons. We experienced another school shooting, irrevocably changing lives while politics goes on as usual. The day before this shooting I was with people I consider to be of “like-mind” but even within this group, people are anything but like-minded about how we best bring forth peace.

    Dr. Leo Galland learned the answers to life’s questions from his son, Christopher, who lived to be 22 years old. Christopher was “a brain-damaged special needs child who challenged everyone he knew with his unpredictable behavior and uncanny insights.” The book of Christopher’s life is titled Already Here: A Doctor Discovers the Truth about Heaven. The following excerpt is what John Cubeta, an educational psychologist who had worked closely with Christopher, wrote about having lunch with Chris:

    One day, I was attempting to have a conversation with Chris after we had just bought a pair of cheeseburgers. I kept trying to get a dialogue going, but it would abruptly end whenever it was Chris’s turn to respond. I finally asked Chris why he didn’t answer me when I spoke to him. He continued to eat in silence. Nothing I said seemed to register. Eventually, he swallowed the last bite. Then he said, very plainly, “I didn’t want to speak while I was eating,” obviously annoyed that something so simple and obvious should require an explanation.

    It seems my life lessons also most often come in the mundane. Friday morning I started getting an error message when I tried to send email from my iPhone using my propitiatory address. The message would get stuck in the Outbox where it sat whirring for hours. Until the message was marked with a red exclamation mark that it did not get sent, the message could not be deleted. During this time I could also not use my gmail account on the phone. One message took 8 hours to clear.

    Verizon said it was an issue with the email host, Bluehost. Bluehost said Apple made some changes that had severely affected their servers but Bluehost was working on it. When things were not resolved the next day, I called Bluehost again but was this time I was told they could not help, I needed to call Apple Support. This evening I spent about an hour on hold, then about another hour with Apple Support, who finally told me I needed to call Bluehost. Apple Support stayed on the line with me while I called Bluehost one more time. I am exceedingly glad to report the email is working now.

    After the tragic news of this week’s school shooting, I wrote the following poem:

    Guns, Guts, and Grace or A Day for Lovers

    Seventeen gone home on Valentine’s Day
    Right and left make their points today
    All I do is kneel and pray

    It takes guts to be still
    To say it is ideas not guns that kill
    As hatred grows inside human will

    The blood is real it is bright red
    Alive is not the same as dead
    Lovers can lie together in bed

    We watch the news on TV
    Guns and guts is what we see
    Yet, grace is there inside of me

    Helen writes “I’m done with war!”
    Ain’t gonna study it no more
    Sick to death of it at my core

    But what if what we fear
    Is what is brought so very near
    Threatening all we hold so dear

    A day for lovers that’s for sure
    Calling forth hearts with love so pure
    Rather than minds all cocksure

    Debra Basham 2-15-2018 (WC 140)

    I’ve worn a Fitbit Charge 2 for over a year now. Although it is not REAL TIME, it gives my heart rate, and my resting rate. I have appreciated the feedback, and I have learned a lot about being present or not. My resting heart rate went down during the two days after John was taken to ER. (See In A Single Thought.) I have even noticed that chewing gum while walking helps keep my heart rate down. I am being more present as I chew.

    One thing I see clearly is how every moment along the frustrating process of getting support to fix the email problem, I knew I was dealing with the mundane. Years back I would have been pulling my hair out. The situation was frustrating, and having to make the calls and wait was inconvenient. But while how I dealt with it changed my life, it was not life changing….

  • Road Test

    Sacred Stories

    Unemployed for almost a month now, he drove a friend to a nearby town for a dentist appointment to make a bit of cash.

    His intention was to stop by a company in that town where he had previously applied for a job but not yet been hired.

    As he was dropping the friend off at the dentist office, his phone rang. It was the man from that company saying he kept popping into his mind, and asking, “Can I get you over here to take a road test?”

    “I am here in town right now. I will be right over.”

    He took the road test, so grateful to be one step closer to being hired.

    P.S. Two days later, he started work!

    These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.