Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Tips for Well-Being

  • Learning to Succeed Differently

    Jack and Cindy continue to amaze me with all they are navigating. They wanted to come from Harrison to Bristol, Indiana, where his son and daughter-in-law are seasonal campers at Eby’s Pines Campground. It was Jeff’s birthday and the end-of-season super soup supper event. Jack had been there for that in the past and has lots of friends at the campground. Saturday they made the trip. Over 200 miles. More than three hours.

    We were supposed to drive down to Jeff’s house Saturday evening to visit a while and deliver chocolate chip cookies I baked for them, but by that time Jack was really tired. We agreed to drop off the cookies on our way to New Buffalo where I was guest pastor in New Buffalo Sunday morning.

    Before we left our house, Jack called. “Stay where you are. There is no heat at Jeff’s so we are loading up and heading to you.” When they got here, rather than have Jack get out of the truck, up the steps onto our porch and into the house for such a short visit, John and I shared some memorable moments with them in our driveway. Shortly after nine they left so we could get to church. Heading back home, they planned a stop at Michael’s for Cindy to get craft supplies.

    We got this message from Cindy about 9:15 Sunday night:

    Well, we just got home probably about 20 minutes ago. Jack wanted to stop at Four Winds, so we did.

    Then we had to stop at FireKeepers. Overall, we did pretty good. We ate Chinese at FireKeepers so that was our dinner. We’re having dessert right now — your cookies.

    Sweet dreams we’ll see you when we see you. Love you.

      It was a big weekend as Saturday was also Stacey’s 60th birthday. It does not seem possible that John and I are parents to such a mature woman. She and Doug celebrated by inviting family and friends to join them for Bluegrass Barnside at Arrington Vineyards.Even with so many significant folks unable to attend they had a great group.

      Stacey told us it was like having a living Celebration of Life. We have used those same words about Jack….

      Sunday’s theme of “Living with Intention, or Living in Tension” was exquisitely expressed through Jack and Cindy and Stacey, along with a host of others we know well and love deeply. The following was copied from FaceBook and seems to speak welcome wisdom to our world:

      I Am Learning to Succeed Differently by Helyn Cornille (Copied from FB)

      There was a time when success meant finishing.
      If I started something, I finished it.
      If there were stairs to climb, I climbed them.
      If there was work to be done, I kept going until it was done.
      I don’t live in that body anymore.
      And one of the hardest things about growing older has been learning that this does not mean I have stopped succeeding.
      Today I may look at a staircase that needs cleaning and know I cannot stand there and clean the whole thing.
      But I can sit on one step.
      I can clean what I can reach.
      Tomorrow, perhaps I can do another.
      The old me might have looked at what remained unfinished.
      I am learning to look at what I did.
      That sounds like such a small distinction.
      It isn’t. Because when our bodies change, we can spend an enormous amount of energy measuring ourselves against the person we used to be.
      What I could lift. How far I could walk. How long I could work.
      How quickly I could finish.
      But perhaps success was never really about any of those things.
      Perhaps success is simply continuing to participate in your own life.
      Finding another way.
      Resting when you need to.
      Starting again when you can.
      Doing something in ten small pieces instead of one heroic effort.
      And refusing to believe that adapting is the same thing as giving up.
      I am still learning this. Some days I am better at it than others. But there is something unexpectedly freeing about no longer asking, “Can I still do what I used to do?” and beginning instead to ask, “What can I do today?”
      There is almost always an answer. And sometimes it is enough.
      I am learning to succeed differently.

    1. Agitation and Imagination

        Agitation is interesting.

        Instead of trying to make it go away, allow it to be fully present, so that you can watch and learn its nature clearly.

        ~ The DailyTejaniya

      It is difficult to recall how long ago now I saw so clearly the futility of speaking about a situation that is causing agitation. Any idiot can speak about the problem, but only someone with imagination has the wisdom mind to see solutions.

      You are the only one who knows the conditions in your own life that are currently playing this dynamic out clearly, however, everyone has something going on right now that invites feeling helpless and perhaps even a bit hopeless.

      I have previously mentioned my friend having SERIOUS health conditions in Florida over the winter and since returning to Michigan. (See Anxious Feelings – Power of Presence)

      Well, conditions continue….

      Last week I spent the morning with them at the hospital. She was having the long-awaited cardio version to return her heart to a normal sinus rhythm. We had opportunity to laugh at ourselves and one another. She had been desperate for a hair cut. The day before the cardio version she had an appointment, but when it came time to leave the house she refused to put her slippers on, going to the car instead in her bare feet! Helpless to reason with her, he drove her to the salon only to have her unable to navigate the unbearable heat of the blacktop parking lot. (Plus, with all the shenanigans they were already too late for her appointment!)

      While the three of us waited in pre-op they were both willing and able to confess to and laugh at the absurdity they had collaborated. Unfortunately, we are all prone to mind states and habitual attitudes and unconscious catalysts that augment agitation and interrupt imagination, robbing us of the peace we truly are.

      We talked about how counter productive human behavior can become when conditions prevent us from being able to have or do or be what we desire most — and sometimes actually need. You only have to think for one moment about the political or environmental or institutional climate crisis we are experiencing on this planet to understand fully the feelings leaning toward helplessness or hopelessness. Add as backdrop the layer of the inevitability of old age, illness, and death (from Buddhism: This body is subject to breaking up, subject to being laid down).

      So, this morning I am allowing agitation to be fully present.

      I am remembering how consistent I had to become with taking John’s vitals EVERY DAY and reporting them to his doctor EVERY WEEK for over two years now. You can watch and learn agitation’s nature clearly. The doctors’ agitation with the insurance stranglehold is not other than my own. The agitation with delay in getting access to what we want or need. The agitation that is precariously leaning toward helplessness or hopelessness, but also can open us up to imagination.

      This comes from the preface of Imagine Healing: Guided Imagery to Help You Heal, by Debra Basham and Joel Bowman.

      Woven into the fabric of your illness or health crisis, are the emotional, mental, and spiritual dynamics of both “dis-ease” and well-being. That simply means what is in the way, is the way. The use of your imagination can help you heal now.

      By activating your imagination, you will not only be healing the physical ailment, you will be healing on all levels—body, mind, and spirit. Why settle for healing that is just skin deep, when you can activate your innate healing capacities. Although we cannot “unhappen” history, you are able to experience relief from painful memories, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, even as you physically heal

      Agitation is interesting.

      Blessed be.

    2. Grow Through What You Go Through

      Light rain was tap dancing on the metal roof of the lanai as I sat in the darkness waiting for the sun to make its debut thinking about a dear friend of mine whose brother-in-love is going to be having lung cancer surgery soon. She has been a champion of ours for decades, having thrived through cancer herself. A video interview of Jane’s Imagine Healing Journey is featured on our website.

      I imagined her sharing the Imagine Healing process with him….

      Opening email from The Daily Tejaniya I read: “Practice with the idea of not trying to create an experience. Instead, just take your experience as it is and try to learn from it.”

      You can see the middle path!

      Doing the process of Imagine Healing supports the central nervous system so the physical body has the best opportunity for healing. Having done the process, you are much more capable of being present to learn through your experience.

      Our granddaughter is going through a lot right now. I sent her a photo of a sweatshirt I had seen on Facebook with the words: Grow through what you go through.

      A quick internet search for that phrase took me to a sweet website which listed 12 Hacks to Grow Through What You Go Through. Number 3 on the list is about how you can grow through your fears.

        We don’t run from our fears; we go through them. To get past our fears, we need to do three things:

        1) acknowledge them,

        2) let them go, and

        3) replace them with something else.

      That list took me to a post by another Facebook friend and colleague, Lisa Gordon (I was trained in Healing Touch by her mom, Janet Mentgen). Lisa posted a sweet reminder from “The Female Hustlers” offering a perfect way to navigate these last days of December 2023:

        De-cember
        de-clutter
        de-tach and
        de-lete
        anything that
        de-values your life.
        Don’t bring
        it into 2024.

      Whatever is happening in your life right now, may you grow through all you go through.

    3. LOVE Came Down at Christmas

      I am grateful John and I had a practice run at not being physically with Stacey and her family for Christmas in 2019.

      Last year we attended a Christmas Day potluck at Pine Island Cove with Michigan friends, Linda and Fred, who also winter here in Florida.

      This year, John and I share our day with all of you in our hearts.


      Our hearts are uplifted by the truth: “We isolate this year so that when we can meet again next year no one will be missing.”

      Today, our home-away-from-home may be empty of friends and family, but my heart is full of love for each of you!

      Our hearts are filled with memories!

      Our hearts are warmed by Christmases past.

      Our hearts are nourished with the true meaning of Christmas:

        That Mary and Joseph—Mary heavy with child—traveled through the countryside.

        She was at the time of giving birth to the child.

        They found shelter, simple shelter.

        And many beings experiencing, “The light has been born! Ah… The light is back!”

        It wasn’t me, it was more that my birth opened the doorway so that the Heavenly light—the Love, the remembrance of Love—could pour through.

        What was that star? Let us metaphorically call it an opening in the dark heavens where the remembrance of light and Love could pour through—pour through to where I lay as an infant, not to highlight me but to remind humans nothing is hopeless.

        Light IS.

        Love IS.

        And it is right here.

        And it was pointing at me, but it could be pointing at any of you.

        Here is the ground of love and light.

        And the earth sang, “Halleluiah!” not for my birth but for the remembrance: LIGHT IS, LOVE IS.*

      * Jeshua, channeled by Barbara Brodsky on Christmas Eve 2020, sharing some thoughts about what Christmas means to him and how we can carry the meaning of Christmas through to our times.

    4. The Giving Hat

      P.S. When Jane Foster received the hat (see previous post) she sent this photo, and a message saying she thought the hat needed to be named.

      She decided to name it the “Giving Hat” because her husband gifted her the hat, it is giving her so much pleasure, and the proceeds that will go to cancer research is giving others a chance at a longer and better quality of life.

      Here she is in the “Giving Hat.”

    5. Do You Know Who Your Master Is?

      Our daughter was sharing a precious “aha moment” she had recently. She works in an industry which has it’s peak adjacent to retail sales— during the months of November and December. As many who are responsible for hiring entry level workers, she has struggled to get reliable help. That has been a HUGE frustration to her, robbing her of the joy of the rest of her job. She experienced an emotional overload, had a crying time, and then an insight. Related to her responsibilities, she became aware of feeling pulled between her plant manager who was screaming for help, a co-owner who wanted to keep payroll down, and the publishers who wanted timely deliveries…. just to name a few.

      Awareness is key. Her awareness included a sentence spoken within herself that became her ticket to freedom a few days later, “I don’t know who my master is.”

      Deep Spring Center Thought for Today

      ‘You’re on a boat,’ he said. ‘The boat is riding too low on the water and there are waves. You’ve got to toss one person out. In the boat are a loved one, a person about whom you feel neutral, a person who is a difficult person, and yourself. You’re the one to decide: which one are you going to cast into the water?’

      She thought about it awhile and said, ‘There are no grounds for decision.’

      He just smiled and bowed and indicated that the interview was over.

      ‘Did I get it right?’ she wondered.

      But of course, when you get to that place where you understand your interrelationship with all beings, there are no grounds for decision. You cannot cast yourself into the shark-infested sea to save others nor can you throw others in to save yourself.

      ~ Aaron

      There are no grounds for decision.

      Like the people on the boat, every one of those needs my daughter was feeling torn between had value, but not ONE of them was more or less important than the others.

      A few days after her breakdown, she had a breakthrough. This is the insight that set her free:

      “I do know who my master is. I serve God. The plant manager is not my master. The co-owner is not my master. The publisher is not my master. My master wants me to experience peace, and joy, and to do what I can do to serve/help.”

      An aside: if you do not automatically receive the Beyond Mastery Newsletter, or if you currently receive only one email message with links to the newsletter included (rather than the email message with the links plus the individual post/s), then you will want to sign up now to receive all posts automatically. The January edition will come out at the end of this month, and it may just rock your boat. Here is the link: Sign Up Now for Beyond Mastery.

      The outer circumstances at work have not changed. She did not magically have adequate, dedicated, reliable hires. She was able to have a heart-to-heart with her plant manager, and with the company president about having recognized her real master. Theirs is a Christian organization. The name they use is God. The miracle in her life happened because she listened to God, she heard that voice within. When we listen, we have to take action. The action she took was to let herself be transformed from within.

      Included in my January article will be an invitation for others to join an online group based on the book Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within, by Janet Conner.

      You will know if you are ready.