Freedom #4: Not anxiety, lots of gratitude

In the letters of Paul,
a passage recommended by my friend Dick Staub,
Philippians 4: 6
this goes down:

"Never be anxious, but in every prayer
And each entreaty,
add your thanks to God."

Simple.
Amazing.

Don't ask for anything unless it's riding
soft sweet and easy on a current of praise
on a magic carpet of gratitude.

Never be anxious.
Never.
Not, kind of chill out on the anxiety.
Not, only be a little anxious when you can't help it,
and besides, your friends like it when you're down.
Not, it's the way it is, get worried, it's a messy world.
Not....

But, "Never be anxious."

Fear is what?
Real when a tiger is about to eat you,
but usually is
just about something this simple:
things not going our way.


Anxiety is the loss of control because we
have a picture that Reality should be a certain
way,
and Reality just goes along
being what it is.

We can want to control.
And smile.

We can want to control
and feel anxious.

We can love what is.
And what do we feel like doing when we love what is?

Give thanks.


How bout this song, by Alanis Morissette,
titled, by golly : Thank U

"Thank U"

how bout getting off all these antibiotics

how bout stopping eating when I'm full up

how bout them transparent dangling carrots

how bout that ever elusive kudo

thank you india

thank you terror

thank you disillusionment

thank you frailty

thank you consequence

thank you thank you silence

how bout me not blaming you for everything

how bout me enjoying the moment for once

how bout how good it feels to finally forgive you

how bout grieving it all one at a time

thank you india

thank you terror

thank you disillusionment

thank you frailty

thank you consequence

thank you thank you silence

the moment I let go of it was the moment

I got more than I could handle

the moment I jumped off of it

was the moment I touched down

how bout no longer being masochistic

how bout remembering your divinity

how bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out

how bout not equating death with stopping

thank you india

thank you providence

thank you disillusionment

thank you nothingness

thank you clarity

thank you thank you silence

.......

Never be anxious,

give thanks to India, to sickness, to disillusionment to clarity to shit to crap

to what we think shouldn't be

thanks to Reality

it's the winning hand,

why not roll around in heaven all day

with the winner

and never be anxious that we

made the wrong choice

how bout that?

What to do after the Surgery: Or, New Wine in New or Old Bottles/ Skins?

NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES




How to be kind to yourself after a “big shift”

Sometimes Life throws us what could be called a “big shift.” In the Bible Jesus talks about this “big shift” as the creation of ourselves as a new person, as New Wine. And He says, Why put the New Wine in Old Bottles, it will just go to waste that way. Put the New Wine in New Bottles.

The quote from my version of the New Testament, a highly recommended, The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas by Willis Barnstone, goes like this:

“No one pours new wine in old skins,
Since the wine splits the skins,
And both wine and skins are lost.
No, put the new wine in new skins.”

This is hugely applicable today, in the era of so many hip, shoulder, knee replacements. This is the New Wine. Because without a New Bottle, we really are not getting any where near all the benefits and improvements we could.

We had the shoulder or hip or knee surgery because we weren’t using ourselves in an ease-ful and pleasurable and efficiently masterful way. Basically, we were using our body as a neglected step-child, not really paying attention to our dis-ease and pain until they became intolerable. And truth be told, for people who don’t know about, or know and haven’t tried yet the two methods recommended here, there is often little effective that can be done.

Come to think of it, a chiropractic “adjustment” could be another way to set us up as New Wine.

And after our chiropractic help, we still haven’t addressed the underlying need to organize and sense and move in easy and efficient and pleasurable ways.

So here’s where the Feldenkrais Method, or the Anat Baniel Method come are crucial.

They are the most powerful, and most gentle ways on this planet to create inside of ourselves a new organization, a New Bottle for the New Wine of post operation, or post chiropractic. (Post alcohol, and post dis-ease, too, and during cancer and depression, and that’s a longer story, but thing of this: if we improve ease and comfort and breathing and pleasure in life, how much will that help our Whole Life.)

Almost invariably, people who have had one knee or hip replacement, need the next, and it is almost always from not having created a new organization from the one that created the stress and dis-ease and harm that necessitated the first operation.

Does that mean after two knee operations, or the second hip operation you should do FM or ABM? Only if you want to have a low level of ease, comfort, awareness and functioning for the rest of your life.

Don't worry, also from the Bible, but that doesn't mean "do nothing," it means: put your energy into love and improvement and into making the world a better place, and stop fretting. See, if you'd please, yesterday's posting: Don't Worry, Be Happy

Good.