Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding!

Do you have a “Cardinal Rule?” I do and I broke mine today. How? I went to the mall.

You see, it’s the week before Thanksgiving. That means it’s after October 15, my “drop-dead-last-day-in-a-mall-before-Christmas” Cardinal Rule.

I don’t do last-minute Christmas shopping. I shop a great deal online, which means much of my shopping is done before fall begins. We also frequent craft shows,

antique stores and festivals, all of which are in abundance in south central Pennsylvania. Plus, we celebrate “Boxing Day” (December 26) thanks to my fiancé’s Anglophile perspective on life. Shopping for all sorts of presents begins the day after Christmas. You should only HOPE to get the deals we get!

So why did I chose to title this week’s blog, “Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding?” You have endured my three paragraph, “get-to-the-point, Terry!” set-up – a minimum requirement I’ve set when I’m sleep-deprived, had too much caffeine and some ADHD has kicked in – so you deserve the answer! Two words:

SALVATION ARMY

Really? November 20^th and the bell ringers have to be out already? I mean the mall isn’t even decorated for Christmas yet. Seriously?

ARGHHH … another Christmas holiday has arrived, regardless of what the calendar says, and “BINGO!” – all the things I still need and want to do before the holiday arrives comes flooding into my little brain, causing me a mini-minor scheduling meltdown.

Do you ever feel that way? You’re cruising along in life, having a delightful day, feeling like you have the tiger by the tail and the world is your oyster, and THEN it happens! You remember you were supposed to do something (like write a major article whose deadline is ten days away); you’re having guests for dinner and the food you were supposed to lay out to thaw is still in the deep freeze; or, you answer a call to find out that a friend has been waiting for the last hour for you to show up for lunch. You get the idea.

I don’t know what might cause you to have these “Shut-The-Front-Door” moments, but I can tell you how it usually is for me. Normally when stuff like this happens I find that I have scheduled so many things to do, or that I am so overwhelmed with worry about a situation, that my mind just plain stops working.

I can’t find my keys – probably a good idea since the last place I should be at a time like that is behind the wheel of a vehicle. I forget to feed the fish. I forget to feed Terry. I simply stop remembering what I’m supposed to be doing and find my mind off on an Australian-style walkabout. While amusing to others it can be most annoying to me.

There is another reason I felt the way I did earlier today with the bell ringer. It’s completely and totally ego-related. I don’t recall giving my consent for the Salvation Army to set up this week (not that they’ve asked in the past, mind you), and since they did so without any warning (HOW RUDE!), I was literally forced into the realization that Christmas is closer than I thought.

Now isn’t that just silly? I mean it’s not like it’s Easter or Hanukah that changes every year according to the lunar calendar. There it is, right there, smack dab on December 25, every year, year after year. Amazing how that works, non?

I hope you’re relating to this. Quite frankly, I’d hate to think I was the only person in the world who has ever has this type of thing happen to them. The way I deal with ego meltdowns is to laugh. That probably annoys the dickens out of my ego, but I’m not going to lose sleep over that. If you find you are a little surprised by events, the actions of others, or just something that doesn’t fit your pictures, might you be willing to try that? Just laugh. I mean have a good, old fashioned belly laugh. You’d be amazed at how well this works.

I mean, compared to world peace, how important are our problems or upsets anyway?

In Spirit, Truth and Playfulness (and laughter!)

Terry

The Prism of Your Soul

Do you like it when people pigeon-hole you into category assigned you a label? I sure don’t. Human beings are multi-faceted creatures. To make situations easier for ourselves we frequently place each other into convenient categories. All too often these labels fall far short of describing who we are as individuals.

Psychologist Dr. Dan Gottlieb reported working with a young woman who told him:  “I feel like my soul is a prism, but everybody just sees one color. Nobody sees the prism.”

What would it be like if we could actually see the prism of the soul of other people around us? How would our lives be different if we allowed those we love to see all spectrums of who we are?

Think about meeting someone for the first time. Do we ask what their hopes and dreams are for the future? Do we inquire about their deepest fears or greatest joys? No. Usually we want to know if they are married or single; gay or straight; what political party they support; where they went to school; what they do for a living; what kind of car they drive; and, what socioeconomic status they have achieved.

Then, armed with the information, we use a mental check list to arrive at our decision about how to label the person. Judgment, prejudice, slant and bias are often attached to labels. We see only one color, not the full spectrum of visible light or the thousands of shades and tints of their brilliance.

The prism of our soul is all the colors or nuances of our personality that make up who we are. Add to that all the bands of light invisible to the naked eye, both above and below our spectrum of recognition. These unseen energies represent the subconscious or subjective aspects of our personalities; some perhaps not even known to us let alone anyone else.

Be willing to take a step or two back this week from your preconceived ideas about the people in your life. What positive qualities do they possess that you may have overlooked? Then, open up to others fully and confidently in being all you can be by showing a willingness to share your hidden colors with them as well.

In Spirit, Truth and Playfulness,

Terry

Yes, Precious, It DOES Matter

There WILL be a spiritual component to this writing … I promise … but you need a little “set-up” for it.

So … I'm off to my “day job” as a flight attendant, going through the "Known Crew Member (KCM)" security check at BWI last Monday morning at 4:35am for my 5:00am sign-in.

I hand my passport to the TSA agent, scan my KCM badge, then hold my airline ID badge for her to compare my ID, passport and the photo of me on the monitor.

She looks at my passport.

She looks at my badge.

She waits for the photo to come up on the screen.

Her eyebrows raise, ever so slightly.

She looks at my passport again, then at my ID and the back at the screen.

Then, she looks up at me.

Her left eyebrow raises in a more pronounced manner.

She looks back at the passport, issued in 2006.

She looks back at me.

THEN she says it:

“WOW! You sure have aged!”

I’m barely standing up straight, managing on 4.5 hours of sleep, a two-hour drive to the airport in the middle of the night and it’s now 4:36am.

I am NOT in the mood.

My response?

I honestly didn’t have one – don’t ask me to be witty before coffee. I did manage my best flight attendant fake smile (you know, the one that looks nice and really means, “Drop dead”), accompanied by a slight raise of MY left eyebrow.

I stopped short of saying something about one of the worst hair weaves in the greater Baltimore/Washington DC area and that “someone” likes the McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts just down the corridor a little more than is prudent. I’ve learned to NEVER push a TSA agent, particularly one that obviously takes great pride reveling in perhaps the only part of her life in which she feels she has complete and utter control.

(sigh)

So what is the spiritual side of all this? This amazing light being with bad hair and a penchant toward hypertensive heart disease was scheduled at exactly the right time and on the precise day that I would come up to her desk for her to be able to deliver a message from Spirit that I did not want to hear:  “Terry, We believe you are a “bit” more concerned about turning 60 next year than you might want to admit. Jus’ sayin’. Thanks, The Universe.”

Like a lot of people, I’ve been known occasionally to believe denial of the facts will encourage the manifestation

of what we imagine to be eternal truth. The Truth is, however, denial doesn’t do anything for us, except perhaps make us uncomfortable because we’re lying to ourselves and everyone around us. What we can deny is the necessity of our situation and then turn to knowing the Truth.

We forget that the “facts” are not the Truth. It isn’t turning 60, or having a few pounds after we gave birth to our third child, or finding hair growing in places we didn’t know hair would grow, or not fitting into our favorite skinny jeans. It’s what meaning we assign to those facts that change our attitude and our experience in life.

What facts have you been denying in your life? Would you be willing to admit what you don’t want to think about? Admitting the facts doesn’t mean we forget the Truth. It’s the first step to our healing. In the words of my friend, Arleen, “You’ve suffered long enough. Are you willing to try something else?”

So, are you? Willing to try something else? And, FYI? My birthday is May 23. I expect cards. LOTS of cards. Jus’ sayin’….

In Spirit, Truth and Playfulness,

Terry