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therapist

The Vision: A Spiritual Gift

Today I received an incredible gift.  Actually I received two gifts:  I treated myself to a wonderful facial and during the facial I was gifted with an amazing vision.

I believe that visions come through in very spiritual moments in our life.  Moments of grace that open the heart and the mind in a very unique way that allows a connection on another level.  I have experienced a few of these as I have grown on my spiritual path.  Today’s was very special.

I have mentioned my wonderful massage therapist, Michael, in previous postings.  He and his wife, Elisha own a studio together.  She is presently about seven months pregnant (and glows with it too!!), and has chosen to take a break from giving full body massage until after the baby is born. 

However, she has started offering thirty minute cleansing facials which do not tax her so physically because for the most part she is seated.  For me, receiving a facial is the next best piece of heaven after massage, so I lost no time in making an appointment.

Elisha has a soft, gentle, calming spirit and it was very easy to feel comfortable with her.  As soon as she placed her hands on my face I knew the session was going to be very special: I felt a golden thread connecting us.  My breathing deepened immediately and I was aware of being restored on every level.

Although I was deeply relaxed under Elisha’s touch, I was also very alert. I registered the different aromas diffused in each product that she used at the various stages of the facial process.  I was very aware of the changing directions of the strokes she used on my face without interrupting the flow of touch and movement, as well as the slightly different pressure she applied from time to time.  And how I reveled in the warmth of the hot towels between each stage of the facial.

Then suddenly, somewhere in the middle of the treatment, I became aware of a soft golden glow that appeared in front of me.  It slowly brightened until it shimmered in an incredible brilliant sea of light.  And there in the middle, floating contentedly was a baby, and I knew I was seeing Elisha’s son. 

The whole vision was simply magnificent and I felt almost breathless.  Then in the same way that it had slowly manifested, so it faded away.  I wanted to cry out, “No, don’t go yet.”  But the gift was complete and I felt so privileged to have received it.

As well as feeling greatly restored and full of peace after my treatment, I was also full of gratitude.  Visions do not come along very often and I truly appreciate their God-given presence in my life.  And how much more of a blessing this gift was as I was able, with great joy, to share it with Elisha.              

Musings: Life As Water

I don’t know whether I have shared the water story yet.  After searching through my archives I have come to the conclusion that I have not and feel compelled to write it now.

It all began a couple of years ago as I was dealing with the latest “bombshell” from our daughter.  I knew to the depths of my soul that I was in deep trouble internally, because I wanted to “shut down”, run away, not see or talk with anyone.  Those are all danger signals for me.

I immediately alerted my support network and began what turned out to be two years of intense personal work.  I firmly believe that God provides – always, even when we are not quite aware of it.  In the month or so before the “bombshell”, I had heard about a couple of people who offered new-to-me alternative therapy, and I had put them in a file for future reference.

Well, now was the future, so I contacted them and made appointments.  They have both helped me tremendously in my personal growth, but more importantly they gave me incredible support as I dealt with very difficult times.  I also began working with an amazingly skilled and talented male massage therapist who was referred to me by a very trusted friend/female massage therapist.  There’s nothing like male energy to “shake things up a bit”.

At the time, I was also involved in some special one-on-one work with one of my very dear friends. As I spent some time with her one morning she suddenly said, a propos of nothing that we were talking about in that particular moment, “Margo I read something this morning and I think you would like it.”  She then proceeded to show me the 78th Verse of the Tao Te Ching written by Lao_tzu, as presented and commented on by Wayne Dyer in his book Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life, (which I then had to promptly go and buy!!).

I am going to write out the verse as it appears in the book:

Nothing in the world is softer
and weaker than water.
But for attacking the hard, the unyielding,
nothing can surpass it.
There is nothing like it.

The weak overcomes the strong;
the soft surpasses the hard.
In all the world, there is no one who does not know this,
but no one can master the practice

Therefore the master remains
serene in the midst of sorrow;
evil cannot enter his heart.
Because he has given up helping,
he is the people’s greatest help.

True words appear paradoxical.

The ensuing chapter was titled “Living Like Water” and Wayne Dyer comments on the verse in the following way.  “Be like water seems to be repeated throughout the Tao Te Ching. ……..Water is elusive until you cease grasping and let your hand relax and be one with it – ………  Overcome the unyielding parts of your life by yielding! ……. Remember to stay flexible, willing to lower yourself in humility and appear weak, but knowing that you are in harmony with the Tao.  …….. When you stay soft and surpass the hard, you too will be indestructible.  There’s nothing softer than water under heaven, and yet there’s nothing that can surpass it for overcoming the hard.”

I knew in that moment that this was a huge lesson that I needed to take to heart.  I needed to practice being soft and flexible rather than being tough.  I needed, just like water, “to find my own level below all strong things”. I needed, just like water, to return to my own Source (which for me is God) and allow Him to use me over and over in ways that He sees fit.

After reading this passage and processing my thoughts, I came to a great place of peace.  Even though I was in the midst of great spiritual, emotional, mental, and consequently physical, turmoil I could feel God’s love and grace surround me and sustain me.

My husband was in San Diego at the time.  Later that day he called me and I was able to share my “water experience” with him.  As I was telling him the story, he suddenly said, “Oh my God, Oh my God!”.  In somewhat of a panic and with my heart beating wildly I shouted down the phone, “What’s the matter?  What’s happening?” 

His response sent chills up and down my spine, and I get goose bumps all over again as I recount these events.  He replied, “It’s OK, everything is OK.  It’s just that a girl is walking past and her T-shirt logo says ‘Water is Life’.  Needless to say I felt the hand of God right there.  I felt His presence and I knew that no matter what, He would always be there for me.      

Musings: Relationships

I have always loved reading.  My mother called me a bookworm.  I would devour books, rarely putting them down until the last letter of the last word on the last page had been savored.  As a little girl I heard, then read by myself, all the childhood favorites.

I learned the nursery rhymes one by one until I new them all by heart.  I remember Little Boy Blue, Baa-baa Black Sheep, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, Little Bo-Peep, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Jack Spratt, and so many others.  The characters all seemed so real to me and with my vivid imagination I would charm them all to life as I lay in bed.

Then, of course, there was Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.  How many nights did I fall asleep with the image of myself in one of my very ordinary little dresses being turned into a shimmering creation of gossamer silver and silk.  Or seeing myself with a handsome prince (who looked suspiciously like Johnnie the boy next door!), riding off in a glimmering golden carriage into a rosy pink sunset.  And those were the ideals that were cast in stone in my childhood memory banks for the future that could be mine.  I would be “rescued” from whatever paltry life I was living and I would be carried off to live “happily ever after”. 

The only problem with Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty is that no one wrote the sequel.  So here we are left with the never-ending final scene of riding off into that proverbial sunset and being happy.  We are never shown what happens when they got back to the palace.  I presume that’s where they were eventually headed.

I mean, I realize that if they did live in a palace they would probably have access to a maid or two, and a cook, and a butler, and a gardener.  Life wouldn’t be too shabby as they created an edict or two and smiled magnanimously at their subjects. But they’d still have to think about day-to-day living and waking up to each other everyday. 

However, I have to admit, that if ever my little girl mind went further than that ride into the sunset, I always imagined Cinderella walking the corridors of her palace in different ball gowns and tiaras, and leaning out of balconies in the palace turrets as little blue birds flew down to her fingers and sang to her.  I’ve no idea what the prince was up to as she floated around in her perfectly idyllic life!!

No wonder we are set up for failure in real life relationships!  Given the state of today’s society full of drinking and drugs, fast paced living, crime and abuse, there probably isn’t more than a handful of healthy families in each neighborhood.  Pessimistic – maybe; realistic – probably.

Let’s just go back to the sixties.  Actually we need to back further still, to the time of prohibition.  Everything was forbidden, especially alcohol.  When that law was revoked there was a wild swing into drinking which eventually ended up in the free love and drug experimentation during the era of the hippy sixties.

Although the sixties ended and the hippies went out of style, drugs had taken a firm hold.  The hippy youth of the sixties became the next generation of parents.  Many of them continued to use “soft” drugs and some “not-so-soft” drugs also spilled onto the market.  You don’t need to be a psychologist to realize that these people were not the best of parents and a whole generation of dysfunctional families was created.

As their children grew up and began to look for mates we had the first layer of inter-dysfunctional marriages.  Many people used alcohol to chase away their demons.  Others got into heavier drugs which were becoming increasingly more available. Wherever there is a new market entrepreneurial minds will flourish, and many criminal minds were savvy enough to realize that there was much money to be made with drugs.

And let’s not forget the wave of people who began to turn to prescription drugs to treat the depression and other psychological ailments that came from the pain of knowing there was something wrong but not being able to pin point or explain that wrong. Very few people could bear the stigma that was associated with going to see a psychologist or therapeutic counselor, so they used whatever was available.

“Too depressing, way too negative”, I hear you cry.  “Depressingly true”, I respond.  “But what has this got to do with Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty”, I hear you ask.  “Everything”, I say.  When there is nothing, or at least very little, left but darkness or depression we look for salvation wherever we can find it.  When no decent role models are around we turn to fantasy and make believe and the realm of fairy tales and try to turn them into reality.

Is it any wonder that the explosion of New Age religions and spirituality was so enormous?  By now we have generation upon generation of dysfunctional people searching for something, searching for salvation, searching for real role models.  On a subconscious level people realize that there is more to life than “sex, drugs, and rock and roll”.

Thank God more and more people are reaching out for the help that they need.  There is definitely a movement toward the return of old values.  Many people are seeking professional help as that stigma drops away.  The rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous are growing in number and in size. 

Many people see that it takes courage to ask for help and are discovering that courage.  Even men, the proverbial “strong, silent, macho one’s” are becoming brave enough (they always thought it was a weakness!), to approach therapists.  Couples are recognizing that jumping into divorce does not remove their problems.  Divorce may remove the other partner, but each partner is still left with attitudes and behaviors that they will drag into a new relationship.

So perhaps we can lay the fairy tales to rest, or at least in recounting them to our children and our grandchildren we can help them to understand that they are just that – fairy tales.  Perhaps some new good authors will emerge who can write a “second level” of classical fairy tales for our children as they reach early teens.  Stories that will shine a light of good healthy reality on how life can and should be lived after that ride into the sunset.           

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