Anxious Feelings – Power of Presence

I was awake a few times during the night. My friend is in the hospital. She just got home from Florida on Tuesday about dinner time and when I took “Welcome Home” cookies to her about noon on Wednesday, it was obvious she was not in tip-top-shape. This friend had MAJOR back surgery while in Florida, and her history of heart issues resulted in a longer-than-expected stay in the hospital with MANY complications. We were so looking forward to her being home and healthy.

A call to her cardiologist office resulted in her going to ER. Sparing significant details, suffice it to say, she is in the hospital now. It seems she is having pauses between beats. She has called these “spells.” Feeling like she was going to faint, but not actually losing consciousness. The pauses have been getting longer and the plan is for her to receive a pacemaker. If you have a practice of prayers, please pass along some for her.

I had seen this post on Facebook from “Fabulous Lovers of Weird Everything” about ten days ago, and I knew this post was coming, even before the situation with my friend and before Mother’s Day.

“Piglet?” said Pooh.
“Yes?” said Piglet.
“I’m scared,” said Pooh.
For a moment, there was silence.
“Would you like to talk about it?” asked Piglet, when Pooh didn’t appear to be saying anything further.
“I’m just so scared,” blurted out Pooh.
“So anxious. Because I don’t feel like things are getting any better. If anything, I feel like they might be getting worse. People are angry, because they’re so scared, and they’re turning on one another, and there seems to be no clear plan out of here, and I worry about my friends and the people I love, and I wish SO much that I could give them all a hug, and oh, Piglet! I am so scared, and I cannot tell you how much I wish it wasn’t so.”
Piglet was thoughtful, as he looked out at the blue of the skies, peeping between the branches of the trees in the Hundred Acre Wood, and listened to his friend.
“I’m here,” he said, simply. “I hear you, Pooh. And I’m here.”
For a moment, Pooh was perplexed.
“But… aren’t you going to tell me not to be so silly? That I should stop getting myself into a state and pull myself together? That it’s hard for everyone right now?”
“No,” said Piglet, quite decisively. “No, I am very much not going to do any of those things.”
“But – ” said Pooh.
“I can’t change the world right now,” continued Piglet. “And I am not going to patronise you with platitudes about how everything will be okay, because I don’t know that.
“What I can do, though, Pooh, is that I can make sure that you know that I am here. And that I will always be here, to listen; and to support you; and for you to know that you are heard.
“I can’t make those Anxious Feelings go away, not really.
“But I can promise you that, all the time I have breath left in my body…you won’t ever need to feel those Anxious Feelings alone.”
And it was a strange thing, because even as Piglet said that, Pooh could feel some of those Anxious Feelings start to loosen their grip on him and could feel one or two of them start to slither away into the forest, cowed by his friend, who sat there stolidly next to him.
Pooh thought he had never been more grateful to have Piglet in his life.

~ Thinushi Jayarangi

When I got to the hospital on Friday, my friend had experienced an adverse reaction to an IV medication. Her heart rate and pulse had plummeted. The nurse and doctor were still there with her…. and my friend kept telling me how wonderful the nurse had been through the event, “She just stayed here with me and she kept calling me back….”

Perhaps today is the perfect day to share this story because it is Mother’s Day. I just sent a text message to a friend saying that not every woman (and not one man) gives birth to another human, but we all share in that universal love called MOTHER. That friend lost her mother recently and today is the first Mother’s Day with her mother in spirit.

Even when our physical mothers are not here in bodies we are receiving a Mother’s Love. Calling the planet we live on “Mother Earth” seems perfect. Every moment we are in these bodies we are being nurtured and held and sustained, especially when we are navigating challenging conditions and have anxious feelings.

Women and men are doing that for one another. The Holy Spirit is doing that for each of us. Our ancestors, our deities, our partners, our pets…. this is the Power of Presence.