By Debra Basham, on November 15, 2014
The ringing of the doorbell was immediately greeted by fierce barking from inside the house. My visit was with a woman at home with hospice care. Waiting patiently my mind gently ran through options ranging from a forgotten appointment time to a crisis that had taken her from her home. Then I heard a distant voice telling me to come on in.
In spite of her frail body, I was greeted with warm and active eyes. Her very vocal companion let me know I best be coming as a friend….
The subject of life after death seemed to naturally weave itself into our sharing. The Hawk Visit is one story that often has relevance when we are musing about the after life. I mentioned that our book club is reading Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, by Eben Alexander.
I also shared two of my favorite quotations from Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler, by my friend Rabbi Rami Shapiro.
(November/December 2008)
What happens when I die?
Where does an ice cube go in a tub of warm water? You are the cube, God is the water. For a while you seem separate from the water, but eventually you melt – you die – and discover that you, too, are water. Have fun being a cube; just don’t forget that all cubes are water, and everything is God.
(January/February 2007)
Imagine that the universe is a rope and you, your mom, and all things are knots in that rope. Each knot is unique, and all knots are the rope. When we die our knot unties, but the rope that is our essence remains unchanged: we become what we already are.
Life after death is the same as life before death: the rope knotting and unknotting. The extent to which you identify with a knot is the extent to which you grieve over its untying. The extent to which you realize that the knot is the rope is the extent you can move through your grief into a sense of fearless calm.
For me, the rope is God, the source and substance of all reality. When your mom dies she relaxes into her true nature, and realizes who she always was and is: God. I believe this realization comes at death regardless of who we are or how we life.
She tires easily, so our precious time together for the day was coming to an end when she said, “It would be so much easier if I could trust that this dying leads to a good thing.”
I encouraged her to trust that our leaving our bodies is natural and safe by looking at nature. Every autumn the trees in Michigan let go of their leaves (I had keyed in lives) without fear of the future. Each spring new life breaks forth. I reminded her that everything is energy and the first law of physics is that energy can be neither created nor destroyed.
Later that same day, a friend came for dinner. After dinner she read to me a section of Choices: Taking Control of Your Life and Making it Matter, by Melody Beattie. My friend had randomly opened to this section earlier that morning, about the same time of my home visit:
The famous “Death and Dying” lady lay on the hospital bed in her living room. She couldn’t get up. A series of strokes—19 or more—had left her severely handicapped. Paralyzed on one side. It was morning. She was thirsty. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross said a quick prayer. “God, please send someone. A cup of tea would be so nice.”
(Melody describes how she came to be there that day, how she helped Elisabeth dress, and then made her a cup of tea.)
Elisabeth looked at me. “What do you want to ask me?”
Now it was my turn to clear my throat. “Do you really believe in life after death? Are you afraid of death, at least a little bit?” I asked.
Elisabeth laughed. “Didn’t you read my book, dear?” she said. “It’s not about believing. I know there’s life after death. Dying is the easy part. It’s life that’s hard.”
I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Thank you. And have a safe trip home.”
By Debra Basham, on November 4, 2014
Without sharing the others personal details, it is my hope through this blog post you will be able to have a sense of the depth of experience from the week-long retreat at Camp Geneva, in Holland.
Right there on the shores of Lake Michigan, every season was present—including sun and warmth and bitter wind and rain and snow! Every season of our innermost being was present, too. As magnificent as the physical setting was, the inner radiance was truly most beyond words.
The focus of the first two days was on conscious aging. We heard that the human life can be summed up this way: “Aging is from diapers to diapers. We start out needing help eating and walking, and we end up needing help eating and walking. Even with the best of planning, you have no control.”
Although our personal lives are filled with history, our inner being remains untouched by the ravages of past days and decades, allowing love to shine forth through those cracks and crevices. Sitting in meditation, you remember who you really are. You feel your heart open to divine love. Day after day we were each giving respect to and honoring our true essence. We had the opportunity to create our soul collage. It was truly a memorable experience.
We led one another in a trust walk, and we played a round of Jenga. The game has 54 blocks. The goal is to remove one block at a time and stack it on top. In the official game, the last player to stack a block on top without making the tower fall is the winner. The suspense builds and the tower keeps getting taller. Our instructions were to notice when our body would contract, and to remember to relax and truly enjoy the play.
My past work as a doula (childbirth coach) came in very handy as one of our group said she had always been called a Nervous Nelly. So she could relax and have fun, I kept reminding her to breathe and kept saying, “It is only a game. At some point it all falls down and we say yeah.” I had such fun with my two partners, Clare and Cathy!
If you let go a little, you will have a little peace.
If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.
If you let go completely, you will have complete peace and freedom.
~ Ajahn Chah
By Debra Basham, on October 24, 2014
It was unlike any other Thursday eve, I will admit. On Thursday, October 23, 2014, I joined several friends from our women’s group—we call ourselves Lion-Hearted Women—for a fundraiser of the dramatic reading of “The Vagina Monologues” written by Eve Ensler.
Nothing I thought I knew about this production could have prepared me for how shocking the evening would be. My heart physically hurt as we heard about unforgivable acts of female genital mutilation (classified by the World Health Organization into four major types):
- Clitoridectomy: partial or total removal of the clitoris (a small, sensitive and erectile part of the female genitals) and, in very rare cases, only the prepuce (the fold of skin surrounding the clitoris).
- Excision: partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora (the labia are “the lips” that surround the vagina).
- Infibulation: narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal. The seal is formed by cutting and repositioning the inner, or outer, labia, with or without removal of the clitoris.
- Other: all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, e.g. pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterizing the genital area.
How can human beings do such horrible acts to innocent young women?
The whole thing was not so dark. I also laughed so hard my sides ached as one of our own Lion-Hearted Women was performing. My broken heart literally swelled back to life with pride to witness a woman with over nine decades of life experience as a woman proudly belting out a cacophony of moans. Most memorable for me are the African-American Moan, the Machine Gun Moan, and the Triple Orgasm Moan.
It would be an accurate confession to mention that I think every emotion I could have had was activated big time during those two hours. As someone who has been late coming to love my own body, I will always treasure the monologue about the woman who came to love her vagina as it was seen through the eyes of an ordinary man named Bob:
“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “You’re elegant and deep and innocent and wild.”
“You saw that there?” I said.
It was like he read my palm.
“I saw that,” he said, “and more, much much more.”
He stayed looking for almost an hour as if he were studying a map, observing the moon, staring into my eyes, but it was my vagina. In the light I watched him looking at me and he was so genuinely excited, so peaceful and euphoric, I began to get wet and turned on. I began to see myself the way he saw me. I began to feel beautiful and delicious—like a great painting, or a waterfall. Bob wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t grossed out. (Excerpt from “The Vagina Monologues,” written by Eve Ensler.)
I do not share this detail of the presentation to be lewd or profane. I share it to encourage every woman (and every man) to view ourselves as sacred expressions of the divine. How much more respectful and joyful and kind and compassionate we can all be as we are able to do that. We can all learn that from Bob.
Genuine appreciation for the created can expand from one man seeing one body part of one woman to all humans seeing beauty in divinity everywhere we look.
Let’s start a new greeting that begins by looking (really, deeply, looking) and saying to one another: “You’re so beautiful. You’re elegant and deep and innocent and wild.”
Maybe this will help stop the violence against women (and men and wolves and trees)….
By Debra Basham, on October 14, 2014
Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion
in which figures come and go as if by magic.
Yet there is a plan behind appearances that does not change.
A Course in Miracles, Lesson 158
My first experience doing “hands-on healing,” was done as part of the service of Holy Communion in church—laying on of hands, anointing with oil, and offering prayers for healing of body, mind, and spirit.
For two decades I have worked full-time hoping to get Healing Touch™ and other natural healing into hospitals. Just recently I read a quotation from one of Plato’s dialogues, in which Socrates was quoting a Thracian doctor’s criticism of his Greek colleagues:
“This is the reason why the cure of so many diseases is unknown to the physicians; they are ignorant of the whole. For this is the great error of our day in the treatment of the human body, that physicians separate the mind from the body.”
After I underwent surgery to remove a massive ovarian tumor in 2012, my vision has been to bring energy medicine into the churches. In my own (United Methodist) tradition, the Reverend John Wesley was active in addressing the healing needs of people. He was not just about preaching the gospel, but bringing the GOOD NEWS: body, mind, and spirit.
Recently, a woman came to our local healers circle. She is trained in Reiki, one of many of the hands-on-healing methods. She shared with the group her husband had a significant improvement of some symptoms after she gave him some Reiki healing energy last winter (during a storm) when they couldn’t get him out to the emergency room. He is encouraging her to find ways to use her gift of spiritual healing.
Coincidentally, their church is one that I have a connection with, having taught meditation, guided imagery, and creative visualization there. Theirs is a wonderfully open and affirming congregation. I remember the love and respect they gave to me and my healing work.
People of faith already do distant healing work—calling it intercessory prayer. People of faith already know that they are not the ones doing the healing. People of faith already recognize healing happens beyond the estimation and the rationale of modern medicine.
These points are key, and there is sufficient research to support the facts, but the transformation in our medical system may not come from doctors and hospitals alone. The shift from treating symptoms to inviting transformational healing may much more naturally and rapidly come from pastors and people of faith in local congregations.
Let me know if you are interested in introducing (or expanding) a hands-on-healing ministry within your faith community. It has been 2500 years since Plato and Socrates advocated treating the whole person, so perhaps time is a trick and we really are seeing there is a plan behind appearances that does not change….
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Small Changes … Infinite Results™
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
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By Debra Basham, on September 30, 2014
While riding my bike with a couple of friends in the Apple Cider Century we stopped by a local pumpkin patch. Scattered throughout the yard were some creatures, and I could not resist taking a couple “selfies.”
I sent this first photo to my daughter, Stacey, and she quickly wrote back, “Scary! I don’t like clowns.” That is a family funny. When he was about four years old, our grandson Adam told his mom he wanted to go home (he was visiting us in Michigan) because we have clown paintings on our kitchen walls and they scared him. I took the paintings down and turned them against the wall so we could go on and have a great week together!
A few weeks ago, I had the following article about fear published in the local newspaper.
Fear of Feeling Fear
Since WMMT ran a news story about my work helping people overcome fears and phobias, I have been thinking a lot about how fears and phobias relates to our faith.
In the Christian New Testament, it is written: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:18, New International Version)
In the March 22, 2012, Psychology Todayarticle, “The (Only) Five Basic Fears We All Live By”, Karl Albrecht, Ph. D., writes we are all afraid of the same few things: Extinction, Mutilation, Loss of Autonomy, Separation, and Ego-death.
The first two are pretty self-explanatory, but it may be helpful to think a bit more deeply about the other three. Loss of autonomy shows up anywhere our desires are thwarted—including feeling overwhelmed, smothered, or entrapped. Fear of separation is related to feelings not being wanted, respected, or valued. Ego-death is experienced in our lack of lovability, capability, and worthiness.
It may be that we all learned a subtle habit of fearing fear when we saw others acting out emotional avoidances: not asking for a truly deserved raise, a deeply desired date, or a much needed hug—not being honest about what we wanted or needed for fear we would not get it.
My father was an alcoholic. My mother, understandably embarrassed by his drinking, had essentially no social life, but it was not until after his death that we recognized she was actually agoraphobic. Her social fear had been hidden behind my father’s behavior.
Community-based fears spring up around a shared experience. In the aftermath of the bombing at the Boston Marathon, security expert Brian Schneier was quoted in The Washington Post: “If you are scared, they win. If you refuse to be scared, they lose.”
Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love) was quoted by Nelson Mandela: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Just as Susan Jeffers explains in her internationally acclaimed best-selling classic, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, we had been unable to see our emotional reactions to life as the “memories of” fear they really are. We may have rationalized them, justified them, denied them, or projected them onto others, but they were just our own memories. Fear comes from our past to rob us of the opportunity found in each present moment.
If you are ready to move beyond any fear habit you learned along the way, you might enjoy reading Patty Chang Anker‘s book, Some Nerve: Lessons Learned While Becoming Brave. Chapter 7 includes her overcoming the fear of moving water by surfing for the first time in Lake Michigan off the shores of Saint Joseph. Spoiler alert: Patty did that in 36 degree water in February!
We must all walk our talk by letting grace allow us to live in love, not fear.
I had a lot of fun snapping photos with the scary creatures. This one was really fun!
What makes some things scary to some people and not to others? We know fear is a learned response. Hypnosis is known to eliminate fears. Fortunately, we are not helpless!
By Debra Basham, on September 20, 2014
It has been a day about keys. The first lesson took place at the hardware store when I was getting keys cut to our new office space. The young man behind the desk looked to be younger than my grandsons. He was helping another customer, and I entertained myself by looking at all the options.
I could see beer brand key blanks, sports team blanks, specialty food key blanks, and blanks with heads shaped like myriad animals. I had no idea key blanks came in such fancy options. The fancy ones ranged in price up to about five dollars but a sign listed single cut keys at $1.99.
When the fresh-faced young man asked if he could help me, I told him I needed to get four keys made. He asked if I wanted silver or color.
“Is the price the same for the colored ones?” I inquired.
“Yes, I have these colors,” he pointed to the key blanks hanging on the wall. I was drawn to the pretty colors. Color can be such a nice touch. There were four color choices: red, green, yellow, and purple. I needed four keys. That seemed to be my answer!
“Let’s go with these,” I smiled as I dropped four blanks into his hand—one of each color.
I handed him my key chain, and watched as he turned on the machine that cuts the keys.I listened to the familiar grinding sound. In my former life as a clerk in a department store what seems like a century ago I used to cut keys…. A soft clink brought me back from the past as four colored keys were placed in my hand. I heard him saying I could pay for them up front.
As the woman working at the checkout scanned the first one I saw $2.29 in the window. Right and wrong are pretty hard wired into my being. “I understood the price to be $1.99.”
If looks could kill, I would not be writing this blog now. With a huff, the clerk turned to another employee standing nearby. “How much are the color keys? It rings up $2.29.”
Feeling the sand shifting under my feet, I knew I was stepping off my center. “The young man who cut them for me told me the price was the same as the silver keys.”
“Kyle!” the other woman yelled into a mic on her lapel. He was close enough that he answered without the sound system. Kyle (not his real name) walked toward us like a dog with his tail between his legs. “How much are the colored keys?”she demanded.
He threw me under the bus. It is always to save ourselves we do that. Most often to save face when there is no real threat other than to our fragile ego. “I don’t know,” he stammered.
Further from my center, I looked at him and spoke the truth. “When I asked you if the colors were the same price as the silver, you said they were.”
As his young, fresh, face fell, I came to my senses.
“I will pay the price. He made a mistake. It is such a small amount of money and money is certainly not something worth being unkind to a person about.”
I looked up at his face, sure he was looking back at me. “Mistakes happen. We are forever learning, aren’t we….”
I completed the transaction and left the store with four colored keys: Red, Green, Yellow, and Purple. It was easy to have compassion for the young man, but not so much for the two women clerks. When I sit in silence tomorrow morning I will be aware I misspoke when I told him I needed four keys. I obviously need at least one more: The key to compassion for all.
By Debra Basham, on September 14, 2014
It has been over a year ago that I was asked to do a talk on Healing: Body, Mind, and Spirit. While the title is new, the significance of weaving together the threads of body, mind, and spirit are anything but. My first idea for a name of my healing practice was “tapestry.”
The image that I often use to help us really get the point is a three-legged stool. If you think even for a moment about the logistics, you realize NO stool can stand without at least three legs. For our focus today, let’s think about our goal for well-being as Body: calm; Mind: confident; and Spirit: focused.
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| I found this perfect illustration on line! Thank you to whomever created it. |
What is key to your having a calm body? For most of us, we must retrain our brain, because the human brain is still functioning as though we are being chased by lions and tigers.
Most everything I share with clients, friends, and family is designed to retrain the amygdala and allow you to know you are safe so you can make sane choices about how to best respond with love and compassion and wisdom and kindness. Here is a sampling list:
- Self Full Body Connection
- Etheric Vitality Plus
- Aromatherapy
- NLP
- Hypnosis
- Music
- Meditation
- Guided Imagery
- Yoga
- Tai Chi
Let’s face it, life is hectic. Parents with young children know that; working people know that; and even retirees know that. That is why I like these offerings because they address all three legs at once. They calm your body, empower your mind, and inspire your spirit.
By Debra Basham, on September 5, 2014 It seems as though “stuff” comes in cycles, and this is a time when so many I know are going through so much. A twelve hour surgery (associated with a month-long stay in another state where the surgery took place); a drunk driving and a child custody case; purchasing a used car that turned out to be a lemon; losing a wallet with drivers license and all the debit and credit cards; not being able to meet financial obligations; and lost jobs and lost loved ones.
John Lennon said, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
A dear friend is going through a revisiting of some symptoms (Rocky Mountain Fever and Gilbert’s Syndrome). I am impressed with her steadfast awareness that she is whole and generating a deeper sense of well-being as she navigates this now.
In some amazing ways, each challenge we meet is itself a path to more of what we have desired. The trick is to see the opportunities rather than to think you are a victim.
This is totally in harmony with the information in “The Drama Triangle Revisited” that is published in Healing with Language: Your Key to Effective Mind-Body Communication.
When Joel Bowman (co-developer of Subtle Communication Systems) and I wrote that material, we were living the drama. We had arguments so intense we named them: Parking Lot Number 1, My Office, Parking Lot Number 2. It has taken profound commitment and expanding awareness to move beyond those painful patterns, but it can be done.
We are never alone or abandoned. Help is always available. There are no victims, only volunteers.
Whether your current state is pleasant or unpleasant; easy or difficult; physical or emotional or mental or spiritual, if it’s not okay, it’s not the end. In all challenges, the constant truth is revealing itself: “The universe is abundant with unseen helping hands.”
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| Image from a quilt by Kathryn Zerler, used by permission. |
For ongoing inspiration, I share Sacred Stories. Share these with others and send me your own stories, too. Saying thank you to those unseen helping hands….
By Debra Basham, on August 23, 2014
Jen Bricker was born without legs, and put up for adoption. Fortunately, she grew up in a home where the word can’t was forbidden.
She learned to tumble on a trampoline in her yard, but that was not enough for her. She went on to be the first handicapped high school tumbling campion in the state of Illinois!
In an almost unbelievable coincidence, Jen’s athletic drive was inspired by seeing Romanian gymnast Dominique Moceanu on TV. Amazingly, Moceanu turned out to be Jen’s biological sister! The story is told in detail in Moceanu’s memoir book, Off Balance.
I had the honor of meeting Kyle Maynard. Kyle was also born with missing limbs. Kyle went on to be the first quadruple amputee to climb Mount Kilimanjaro without the aid of prosthetics. He is an amazing speaker, author, and is an award-winning mixed martial arts athlete.
Stories like these of Jen and Kyle are so important only if they inspire us to go beyond what we have felt limited by. We do not all have missing limbs, but most (if not all) of us have had experiences that might have left us feeling less capable than we really are. Perhaps it is time for each of us to go beyond anything that had limited us in the past.
Take time to reflect on what you might still yet have or do of be as you begin now to live as though you have never said the word can’t? If your answer needs to be inspired, check out this 5-minute video of Jen.
The world needs each of us to show others what is possible if you never said can’t….
By Debra Basham, on August 18, 2014
May I see that my preoccupation with the faults of others is really a smokescreen
to keep me from taking a hard look at my own,
as well as a way to bolster my own failing ego.
May I check out the “why’s” of my blaming.
(from A Day at a Time, a Hazeldon Foundation book)
I notice when my own energy is low, I start finding faults with others. I have a couple people in my life I use as my emotional litmus test. If my heart is feeling gracious, they are OK, if not, the list of their faults (in my mind) is very long.
Blame is Being Lazy About My Energy….
Fortunately, we are not helpless and things are not hopeless. We can become aware of dynamics that affect our energy, like diet and exercise, rest and relaxation, music and aroma. Too much time in some activities—or too little time in others—takes a toll. We can become fluent in energy medicine as self care.
Many of you know about Self Full Body Connection. If not, check out the free handout showing the positions from the Healing with Energy tab. The earlier version of this was called Chakra Connection, by Brugh Joy, and it gave me back quality of life and inspired me to learn Healing Touch™ to share with others.
Jin Shin Jyutsu has some very simple technique that work wonders to move you out of the blame game. Here is a short video about Safety Lock # 13(located at the breastbone) which rids your thoughts of those inner child wounds! And remember if you forget everything else you saw in the video (or did not watch it), you can hold your middle finger!
Linda Beushausen shared this most incredible true storyof forgiveness when she spoke at Pilgrim Congregational Church on Sunday, August 17. It was posted on February 10, 2013 by Geoff Heggadon. As Linda said, she will probably never have any where near what this woman has to forgive, but when she does face the things in her life that feel too big to forgive, we can all remember what is possible….
The scene is a courtroom trial in South Africa.
A frail black woman rises slowly to her feet. She is something over 70 years of age.
Facing across the room are several white security police officers, one of whom, Mr. van der Broek, has just been tried and found implicated in the murders of both the woman’s son and her husband some years before. He had come to the woman’s home, taken her son, shot him at point blank range and then set the young man’s body on fire while he and his officers partied nearby.
Several years later, van der Broek and his cohorts had returned to take away her husband as well. For many months she heard nothing of his whereabouts. Then almost two years after her husband’s disappearance, van de Broek came back to fetch the woman herself.
How vividly she remembers that evening, going to a place beside a river where she was shown her husband, bound and beaten, but still strong in spirit, lying on a pile of wood. The last words heard from his lips as the officers poured gasoline over his body and set him aflame were, “Father forgive them…”
Now the woman stands in the courtroom and listens to the confessions offered by Mr. van de Broek. A member of the South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission turns to her and asks, “So what do you want? How should justice be done to this man who has so brutally destroyed your family?”
“I want three things,” begins the old woman calmly, but confidently. “I want first to be taken to the place where my husband’s body was burned so that I can gather up the dust and give his remains a decent burial.”
She pauses, then continues, “My husband and son were my only family, I want secondly, therefore, for Mr. van der Broek to become my son. I would like him to come twice a month to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can pour out on him whatever love I still have remaining in me.”
“And finally,” she says, “I want a third thing. This is also the wish of my husband. And so, I would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can take Mr. van der Broek in my arms and embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven.”
As the court assistants come to lead the elderly woman across the room, Mr. van der Broek, overwhelmed by what he has just heard, faints. As he does, those in the courtroom, family, friends neighbours—all victims of decades of oppression and injustice—begin to sing, softly but assuredly: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” (From J.John & Mark Stibbe)
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