By Debra Basham, on November 23, 2013
One year ago, my grandson Adam, had his wisdom teeth removed. This week, my granddaughter Courtney, did the same. One year ago, when I went to Tennessee for Thanksgiving, I was facing major surgery when I returned. This year feels so much different, and yet I have a sense of déjà vu.
For sure, life is at any given moment more unsure than it seems, and also more sure. Last week a childhood friend of mine watched her husband die from lung cancer. We do not stay in these bodies forever….
When it is all said and done, what have I said and what have I done that has made life better for others? Have I picked up trash that I did not throw out? Have I held a hand, or opened a door? Have I dreamed a better way and done something to bring that dream into reality? I would say, yes.
This week a wonderful young woman who has survived a LOT in her 29 years, told me a favorite funny movie of hers is Yes Man, starring Jim Carrey.
Here is what I found about the film online:
Jim Carrey stars as Carl Allen, a guy whose life is going nowhere—the operative word being no—until he signs up for a self-help program based on one simple covenant: say yes to everything and anything. Unleashing the power of YES begins to transform Carl’s life in amazing and unexpected ways, getting him promoted at work and opening the door to a new romance. But his willingness to embrace every opportunity might just become too much of a good thing.
It may be wise to exercise some restraint rather than saying yes to everything and anything, but what might the world gain if you brought your authentic self to the fore? Might you be another Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni or Ludwig van Beethoven? What awakened the destiny of Christopher Columbus or Jehanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc)?
While I was in the hospital (6 Garden at Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center in Mishawaka, Indiana), I was surrounded by angels working as nurses. I am grateful I thought to take photos. Throughout the year their faces have come back to me wrapped in the lovely memories of their kindness and compassion. They were the best.
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| Elizabeth |
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| Francesca |
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| Kristie |
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| Pat |
I wonder about each of them and what this past year has brought to them and to those they have cared for. As a tribute to nurses everywhere, paid and volunteer, I would invite you to say this prayer every day from now until the end of the year. “I say yes to the best.”
That’s it. Short. Simple. Say yes to the best. Very easy to remember.
By Debra Basham, on November 19, 2013
Tonight I am thinking of the many people who lost their homes (or loved ones) in the scores of tornadoes that slammed through the Midwest yesterday. It brings to mind when our friends, Roger and Sharon, lost their home along with every other family in their home town of Firth, Nebraska, May 22, 2004.
Here the storm left my 90 year-old mother-in-love without electricity, so she is here with us. We were watching news and looking at some of the devastation on the internet. It is amazing how fortunate you feel when you see what others are experiencing.
I certainly am aware of how blessed I was with the surgery I went through last year. Yes, I had a very large (21 cm) ovarian growth removed, and, yes, I had post surgical complications that resulted in my spending some time in high rent district (intensive care).
If you would like to be inspired, watch this TED talk by branding guru Stacey Kramer. It is three minutes long, and inspirational in both its brevity and its punch. Nobody wishes for adversity but sometimes it is a profound teacher.
Tonight the thing that I am most aware of is how the human spirit survives the storms of life
—far more than one might think possible.
By Debra Basham, on November 13, 2013
Who is it that can make muddy water clear?
No one.
But left to stand, it will gradually clear of itself.
Lao-Tzu
Tao Te Ching
One year ago, I was on the roller-coaster ride of my life. Fortunately, a dear friend and wonderful intuitive healer gave me an image that carried me along as though on angels’ wings. When I told Dr. Mary Jo Bulbrook I had been diagnosed with a very aggressive mass in my abdomen, she told me there were be no shortcuts, but I would get through it.
Mary Jo told me, “There is a red carpet being rolled out for you.”
Things were certainly going quickly. On Friday I saw a gynecologist because I had been feeling a thickening in my lower left abdomen. He did an exam, said I had a hernia, and referred me to a general surgeon, whom I saw on Tuesday. The general surgeon said it was not a hernia; did a surface ultrasound and saw something on or behind the bladder; and referred me to a urologist, whom I saw on Friday. The urologist did an exam and scheduled me for a CT scan on Monday and a cystoscopy on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, I went right from the urologist’s office to the gynecologist/oncologist, who did an exam, blood work, urinalysis, and wanted to do surgery the next Monday.
Somewhere within this whirlwind, my heart had the presence of mind for me ask if my waiting one week would change the prognosis.
You see, the following week was Thanksgiving and we were scheduled to go to Tennessee to have time with kids and grandkids.
Dr. Method (there is a Method to the madness?) gave me the cautions of waiting but told me it would probably not make a huge difference. I said, “I need to go see my family.”
I shared the decision to wait to do the surgery in a Thanksgiving message to friends this week. I needed to see their faces, hear their voices, touch them and have them touch me. I made that trip lying in the backseat of my van, riding on what we referred to as my “Princess” bed, and the scheduled procedure took place Monday after Thanksgiving, November 26, 2012.
Yesterday, we got our first snow of the season here in Saint Joseph—and it was a big one!
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| I grabbed this snip from a video of the near white-out conditions. |
I saw reports of up to 17 inches of total snowfall near here, and I would say we had between 12 and 14 inches at our house!
Our snowblower had not even come out of the barn and into the garage yet, and I suggested we use the Tennessee snow strategy of the lord giveth and the lord taketh away.
This photo was taken about 3:00 in the afternoon. Who would have dreamed what a difference giving something the tincture of time can make.
Sometimes the situation resolves itself if you just wait.
By Debra Basham, on November 5, 2013
In some ways, right now I feel as though I am flipping through a tattered photo album. I am recalling precious memories and bringing to mind valuable things I knew but had forgotten. I am savoring where I am now looking back at where I had been. I am so grateful….
The writing below is my journal entry on November 20, 2012. This was a very tender time as I was anticipating a major surgery on the 26th. I was to have what was described as a “very aggressive” mass removed from my abdomen (along with all my feminine parts).
This morning I was having trouble seeing with a light in the living room. Over a year ago the lamp in there stopped working, and I have kept thinking I don’t want to live in this house so I don’t want to buy new furniture for it, so I have limped along with just the floor lamp. It has made morning devotions in there next to impossible.
This morning I decided that if I am going to be recovering in there over the next several weeks, I deserve to have a lamp that works. I decided I would go out and buy new lamps, then I got to thinking about these lamps. They are structurally good lamps, in great shape. It is just the touch-on/off sensor mechanism that is bad.
Before I had time to think about it, I took the lamp apart!
I decided, “I could rewire it!”
All the while, I was working on the lamp, I kept hearing my inner coach telling me what parts I needed,and where to find them. I was being told exactly what I needed to do right now.
At one point, it was a matter of making sure that I removed a little metal ring I had left on the lamp and the message (loud and clear) was, “What is not needed needs to be removed.”
Other messages came flooding in.
“For too long you have tolerated what wasn’t working.”
“When you really know what you want, everything you need has been there all along.”
“Body and mind need to work together, not too much focus on just one or the other.”
I only found one wire nut, and I needed two. As I kept looking for a second one, I heard, “Working on the body, without the mind or working on the mind, without the body is like only having one wire nut. It just doesn’t get the job done! It’s not much better than working on neither.”
I had the lamp reassembled, and I thought I had it tightened down, but when I looked more closely, it was actually very caddywhompus. I knew I needed to straighten it out. I was so excited to glue the base back on the lamp.
I heard, “It’s important to be patient. You need to prepare the work surface correctly, to ensure that what you are doing is safe, and won’t cause other damage.”
I was getting quite hyper, desperately wanting to find that second wire nut so that I could get the lamp finished. I only had one small pack of epoxy—the kind that I needed to mix— so I needed to glue the felt bottom on both lamps at the same time.
I became aware that I was hungry. I had been ignoring my body’s need for food, because I was so focused on finishing what I was doing. The message was clear, “You benefit by having patience and staying aware that the immediate needs of your body must take priority over the demands of your emotions or mind.”
Today I was telling all of this to some friends who stopped by. He worked as an electrician before he retired, so he knew very well what the steps are in the process of rewiring a touch-on/off lamp. He is going through cognitive challenges, having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. I know my sharing with him was not just about my handyman skills. The meaningful messages for all of us are right here in the lessons of the lamp….
By Debra Basham, on October 29, 2013
As this blog post was percolating in my mind, my daughter was sharing some frustration around a situation in my granddaughter’s life. This next weekend, there are two events she really wants to participate in. The two events do not usually conflict, but this year they are on the same weekend. My granddaughter would prefer to do part of one (a youth retreat), so she can do both (a ride with her dad), and her mom was OK with that option.
My daughter had figured out a way to get my granddaughter back for the ride with her dad, as her focus was very much on creating a win-win, but that solution did not seem acceptable to leader of the retreat. His point of view was that my granddaughter had to choose one or the other. My daughter felt that his position was unnecessarily harsh.
As I listened, I could understand my daughter’s feelings.
Suddenly I remembered (and shared) the story of the butterfly struggling to get out of the cocoon. As challenging as it is to watch the struggle, it is vital to realize that the very struggle is necessary because it is thinning the body to enable the butterfly to take flight when it is fully emerged.
Without saying anything else, my daughter thanked me, and we ended the conversation.
I was imaging how this situation was such a gift to my granddaughter, providing her the important learning of being at ease when making choices, staying peaceful in the midst of negotiations, being respectful to her own wants and needs as well as to the wants and needs of others. I could see such win-win, right there along side the present circumstances.
You have to love how things are so connected….
I was reading from Forty Seven Stories of Jesus about Jesus and several of his followers. Along their way, they came upon a young boy with a donkey. The donkey had wounds on its legs, looked very undernourished, and so was struggling under an unbearable load. No amount of the boy’s prodding and whipping was helping that donkey to move.
According to the story, Jesus offered the boy some help. He began to transfer the load off the beast. Jesus and those with him picked up the load, then Jesus led the donkey to a nearby stream.
As Jesus began to tend to the donkey’s wounds, and then feed the donkey, he easily engaged the young man with questions about his life: Where was he going? Where did he live? What else was part of his life? What did he enjoy?
Reading that story about Jesus made me think of the words of Pamela Chappell’s “Peace Cannon.” If you have not heard it before or have not listened to it in a while, take a few moments now and enjoy her amazing musical invitation to let your life speak.
That is probably the true answer to the question, “What would Jesus do?”
By Debra Basham, on October 21, 2013
As the saying goes, and miles to go before I sleep…. It has been a wonderFUL couple of weeks since my last blog post. I have already written about some of the specifics in my article for the November Beyond Mastery newsletter, so you will read about those when that comes out (or you can sign up here).
The past three days were spent at a silent meditation retreat in Howell, Michigan. When I mentioned my planning on going to one colleague, this was his response: “Debra, you’re really going to be silent for 3 whole days ???? 3 long days ?? Ha Ha………..”
The amazing gift that comes from Noble Silence within a group on retreat is how clearly you can see that the only things that get in your way are within you. The habit patterns of blame and shame (See The Drama Triangle), mercifully, fall away, and you are left there with the invitation to make something beautiful from your experience.
I was rooming with two other women, neither of which I know very well. After the last sitting meditation of the first evening, two of us went to bed. It was some time later the third came in to our room, turning on lights, opening and closing doors, opening (or crinkling) something, as she did her bedtime preparations.
The annoyance seemed to go on and on and on and on, but, thankfully aware of the gift that is ever-present, I was able to have compassion for my roommate and myself trying to sleep.
I forgave myself for any time in the past I was interrupting another.
I made up stories about how this woman must live alone so she was not used to being respectful of others.
I acknowledged the challenge she must be having trying to find everything she needed in the mostly darkened room.
Most of all, I was able to ask, “Can I keep an open heart for all of us through all of this?”
As I was able to lie there in the stillness, I was infinitely grateful for the practice and for this woman who was gifting me so beautifully….
As one of the meditation teachers said, there is no experience in the world that is more rich in practice, more nurturing to body and soul, than retreat. We may be going on retreat with the intention to get away from it all, but while we are on retreat, we find ourselves in love with the ALL THAT IS.
By Debra Basham, on October 9, 2013
Many of you know my personal healing journey of when I had been given a diagnosis of degenerative disc disease—L4, L5, and S1, and osteoarthritis of the hip. I was told that I needed to have a hip replacement but, since I was only 38 years old at the time, it was suggested I wait. Otherwise, it was thought I would have one hip replacement, and it would only last 10 years, then I could only have one more, and would be left with no options at 58 years old.
I was evaluated at the Post Polio Clinic at University of Michigan. There I was told I had not actually had polio when I was five years old, even though I had been diagnosed with (and had been treated for) polio in 1955. I was prescribed a lumbar support, a shoe lift, and physical therapy. I was taking 1,000 mg of Naprosyn daily.
With everything that was done to me, my symptoms got worse. I used to say that I had bad days and worse days. At that time of my life, I never had a day where I was pain free.
The medical doctors told me I would not be able to work, I would be in constant pain, and I was told that I would never have quality of life. I am so grateful that you don’t have to take bad advice, even when it is delivered as a hypnotic command, and even when you paid for it!
One of my friends was a nurse. She needed some quick CEUs so she attended a Healing Touch Level 1 workshop. She came back from that, brought me her manual, and gave it to me saying, “I don’t know why I took this, but it is you.” I did not know anything about chakras, or auras, or meridians, but I knew a lot about chronic pain, and one of the techniques said it was for relief of chronic pain. Learning about energy healing gave me my life back, and I have since dedicated my life to sharing that with others. Now, over 60 years of age, I bike, hike, and totally enjoy life!
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| Dr. Paul Alfalla, chiropractor, shaman, and healer, with Amelia. |
Today while I listened to Dr. Mary Jo Bullbrook’s Wise Chats internet radio interview with Dr. Paul Alfalla, a chiropractor from Lima, Peru, I kept wondering, “What will it take?” I know what it took for me to open up to a paradigm of healing that goes beyond the physical. I have been honored to witness what it took to open up many clients, including Jane Foster who is an amazing spokesperson for Imagine Healing.
It may not take a universal movement at all. No, when it is time, it is time. Thank god that is true.
By Debra Basham, on October 5, 2013
Last weekend I heard a powerful story about very conscious woman who broke her toe. The toe was quite painful, and she was not able to walk. She was (understandably) upset, thinking about the lost opportunity to enjoy the lake for the rest of the summer. She thought, “I’m not going to be able to walk up and down the hill to the lake. I’m not going to be able to swim. It’s going to ruin my summer.”
She works with a nonphysical guide/teacher. He asked her, “Is the toe ruining your summer or are the fears about it ruining your summer? Can you simply remember the whole toe? All that’s happened are that certain molecules have separated. That’s all bone is; it’s molecules. The impact separated them. Now they have to remember that they belong together and re-adhere.”
He suggested she sing to her toe as she was lying on her bed with her foot elevated. While skeptical at first he says, “She began to just sing OOOOOMMMMM. OOOOOMMMMM. She began asking the toe in each moment, what tone do you want next? And offering the tones.”
She went to sleep that second night, and the third morning she woke up realizing that the foot really wasn’t very painful. He said, “It is knit. You can stand on it.” So she gingerly got out of bed and put her weight on it. It was tender, a bit, but not excruciating like a broken toe.
He said, “Wiggle it.”
Some wiggle. It wiggled without pain.
He said, “Just be careful with it because it’s still healing.”
The most amazing part of this story is his closing comments:
“There was nothing to be done. She simply allowed it to express its wholeness. So she did not fix the toe, she simply invited the toe to express its wholeness and got out of its way, in a sense.”
This idea has been part of my process for a good many years now. When I was learning Healing Touch, I remember Janet Mentgen saying our role as healers is simply to see the wholeness, in spite of the conditions. When I am most clear, this makes perfect sense to me. You know you are not just your body. Even scientists realize you are energy, and energy can be neither created nor destroyed.
In spite of the current conditions, at this very moment, you are whole. I am whole.
YOU are untouched by any trauma. I am untouched by any trauma. YOU are unscathed by any history. I am unscathed by any history.YOU are unmarred by any accident, illness, or injury. I am unmarred by any accident, illness, or injury.
What comes to mind most freely when you remember that we are just molecules?
It is the truth.
 I am sure to be allowing this truth to permeate my heart and mind deeply over the next few weeks as I navigate the anniversary of the surgery that removed an abdominal mass. I know there is continued healing happening within and without.
I think I will be singing to my abdomen in the days to come.
By Debra Basham, on September 21, 2013
“The outer mind is 99.999999 percent comatose.
It simply does not realize
the unconscious forces
that dominate
or direct
the life of the individual.”
~ W. Brugh Joy
I am in a pondering mood this morning. It may be some anniversary energies as I am acutely remembering having spent a lifetime of joy over a few weeks time in Thailand back in September of 2010. The sweetness of those memories are wildly contrasted with some very convoluted memories of a trip to Europe just one year later, in 2011.
As I was pondering, a “thought for the day” popped into my inbox. It seemed to direct my mental and emotional pathway. Aaron, a teacher I appreciate very much, was explaining the nuances between compassion and unconditional love. “Compassion implies a trembling in the heart, and opening of the heart….there is no longer need for forgiveness. Judgment falls away….there is a deeper seeing into the other’s suffering and an unconditional love that embraces the other…. [Compassion] involves both aspects: deep seeing and unconditional love.” Aaron says when love is there without that deep seeing, we are talking about unconditional love, but not about compassion.
As I read Aaron’s writing, my mind immediately jumped back to having read Joy’s Way, A Map for the Transformational Journey: An Introduction to the Potentials for Healing with Body Energies, by W. Brugh Joy early in my training as a Healing Touch™ practitioner. In chapter three of the book, Brugh writes about a woman who had a direct inspirational awareness—spoken to her slowly and repetitively—of three injunctions: Make no comparisons; make no judgments; delete your need to understand. (p. 59)
While I was looking online for the exact wording of these three injunctions, I came across a video interview Jeffrey Mishlove did with Brugh. Joy also wrote Avalanche: Further Awakening Into Beinghood. This video interview is titled “Thinking Allowed” and Brugh is talking about healing and the unconscious mind. You may want to take 6 minutes and 45 seconds to watch it for yourself.
This is the ad for the “Healing and the Unconscious” DVD:
The unconscious, says Dr. Brugh Joy, is composed of multiple, autonomous personalities. These personalities affect our state of health—from allergic response to disease states such as diabetes and cancer. He suggests that the unconscious mind is far more extensive and powerful than is generally acknowledged, and that the normal conscious mind cannot hope to control the personalities within. Esoteric rites and initiations, he maintains, were designed to call forth particular personalities from the unconscious at appropriate stages of development.
In the second part of this program, Brugh Joy describes how our dreams reveal the unconscious dynamics underlying health and illness. Illness, he says, is always there for a purpose. If we simply try to remove illness, without understanding how we are served by it, we fail to grasp its lesson. As we explore our unconscious mind, we face the disowned parts of ourselves which may appear to us as hideous or demonic. Joy suggests that if we are able to withhold our conventional judgments regarding these aspects, we can gain new perspectives on personal and social issues—and appreciate them as manifestations of our wholeness.
I loved how Brugh spoke about your getting a bigger picture, and the benefit that you are able to see through the many pairs of eyes, and hear via the many pairs of ears. I would imagine I may not yet be fully finished pondering, but I do have a greater appreciation for the importance of our having compassion for that sacred (not scared!) journey into beingness.
By Debra Basham, on September 15, 2013
Elephants are thought to have very developed emotional intelligence, and they have long been revered and honored in many cultures around the world. When I was in Thailand in September 2010, I visited the elephant camp, where I even saw elephants creating artwork.
“The fact is that elephant art has an immediate visual, aesthetic appeal. Paintings that are executed by sentient beings will always elicit a response because I believe that we recognise in them something fundamental. When I study a painting by an elephant I see something awesome and primeval.”
Issaraporn Kaewthanasawad, Director of The Elephant Art Gallery
We bought bananas and fed the elephants, and I so enjoyed being close enough to them to have a sense of them as individuals. I was honored to spend that time with the elephants, and I will forever remember the euphoria I experienced when I received this elephant hug!
If I were to choose an animal to inspire human behavior, perhaps elephant would be a logical choice. Elephant’s medicine is said to be patience, gentleness, good communication, meaningful relationships, intelligence, strength, and compassion. Most would recognize these characteristics as those we all will benefit from having active. The benefits will be on all levels of our culture.
I read online, “Elephants show us that by supporting and loving one another, our own ability to thrive in the physical world is enhanced.”
I cannot imagine what went so wrong recently in a zoo in China that a mother elephant attacked and abandoned her baby boy shortly after she gave birth to him. The behavior was so unusual that veterinarians thought her having stepped on him was an accident, but after they cared for him and returned him to her, he was attacked again. They had to remove him from her for his own safety.
The most remarkable part of this sad story is that he cried for five hours, because even though she was the one who had injured him, he was grieving not being with her.
Reading the story tonight was heart breaking.
I recalled the feel of my elephant hug, and remembered the joy I felt seeing the incredible elephant artwork. It is as though I am right back there in Chiang Mai!
As I remembered, I thought to send love! I began to hold that baby boy in my heart space. I imagined I could hear his breath and feel his body heat. I began to breathe with the sacred intention to have him know he is safe and cared for. As I relaxed more, I could feel my heart opening. Perhaps it is true that the heart only breaks in one direction—open.
It was as though the miles separating us do not exist. Time and distance melt away in my mind. I am being hugged by an elephant, and I am hugging an elephant. I offer gratitude for the privilege of loving this sentient being now….
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