If you have read the blogs written over the summer of 2008, you know that I did not work much at my chosen career of massage.  Mostly, I took care of my daughter as she journeyed through cancer and beyond.  So now that she is gone, what now?

All I ever wanted to do was to be a Mom.   As a young girl, I wanted a large family of 4-6 children.   At the age of 21, I married a young man who was in the Army and we moved to Anchorage, Alaska.  That was fine with me because I wanted to travel and move away from family and discover what else was “out there”.  I was raised in a normally dysfunctional family with an alcoholic father and an enabling, martyred mother.  I was not in love with the man that I married, but rather felt like I could live with anyone.  You see, at that time I did not believe in love….not the “from across a crowded room” or “at first sight” kind of love.  (If you’ve known me for a while you’ll know that I experienced that kind of love in my 40’s and look forward to knowing it again!  My late partner, Bruce, is the love of the first half of my life. My life is not over, so why should love be?)   We stayed married for 20 years and divorced because I changed.  He was the same person that I had married 20 years before and had no desire to change one whit.  But I wanted to be a different person and I needed to change and grow.   I felt very suffocated by my life, the life that I thought I had always wanted.  The turning point for me was when my second child, my Manda, passed away.   She was 5 months old and one day during a nap, she simply left her body behind.   When it happened, I was at work (in the Army and in a deployment briefing for Desert Storm) and she was at the baby sitter’s home less than one block from our small local hospital.   It took me 14 years, but I came to know that she gave me a gift with her passing that she probably could never have given me with her life.  That gift is this:  Life is short and there simply is no time to be living out of alignment with my dreams.

At the age of 21, I had some dreams.  I was a registered nurse and I wanted to be a good one.  I do believe that I was/am.  I wanted to have children and be a mother.  Mostly, because I wanted to prove that I could do it better than my mother could/did.  And mostly believe that I have achieved that goal.    I wanted to live a healthy life and walk my talk.   And I was really interested in alternative health.  When I married, I wanted a man who was not an alcoholic and who would not beat me.  I got that.

As it turned out, I was not very fertile. So after almost 10 years of marriage, I joined the Army to be a career woman instead of a mother.   However, I never gave up hope and my sweet baby boy, Doug, was born a year after I joined the Army.   At 8 months gestation my doctor discovered that Doug had a severe birth defect.  His diaphragm had failed to close and his bowels had developed in his chest instead of his abdomen.  His bowels took up all of the room in his chest so that his lungs had no room to develop.  They (the doctors at two major medical centers) said it was the worst diaphragmatic hernia that they had ever seen and that he had “optimistically a 25% chance at survival”.  We beat those odds and he lived (without intervention…no surgery, no nothing except perhaps a miracle)  and has been a joy to me all of the almost 21 years of his life.

This is Doug.

Two years later, my first daughter, Amanda was born.  At 8 pounds, 12 ounces, this little momma could not push her out, so the doctor attempted to pull her out with forceps.  She had 2 black eyes for weeks.  Then at the age of 5 months, she went down for a nap and never woke up.   I was devastated.  I cried for almost a year non-stop.  And I mean non-stop.  I cried while driving to and from work.  I cried at work.  I cried while I cooked dinner.  I felt like that tears were not doing anything for me.  I did not feel like they were healing tears or cleansing tears.  They felt like they were never ending tears.  So, realizing that I needed help, I went to a psychiatrist and he offered me Prozac.  I declined saying that I didn’t feel like I had a Prozac deficiency, that I was grieving and not doing it very well and needed help.  He asked how my husband was doing and I told him that my husband was just fine.  No problems.  Business as usual.  (Many years later the husband told a marriage counselor that Mandy’s passing really wasn’t a factor for him because she was only 5 months old and he never really knew her!)  So this very conservative Mormon Army psychiatrist then me that I was crying my husband tears.  WHAT?!!!  I didn’t know that anyone could do that!  My response to the doctor was “F*** that!” and I marched right out of his office.  I never even told my skeptical, devil’s advocate husband what the doctor said, I just decided that he could jolly well take care of his own feelings from then on!

So now my second daughter, my baby girl has put down her body and passed on to whatever is beyond.  I don’t claim to know what happens after this life is over, but I do know in my gut that it’s not over just because we are finished with this body.  All I ever wanted to be was a mother first and foremost.  And now I’m left with an empty nest, living alone for the first time since I was 21 years old.  I have to say that I have not come to an understanding that she has passed.  I can’t wrap my brain around it.  It’s more like she’s gone to camp or something.  It would be too much for me to try to understand that she is gone for good.  My “circuits” would probably overload.  I have used a bit of chemical assistance to get through the days and nights, but have recently met with an herbalist so that I can use herbs instead of potentially addictive drugs.  The herbs are helping.  (No, I still don’t have either a drug or an herbal deficiency, but this time my grief is more than I can handle without assistance, so I am accepting it.  I still have to admit that I like my cocky response to the shrink about the Prozac deficiency, though!  A sense of humor sure helps.)  So I just go though my days the best I can, crying when I need to and trying to do it privately as much as possible.  I’ve always tried to make the best of things.   And I’ve made a lot of lemonade from the lemons of my life.  Ironically, Rinnie’s favorite drink was lemonade!  I drink it regularly to honor her.

To honor Rinnie is to go on.  To continue living my life, walking my talk, doing what I am here to do– what only Pam Hauser is here to do.  And that’s what I intend to do.  I am back at work at Phoenix Massage and I am blessed to have a private duty nursing job 1-2 days per week, where I have a wonderful patient to care for.  I count my blessings daily.  Most of all, I am grateful for my family, my community, my home and to be living in these beautiful mountains.  I’ll just keep breathing and putting one foot in front of the other and doing what there is to do in front of me and making the best of life.  Mountain Area Hospice offers a wonderful service to our community.  They offer one year of free counseling to anyone who has lost a loved one.  I used this service after Bruce passed away, and I am going back for help with Rinnie’s passing.  It is my belief that it takes a community, a mentor, counseling (or all three!) to live a rich and productive life.  If we were meant to be alone, we would each have our own planet.   I will do whatever it takes to return to thriving.  I am blessed to have a career that helps with that.  I often meditate while I work and that helps to keep me centered, grounded and clear.  Thank you, dear clients for your support and for allowing me to do what I came here to do.  I am well blessed.

Pam

In my last post I talked about choosing a word to have as my focus for the year, instead of a resolution.   (My word for this year is adventure.)  It’s a tradition that started for me in 2005.  I heard of it from my friend, Christine Kane.  It is only one of my traditions.   A tradition that started last year is to play poker with family and friends on New Year’s Eve.  I invite people over, we eat a pot luck meal and play poker.  This year, the kids (and some of the adults!) played Guitar Hero in the living room while the older kids and adults played poker in the dining room.   We play for fun and for chips, not for money.  It works well for me and my kids!

Another New Year’s tradition for me is fire walking.   Every year the Center for Creative Living in West Asheville hosts a fire walk on New Year’s Day.   The ministers are John and Barbara Waterhouse, and John is a certified fire walk instructor.  I went to my first fire walk on New Year’s day 2004.  I did not walk, but was there to support those who did and to learn about this radical thing called a fire walk.  My partner, Bruce, had been to one fire walk previously, but this was his first time to walk on fire.  It was a very empowering experience for him and one that inspired me as well.  I decided right then to attend the fire walk the following year and to walk on fire.  The following New Year’s Day found me with drastically changed circumstances.  It was two weeks following Bruce’s fatal car accident and my grief was profound.  I walked that year because I knew that if I could walk on fire, then I could survive his passing.

I am blessed to have many wonderful friends, and with that fire walk a tradition started for my friend, Amanda, to ring in the New Year with us.  We walk on fire and do a lot of sauna sweating, hot tub sitting, walking, eating lots of yummy healthy comfort food and setting our intentions for the new year!   Well, this year there was a drought and a state-wide burning ban, meaning no fire walk on New Year’s Day.   Although we felt a bit disappointed, we still had our time together and set our intentions, knowing that the fire walk would be scheduled when the burning ban was lifted.

Well, the ban has been lifted and the fire walk was tonight.   Since that first fire walk in 2004, I have always had a concrete sense of knowing that I would walk on fire.  Even in the throws of grief I knew.  This year was different for some reason.  I don’t know if it was because the fire walk was postponed or for some other reason, but I do know that I had no sense that I would walk on fire this time.  I told my 12 year old daughter and let’s just say that she was disappointed in me!   I shared my feelings with Amanda as well, to find that she was feeling the same reluctance (even after she had made a special trip from Georgia to do the fire walk!).   I had even been toying with the idea that I might just stay home this year and not go at all, since we did not know that Amanda could come until the very last minute.  But since she made the effort to come all the way to Asheville, I went.  Thank you so very much Amanda for that gift!

Then, it was raining.  It was raining pretty hard at my house, in fact.  I called John, and he said that the skies were clearing on the opposite side of town, but he encouraged me to call before I drove to CFCL if I wanted to, or just to show up and we would share a snack even if we didn’t walk on fire.  As we were leaving home, John called me back to say that the skies were indeed clear, the wood was dry and they were doing the fire walk.

John always does a lot of preparation with those of us who are there for the fire walk.  About two hours of preparation that includes building the fire and waiting for it to burn down enough to have coals to walk on.  But first, we have to sign a permission form, and then he goes over details like how to walk, (if you stomp, you can get coals stuck between your toes…ouch!) that the fire gets hot enough to melt an engine block, what to do when you walk up to the fire (Ask the fire if walking is for you to do and if you get a “no”, then please don’t walk!), how to walk to the side (and not backwards) if you change your mind and that someone is there on the other side with a water hose to wash your feet off when you are done.  One very nice thing that he does is to be at the other side beckoning walkers forward.   Beckoning us toward the good or the change that we desire to make in our lives.  We can also choose to have someone join him, or he will step aside and let someone else be at the other end of the fire for you.  He does a wonderful job of respecting each person’s process!  One or both of my children are always there with John and Barbara to welcome me to what I have chosen for my life.  This year my daughter was there with me along with Amanda and her daughter, Chloe.

So did you get the part that the fire is hot enough to melt an engine block?!  The fire gets up to 1800 degrees while it is burning, and it goes down to around 1200 degrees by the time they rake the coals.  They use nice, dry wood and then pour lamp oil on it to make sure that it burns nicely.   After a couple of hours, John then rakes the burning logs to the side, leaving the coals and red hot embers in a path that is approximately 3-4 feet wide and 12 feet long.  That’s about 3 steps for a long-legged person and 4-5 steps for little ‘ol me!

This year was my fourth time to walk on fire and I have to say that each walk has been very different.  The first time I walked on fire, I could feel the heat of the fire but I honestly didn’t care if I was burned or not.  I did have two small red spots on one foot, but no burns.  I was grief-stricken and although nobody has come right out and said so, I think my friends were doing a suicide watch.   My grief was profound.  The next year I can’t say I was much better off emotionally, but I did not have any red spots on my feet afterwards.  Once again the fire was very hot to my feet, but I knew it was something that I was compelled to do.  The third year, the fire felt warm, but not hot.   I was amazed!  It was so very cold outside that my feet were numb and I experienced difficulty walking back to the building afterwards because I could barely feel my feet.

This year was a totally different experience.  Like I said, I did not have a sense that I would walk this year.   As a matter of fact, I felt pretty sure that I would not.  Then as I sat in the sanctuary and heard John talk about making a sacred covenant with myself, something started to shift.  The chatter started in my head.  That little voice started to call me names!  How dare she!

She called me a chicken.  She said that I was a wimp and that I didn’t really want to do what I said I wanted to do.  After all, if I really meant to accomplish my goals I’d walk on the fire and show my commitment.   She said that I was letting down my whole community as well as myself.  She asked me where the hell my chupzta had gone, anyway?!   (I usually have a bit of that to spare!)

So I stood there in the circle and looked at the coals.  I talked to the coals.  I felt the heat on my face and on my body.  I knew that I would walk on those coals again this year.  I called my daughter and Barbara to stand by John.  I stood there at the end of the fire and looked at the coals, feeling the heat on my face.  I put my arms out to open myself to the new fun adventures, the joy, the love, that I desire and I felt the fear.  I took a deep breath and decided that I could just run across the coals!  (Did I mention the fear?)  I took that first step and felt no heat at all, more a sense of velvety comforting warmth, so I slowed down and walked joyously to the other side.   I walked joyously into my life, leaving my restrictions, doubts and fears behind.

I’d love to hear if you have had any extreme spiritual experiences such as walking on fire, or your comments about what I have done.

Pam

by Pam Hauser, RN, LMBT

A few years ago I was introduced to an alternative to New Year’s resolutions. I have never liked New Year’s Resolutions. They have never worked for me or anyone else I know! So I have not made them or even thought about them since I was in my 20’s. But then I heard about choosing a word for the year, and that works for me. A word to focus on during the whole year. A word that exemplifies those things that I want to have more of in my life, those things that I am actively working on right now. An alternative to making a resolution. Having a focus instead.

Here is a note from the beginning of 2007 describing my journey with selecting a word for the year.

After much deliberation as well as discussion/brain storming with friends for over a month, I have at last come up with my word for 2007. In 2005, my word was “survive” (the love of the first half of my life had just passed away in mid December) and for 2006 my word was “easy” because I was just coasting through life. Along about October, I decided that since I was alive, I might as well live wide open/out loud. So I’d like to announce that my 2007 word is THRIVE!

I have considered many words for this year. My past words are listed above. This year I’ve considered power, release, wealth, fun, love and delight. I considered “power”, but decided that it is something that I have pretty much achieved already. I am already in a place of knowing who I am, what I want and that I have the power to do so. I supposed part of this is merely being “of a certain age”. I considered “release” because I am in the process of cleaning out and letting go of stuff. “Wealth” is something that my bank account does not reflect some days, but “rich” is something that is a daily knowing for me. Both “fun” and “love” are qualities of my daily life. I’m not sure that anyone can have too much fun or too much love in their life, but neither of those feels like a stretch for me.

My last word listed is delight. My daughter complains that I use the word “delightful” way too much. How can that be?! I started my journey toward delight in 1997, in a land far, far away…or so it seems when I look back at it. I still remember that moment when I had finished doing about 8 hours of yard work in Atlanta, and I was hot and sweaty and tired as I rolled the mower to the back yard. I stopped in the shade of a plum tree to wipe the sweat from my face, and caught a breeze with a whiff of freshly mowed grass and flowers, and heard the laughter of my children. I was a single parent in the throws of divorce and a life that was amazingly stressful and full of drama. None of that had changed, but right there, I experienced a moment of bliss, of contentment, of all-is-well-in-my-world. And I stopped and breathed it in and something shifted for me. I immediately and unceremoniously went back to that stressful life, but I had that one snapshot in time to remember and return to. That’s when my mantra of “what’s really important here” started for me. Do I want to be right, or……? I took baby steps. I moved forward through the fear, remembering that peaceful moment and hoping that I could find it again. And now I can say that I have had many such moments. This summer I did things like jump on a trampoline, swing on swings and throw water balloons. I also tubed down a river for the first time in my life, as well as danced in the rain. I don’t enjoy getting cold, but I was outside watching my daughter and my dogs cavort in the snow last week during a blizzard. (I am weird, I guess. I don’t ski, I don’t like to sled, but I LOVE to shovel snow! But I didn’t shovel, I just watched and smiled.)

So the word that I’ve come up with for 2008 is ADVENTURE. I can be comfortable with the other words, but adventure feels a bit scary…a bit of a stretch. So, I have decided to do a vision board around it. I’ve had a few adventures in my life that I really don’t want to repeat and others I just don’t want to experience, so my plan is to use the vision board to create clarity around which adventures I’d like to experience this year. And in my head, I see 4 sections. One section for work, one section for family/home, one section for relationship and one that is open for goodness. I like syncronicity and will stay open and leave room for it in my life. So, I have cut up some magazines and some pictures assembled, but not yet attached to my poster board.

Here is a list of some words that you might like to ponder as your word for 2008.  I got this list from Christine Kane’s blog.

Compassion
Love
Choice
Expansion
Exploration
Adventure
Openness
Discipline
Awe
Awareness
Risk
Gentleness
Spirit
Prayerfulness
Power
Allow
Artfulness
Attention
Beauty
Joy
Focus
Ritual
Heal
Order
Clarity
Pioneer
Peace
Laziness
No
Yes
Deliberateness
Commitment
Savor
Integrity
Listen
Play
Kindness
Laughter
Delight
Generosity
Effortlessness
Wealth
Gratitude
Abundance
Creativity
Willingness
Change
Growth
Freedom
Mastery
Health
Presence
Acceptance
Courage
Confidence
Self-Love
Action
Forgiveness
Forgive
Release
Trust
Knowing
Patience
Friendship
Fun
Grace
Love
Expansion
Exploration
Adventure
Openness
Discipline
Awe
Awareness
Risk
Gentleness
Choice
Spirit
Prayerfulness
Power
Allow
Artfulness
Attention
Beauty
Joy
Focus
Ritual
Heal
Order
Clarity
Pioneer
Peace
Laziness
No
Yes
Deliberateness
Commitment
Savor
Integrity
Listen
Play
Kindness
I’d love to hear how it goes for you. And you can even send me pictures of your vision boards. I’ll post them if you want me to.

by Pam Hauser, RN, LMBT

I have been to a couple of retreats in my life.  The most recent one was in the spring of 2007 when I went to Christine Kane’s retreat at Bend of Ivy Lodge in NC.   Christine is a local singer/songwriter who also does retreats and corporate training.  I am blessed to move in some of the same circles that she does, and that’s how I came to know about her retreats.  Her retreat is by far my favorite, simply because there were minutes during each day that were not scheduled!  All of the other retreats I have ever been to were scheduled up from dawn till past setting sun.  This retreat allowed for walks, talks with other retreaters, time (both guided and free) for making our vision boards, time to rest, time to sleep and time for massage!  Grace Scarbrough does all of the massage for Christine’s retreats, so retreaters are very lucky people.

How to do a Vision Board

Have you ever done a vision board before?  I had not until this past year.  I now have the one from Christine’s retreat and another that is in the works for 2008.  It is really a simple process.  First, assemble a bunch of magazines that you don’t mind cutting up.  I got some from a recycling bin and others were leftovers from other vision boards.   The best magazines are those that are general in nature, or have things that interest you.  If you long for the country life, then don’t get magazines like Inc.  If you love to ski or travel, then get travel magazines and cut out pictures of the places that you want to go.  General magazines like Redbook or Good Housekeeping might work for some and not for others.  If you know someone with a waiting room, you can offer to recycle their old magazines for them!

After you have your magazines assembled, get a big poster board, (they cost about a dollar apiece at the grocery store) some glue sticks, scissors, markers or sharpies and away you go!  Now, flip through the magazines, looking for what catches your eye… pictures of things that you want in your life.  Cut them out.  I also cut out words and phrases that I like to explain the things on my vision board.  Now arrange the pictures on the poster board.  Mine are in one big space that is sort of divided into parts of my life such as “health”, “relationship”, “home”, and “work”.  There are no lines drawn, but it is obvious when you move from one area to the other.  If you are artistic (I most definitely am NOT!) you can draw or paint those things that you want to manifest in your life instead of cutting out pictures.  If you absolutely love a particular house and long to live in your own home, go take a picture of that house, print it out and put it on your poster board.

Once you have everything where you want it to be on your vision board, apply the glue to the backs of the pictures and glue them down.   Glue stick works better than Elmer’s simply because Elmer’s will wrinkle the pictures and get stiff.  The pictures that you use glue stick on will stay flexible.

Finally, post your vision board where you will see it often.  Mine is on my bedroom door.  Others people post them over their desk.   I have one friend who is an avid scrapbooker.  She has her vision board in a scrapbook instead of on posterboard.  It works for her.  If you post it at work, then others will be able to see it, so decide first how public you want it to be.

Coming soon….pictures of vision boards!  I will post pictures of my 2007 board and my 2008 board which is a work in progress.  I think Grace intends to post her vision boards as well.    Feel free to leave a post with your vision board experiences!