Is Your Well Full, or Are You Running on Empty?

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Bad things happen to good people.

I think we’ve all figured that one out by now, right?!

So, bad things are going to happen to you. Or, like me, LOTS of bad things might happen to you, over and over, with rare pause between crescendos of pain, and you may wake up one day and think, “Wow, really, is this life? Isn’t there something more than this to life?”

I’ve been asking myself that question quite frequently as of late, and I think I’ve figured out a key to finding peace and joy, even in barrages of hardship.

The question is, how to see beauty around pain? Or, as one friend said the other day, how do I see rainbows in the shitstorms? (Please excuse my language if you’re reading this, Mom and Dad, but, well, the profanity was elicited given the circumstances of late!).

I once quoted a story I heard shared by author Mark Nepo on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, and I’ll share it here again.

“The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things . . . Stop being a glass. Become a lake.”

~Author Unknown

I think I’m figuring out that when bad things happen, if my “well” is full, I can be more able to see the beauty around the pain, and “enlarge my sense of things.”

Are you filling your well by spending time opening up a connection to the Universe?

Your “well” is your spiritual energy input. It is the time you MAKE for yourself to be alone, to be in nature, to be creative, to write or paint, draw or bike, read or cook – whatever it is that refills your well. It is your coffee can on a string to the divine. It’s always there, but if you don’t pick it up and open a connection to allow creativity and beauty to flow into, out and through you, you will feel stifled in your life. You will feel unfulfilled. You will feel stuck. And when bad things happen, you will feel that bitter taste of being a glass, not a lake.

So, just as we must perform daily maintenance around our homes, for our bodies, etc., we must maintain our spiritual vessel daily as well. Every day you feed the dog, your kids, your spouse, but do you feed your soul – your spiritual well?!

We have to keep filling the well, so when a shitstorm comes to try and drain it, we have spiritual energy reserves. We have to have enough beauty in our lives coming in and out through self-expression, creativity, books, music, meditation, friendship and connection, and anything else that helps us feel we are touching the divine, that we can still see that beauty around the pain when it comes.

As Mothers, parents, spouses, employees, we are often sending all our energy out, out, out, out, out, and never taking time to bring energy in for ourselves. So, we’re too busy or broke to take a vacation or spend time in nature? Don’t worry, you’ll have a vacation soon enough when you get an illness and have to stay at home for a week. It’s your body’s way of saying, “NEED ENERGY INPUT!!!!”

I’m home sick right now, because I have not been filling my well, and through a lot more “bad stuff” this last couple weeks, I’ll admit, I could not see ANY rainbows in the shitstorms because I was running completely on empty.

I’m working on filling my well, right now, by writing, to you, because this is my coffee can on a string to the divine. What’s yours?

The next time you’re washing the dishes, fueling the car, packing lunches for the kids, or doing some other sort of daily maintenance on your home or life, remember your well, and please, make sure you’re taking time to fill it every day, too. You don’t even have to leave your house to open up a connection to the divine. Plan a vacation, read a book, call a friend, paint a beautiful picture, jam through a workout, climb a mountain, or just do something, to remind yourself, this is a beautiful lake…er…world, we live in, no matter what happens.

“To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly…”

~Eckhart Tolle

Grim Reaper Girl – Pt 3 “Death Has Made Me More Alive”

I woke up yesterday morning scared to death of what I had done. I hardly slept the whole night before.

It was so scary to tell you how I really feel, what I’ve really been through. I was afraid you’d think of me as a failure, because at times I haven’t been able to figure out how to pick myself up again. I was afraid you’d think, “What she’s going through doesn’t begin to compare to what I’ve been through.” Or, maybe you’d think I’m just a whiny little self-absorbed brat.

But instead, you called me…brave. Wow.

From Hippies https://www.facebook.com/HippiesPage

I cried shirtsleeves of tears over your comments and posts. You being here, you showing up for this…it’s giving purpose to the pain.

So, I am insisting upon myself that I continue to be brave. I didn’t go through all this stuff for nothing. I drew all these experiences to myself to learn something…and then share it.

So, take what you can. I’m just here to try and give to you what it’s taken me 499 losses of every freaking painful sort to figure out.

I have so much more to say…such mind-blowing, life-changing, eye-opening, profound experiences that have brought me to the altar of my soul…and it was there that I found the greatest awakenings in the deepest pain, the purest joy in the deepest cuts of sorrow.

I’m so glad you’re here, and can’t wait to share more.

So now, for chapter three of Grim Reaper Girl.
This is it right here…are you ready?
_______________________

EXPECT BLISS

A couple weeks ago, I met a man after service at our local Unity Church on New Year’s Day. The morning had been a powerful “releasing of the old” and “bringing in of the new.” It was on this day that I decided to GIVE UP MY GRIM REAPER GIRL STATUS and start using my voice to echo the strength and beauty I’ve found in my experiences. No longer a victim of life…a creator of it instead.

I remember Michael Mirdad, the speaker, saying, “What’s going to happen now that you’re not hiding behind your pain anymore?” And I thought, “Oh, wow…what IS going to happen?!”

I had shared in the service, a little of my story, so afterwards, this man came up to me and said he, too, had witnessed many deaths in his lifetime, and he understood how hard it was. We talked for awhile and then out of the blue he said something I’ll never forget. He said, “But I just get up every morning and I try really hard to BLISSFUL.”

“Wow, you try really hard to be…BLISSFUL?!” I thought! I get up every morning and think, “How am I going to survive another train wreck?!”

I was so taken back…by his almost “expectation” that life could hand him pure bliss every day.

That was an ah-ha moment for me.

Remember what I said in the first post? That it was at my lowest point that I decided I didn’t want to live a life of loss anymore?

Well, I don’t. I DO NOT LIVE A LIFE OF LOSS ANYMORE.

Bad things still happen. People still die. But I’m not living a life of loss.

I see the joy and beauty around the pain. I’ve learned the path to peace. I’ve learned to accept this moment as it is, and to treasure it.

Borrowed from Oprah

Mark Nepo, author of “The Book of Awakening” (a book Oprah thinks every human being on the planet should own) shared a story on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday that changed me.

He said one morning he stepped outside and was just beholding the beauty of a gorgeous, sunny day, taking in all the opportunity that brand new day held for him, soakin’ it all up when BAM. He stubbed his toe on a rock. So bad he thought he broke it.

The pain overtook him. All he could think about was the toe, the pain.

And then, he had his own ah-ha moment. He looked up, looked around, and remembered the beauty of the day around him.

And he thought, “Is everything the pain in my toe? Or is the pain in my toe, within the miracle of the sun and the day and everything else?”

When I heard this, I decided…I am not my stubbed toes. There is beauty around the pain. I choose to see that.

Neale Donald Walsch put it best in his book, “Communion With God.”

“Your life lived is…a reflection of your deepest understandings.

If your life is an experience of constant joy and total bliss, then you truly have it. This does not mean that your life is without the conditions that can cause pain, suffering, and disappointment. It does mean that you live in joy despite those conditions. Your experience has nothing to do with conditions.

This is unconditional love, of which I have spoken many times…When you have unconditional love of Life, then you love Life just the way it is showing up, right here, right now.”

Yup, that’s me. That’s what I’m talking about. That’s what I strive for every day! That’s my little saying, “Finding peace in the middle of my own hurricanes!” I am not my stuff. I am not my circumstances. My joy comes from within, from knowing what a beautiful soul I am, what a beautiful life I am given each day.

I have asked myself repeatedly, why did I draw these experiences of so much DEATH into my life? I have known in my heart that it was, in fact, to experience more life. I’ve tried to figure out how to put this into words and here it is, so beautifully…

“…every moment is a dying. Every moment is the end of your life as what you were, and the beginning of your life as what you now choose to become. In each moment you are recreating yourself anew…

The way to produce more life is to experience more death. Don’t let death be a once-in-a-lifetime thing! Experience each moment of your life as a death, for that is, in truth, what it is when you re-define death as simply the end of one experience and the beginning of another.

When you do this, you can have a little funeral each moment for what has just passed, for what just died. And then you can turn around and create the future, realizing that there is a future, that there is more Life.

When you know this, the idea of “not enough” is shattered, and you can begin to use each golden Moment of Now in a new way, with new understanding and deeper appreciation, with larger awareness and greater consciousness.”

Yup, that’s been my gift. I use each Moment of Now in a new way. I have grown that deeper appreciation and awareness, in spades. I know, “This too shall pass.” I know that everything is always changing, that people come and go in my life. So, I try really hard not to suffer through letting people/things/stuff go – instead, to look at the space which is created when they do go – and remember that now, it can be filled with something new.

This means that every day, I look at my children with full awareness that their time may come tomorrow. I’ve watched two small children in my life die unexpectedly, and I lost a baby before my son was born. I know deeply, that every second with my two precious blessings is a gift.

But I don’t use that to live in fear. Instead, I simply try not to waste any of my moments with them. Does that mean I’m Supermom? No, it just means, I soak up every moment, big or small. Tonight we went to Wal-Mart and made a party out of our daughter spending a $15 gift card from Christmas – it’s the simple things, I tell ya, the simple things.

I try not to miss a birthday party or a dinner invitation because ten times now, that birthday party has been the last memory I made with a loved one – the memory I cherish now more then any other. And the one time I didn’t go to a birthday party…was the last time I could’ve held my nephew alive.

I reach out and connect with as many people as I can each day (even though being a hermit would be SO much easier and simpler!) because that’s what life is about! Because when I die, I want a funeral full of people saying I made them feel like they mattered in this world.

I give away as much as I possibly can because I know what it’s like to feel like you have nothing. And because creating a constant flow of energy back and forth, and around, between all of us – that is life! If we stop giving, we stop the flow of life itself!

I’ve found the most incredible faith possible…I mean, it is unbelievable how I trust the Universe to provide for me now because I have been at my breaking point again and again, and every time, found exactly what I needed to get through.

I don't know for sure...but I've always been told these orbs that show up in photos are our angels. I opened this photo to insert it here & suddenly noticed...10 orbs around me. This was taken on my birthday 2 weeks ago.

I wake up every day feeling BLISSFUL, people – heck ya, I said it and I mean it – I can’t believe it’s true but I wake up every day feeling BLISSFUL!!!!! Because I have a new day before me to create anything I want.

I’m not in survival mode anymore. I’m in full-throttle THRIVE mode.

I still struggle, I still need constant daily reminders of all this…but I have that now, with 12 new angels around me – they are my constant reminder.

Yes, death has been my gift…because it has made me more…

ALIVE.

And when I die, you better believe, I’m gonna die…a BLISSFUL woman.

Grim Reaper Girl – Part I

I’m afraid to share what I have to say. 

I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me. 

I’m afraid you don’t want to hear it.

My name is Megan. I am the Grim Reaper Girl.

Just incase you don’t know my story already…in the last three years TWELVE people in my life have died. I have sat at the deathbeds of five. I watched Cancer (and yes, in my book it gets freaking capitalized because it’s a monster) eat four of them alive, slowly and painfully.

90% of them were under the age of 50. One was five.

If I averaged it out, I’ve been to a funeral every other month for three years.

Oh, and I’ve moved, I’ve moved a lot, running around trying to make a better life for our family in this recession…we have moved four times now. We had the American Dream, and lost it. Thank God, because let me tell you trying to hold onto that ridiculous image of perfection was only an American nightmare.

I have had to redefine my meaning of home, because it so often changes.

I once called myself a “City Widow” and I have also given myself another certification: self-made Grief Specialist.

But, not a lot of people know all this about me because well, I’m the Grim Reaper Girl. Maybe they think if they stand too close to me, they’ll get cooties, and death and pain will rub off on them, too.

In the Spring of 2010, after my latest slew of tragedies had taken my three year old daughter’s best friend, my husband’s job, our new life and new home, a friend of mine informed me, politely, that the general population of Facebook had deemed me…

Duhhn…dunnnn…dunnnn….duhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnn…

A downer.

Yup, it was official. I was singlehandedly bringing the entire cartoon-posting, music-streaming, “did you see the latest Lady Gaga video?” mood of Facebook down by keepin’ it real.

I was…the Grim Reaper Girl.

I’m keepin’ it light here, because, well, I did title this post “Grim Reaper Girl” and I’m a little worried I might scare ya off if I get too real, and then I might turn into a downer…but really, that whole Facebook thing was pretty tragic for me. It sent me, bags packin’, into a self-induced hermitville where I stayed for quite awhile, painfully afraid to tell the world what was really going on with me because I didn’t want to…bring anyone else down.

Then, my Grandpa died. Then, my Grandma died. Then, we had to move…again. 

That's my Grandma on the left there, reacting to the news that I was pregnant with our 2nd child that I miscarried 2 weeks after this photo was taken, one month after my Aunt's death. On the far left, that's my Grandpa Bob who died last year. One photo. Three soon-to-be ANGELS.

But, I didn’t post about any of it on Facebook, and I didn’t tell too many people…I was too scared.

It was just a couple months ago, right after my Grandma died, that I reached my darkest point of the last three years. I stayed in my room for five days and didn’t leave. I stopped eating, stopped drinking. I didn’t care anymore about anything. It hurt too much to be alive. Life had become synonymous with too much intense pain. And, I hated myself for not being able to pick myself up yet again…and be a good Mom, wife, lover, friend. I felt so…alone.

My husband called our parents and siblings and said, “What do I do?” He’d seen me down before, he’d seen me grieve A LOT. But after all the losses, he’d never seen me like this.

I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to continue to live a LIFE OF LOSS either. I’d stopped being able to see the beauty outside the pain.

I’m blessed to have amazing family and a few friends in my life that always show up for me, but it really is rare to find someone, anyone, who can face death alongside you.

My Grandma had faced her own inner demons, and because of that, she had developed an unusual sense of compassion and an ability to honor and acknowledge all the little deaths in my life. She was one of the only people who called me up after every single loss, big or small, to sit with me in the pain and acknowledge it.

She never treated me like the Grim Reaper Girl.

I think it was because of this that her loss hit me harder then any of the rest. Plus, well, the whole slop of all the losses piled on top of each other like a cheap Carl’s Jr. hamburger kind of made me feel like the “meat” on the bottom of a dogpile.

Worse then the pain itself, though, was feeling like I had to hide it from the world, like no one could really understand or see the pain I was in.

Then, my husband’s Dad called me. This is a man who isn’t necessarily spiritual in my mind. He’s simply a good man.

And he said to me, “The amount of stuff you’ve been through the last few years…and all you’ve been doing is trying and trying and trying to find a way to make it all better and it just keeps getting worse…it must be getting really old. I’m so sorry sweetie.”

In an instant, my heart melted. The tower I had built around it came down brick by brick. And I took the metaphysical gun away from my head and light came back into my world of darkness.

He was a simple and profound reminder that I am not alone. He looked at me and didn’t just say, “I’m sorry.” He said, “I see you…I see the pain, I see how hard you’ve been trying to survive all this loss, and I get it.” His words gave me the strength to pick myself up off the bottom of the dogpile and start seeing the beauty around the pain.

Oprah said on her final show, and you’ll hear me quote this line again and again because I have learned that this right here, folks, is really what it’s ALL about (not the hokey pokey!)…

“I’ve talked to nearly 30,000 people on this show, and all 30,000 had one thing in common — they all wanted validation. They want to know, do you hear me? Do you see me? Does what I say mean anything to you?”

My question to you is, do you see the person sitting next to you at work? Do you see the man at the gas station swiping your credit card? Do you care about them? Do you let them know that?

Can a SOCIAL NETWORK be a SOCIAL SUPPORT GROUP? Can we go past "Likes" and also dole out, "I see you's" and "I care's"???

And what about Facebook? Its called a SOCIAL NETWORK. Every day, in 468 characters or less, or with one click of a “like” button, you have a chance to say, “I see you, I care,” to 499 of your closest friends and family. Do you use that power? 

Plato said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

I wonder how we would treat each other if we all walked around with signs on our backs bearing the terms of our battles.

The night my two year old nephew died, I left the hospital for a few minutes to run a family member home to her kids. I hadn’t eaten in two days. I hadn’t slept. My entire world had just changed, as if a movie set had been broken down and another completely different backdrop had been put up in its place. I stopped at a gas station to get a snack and I looked around at the people in the gas station, just going about life as usual, and I thought, “Do they have any idea what I’m going through right now? How would they treat me if they knew what I’m about to have to do?”

A man cut me off on the road on the way home, and I thought, “Would he have done that if he knew???”

How would you treat every stranger if you looked at them like they were fighting the battle of their life?

If you’d run into me in that gas station and seen a sign on my back that read, “My 3 year old nephew died last night and I’m about to go hold him for the last time,” would you have stopped to shake my hand? Give me a hug? Hold my hand? Would you have taken the time to say, “I’m sorry” ???

I bet you would have.

The next time you’re out grocery shopping or filling up at the gas station, the next time you glance at a stranger and feel that urge to look down and just go about your business back on your little island in your little realm of the atmosphere, I want you to stop and look at them again. Look at them and ask yourself, “What battle are they fighting?”

Then…ACKNOWLEDGE THEM.

It doesn’t take much. Just a smile, a word, a gracious opening of the door or a, “No, you go ahead.”

I can tell you right now…that ONE LITTLE THING…could save a life. 

Sometimes, the most basic form of acknowledgement is the most profound gift you can give a person…especially if they’ve started to think the world doesn’t see them, doesn’t care.

A smile has saved my life a million times.

A few words have eased my pain more then 10,000 hours of therapy could.

A few brave friends…willing to stand beside the Grim Reaper Girl…have made my life worth living. In fact, they’ve made a life of loss turn into a life of beauty. I can honestly say, I’ve never been more at peace, more filled with joy then I am today. I’m not a wallowing mess of depression, I am a strong, courageous woman on a mission now…my mission? To tell everyone I meet, “I see you, I care.” 

So, the question is, can a SOCIAL NETWORK be a SOCIAL SUPPORT GROUP? Can we be real or can we only go so far as Lady Gaga will let us go?

Take a risk, post something brave, something real. Maybe someone will tell you they see you. Maybe someone will CARE. 

Remember what I always say…
Life’s greatest question is “Why are we here?”
I believe the answer is, “For each other.”
This post is dedicated to anyone who has ever looked at me and with their eyes, heart or words said, “I see you, I care.” You are the beauty in my life. You remind me of the beauty and joy that is always surrounding the pain. You’re bigger then the pain…you’re the best Band-Aid a Grim Reaper Girl could ever ask for.