On Pain and Disease

There is a lot of pain and chaos in this world. I’ve had my share of both.

I’ve had my fill of physical pain and lived through loss I thought I couldn’t bear. For 20 years after high school, I endured pain, discomfort, embarrassment, and fatigue—the weariness of a body-disabling and soul-draining disease known as Crohn’s. A punch in the stomach with a belly full of razor blades is how I can best describe it. My doctors tried everything. Sulfasalazine, Pentasa, Imuran. I was in and out of the hospital for steroid infusions, Remicade infusions, Humira injections, anything to get the swelling back down. A part of my gut was rebelling and fighting me over the years, more aggressively the older I got, building up scar tissue on the inside until my gut was so swollen nothing would pass, not even water. My newest doctor then declared it was time to just cut it out. And then everything changed.

I’m done reliving what hurts me and am now looking for what heals me.

After a lifetime of Crohn’s, a lifetime of limits, missed opportunities, depression, hopelessness…that changed. My solution was surgery. I now practice gratitude for each moment, each day, and each year that has passed since I had the disease removed. It flipped life on its head, or rather flipped life from its ass to its feet.

I’m ready to pay it forward. Years of introspection, contemplation, and dialog with myself taught me what not to do and what isn’t helpful. It also gave me time to seriously reflect on moments of gratitude during the occasional ebbing of pain where creativity flowed.

What my years of pain taught me: How to bridge the gap between disparate points of view.
Be kind. Be thankful. Be compassionate. It’s true that everyone has an invisible dialog, invisible struggle, invisible war inside themselves, often WITH themselves—we can never truly see or know someone’s struggle in its entirety.

Try empathy. Try to listen and hear, not just WHAT, but also WHY why people are communicating a particular message and speak to both. Understanding the intent of those questions, together, goes a long way to close the gap of understanding.

Today, I am a Thankful Spirit because I have known worse times. I have a new chance to live each day better than the last and that is reason enough to get up each morming—to try to do better, for myself, and for others.

What makes you a Thankful Spirit?

Breathe It In

You and I are a lot alike. We are both reading these words.
How we interpret what comes next affects what follows.

You are ugly. You are no good. You fail at everything you do. You are worthless.

How do you feel reading that? Do you believe it? You do? STOP.

I believe you are better than that. Find your shovel and sharpen your claws and dig your way out of that mindset. Climb up out of that grave of despair and self-loathing you created. I need YOU to believe you are better than you think.

Start with shutting the door on those thoughts above and replace them with the light and love that already surrounds you. It is out there, waiting for you to see it. Love is not a bird you can catch. It is smoke. It is fog. It is oxygen. It is all around you. You simply need to breathe. Move your mind toward it, breathe it in with a quiet mind in a quiet space. It fills your heart with a sense of completeness, and desire to share that feeling with others.

Know that you are better than your own self-criticism or self-doubt. Open the door to the possibility that you are wrong about the bad stuff. Harness the love that's out there. Become part of it. Look for love and light in the kind moment of a stranger, a smile exchanged with a new friend, a thoughtful action of someone in your orbit. Build on that. And breathe.

Be the light. Don't wait for it to find you. Shine from within. You are beautiful. I know it. So should you.

Thank you, Dad

What a year this has been. I lost my father early in 2016. I am still recovering and moving on with life. I had no idea how deeply connected we are as fathers and sons until he wasn't there.

After many months making adjustments in my soul, my life, my family, things are starting to get "Normal." Never the same, just the new Normal.

This first post will be short, because life is too short. You, go out into the world and see it and meet people. Play. Love and be loved. You are here for far too little time to be petty and small and vindictive; there's no making more time after you're gone and no amount of money will bring you back.

I'm thankful today, and every day, for my father. Whether you met him, spoke to him (most likely) or heard his voice, he touched a lot of lives and continues to bring smiles to those who remember.

—thankfulSpirit