M.I.A.
Hi Friends,
I know I've been M.I.A. for a while. A lot has happened in that time.
1. I took a class by the amazing Laura Baker called Discovering Story Magic. I'll do a little write up summary of what I learned in the near future.
2. I discovered I am an angry person and have started on the path to healing/forgiving my inner self in order to find peace and calm and a new energy and enjoyment of life and the relationships I have with others.
3. My doctor found glandular cancer cells in my cervix.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm going to talk about items 2 and 3 today because they are at the forefront of my mind.
Starting with 3 because it is the most "serious" of all of them.
It's not a cancer diagnosis, and I am staying positive that it will stay NOT a cancer diagnosis. I haven't told many people because I don't want people freaking out about it. I think my mom, dad, and sister did more freaking out about it than FishHubby and I did.
I had surgery on Monday this week. I had what's called a cold knife conization. It's where they remove a cone shaped section of the cervix, including any cancerous lesions. Draw this: Draw a W with rounded bottoms. Draw a diagonal line from each rounded bottom to meet in the middle. That's a very crude drawing of what they removed. Where the two rounded bottoms meet in the middle is the opening of the cervix. They'll test it, and if all is good I won't hear from my doctor until my two week post-op follow up appointment. If I do hear from her... cue ominous music and radiation treatment.
I'm staying positive about this, even though less than 1% of women who have cancerous cells in their cervix have glandular cancer cells. My husband asked the doctor "is this common?" and she immediately said "no," and shook her head. But she also told us we're catching it early, so there is a lot of hope if it turns out to be the dreaded "c" word.
On to item 2...
Once upon a time, I used to be incredibly angry. I was the person that made a public spectacle of being mad at my (at the time) boyfriend (who is NOT FishHubby... FishHubby would NEVER cause me to become that angry), including screaming and yelling. In public. Yeah. Mature. I know. I left that person and got my anger issues and jealousy issues under control.
So, a week or two ago (now I don't remember when it was) I had this horrible revelation that the angry person is coming back out. I am an angry person. I get frustrated and angry so easily and poor FishHubby gets the brunt of it.
I think my parents' pending divorce caused a lot of internal catastophes. Like earthquakes that knocked down walls and let in a flood of emotions. While I've been picking up the peices of those catastrophes, rebuilding, it's been rough and not easy and some of the flooding caused more damage than I thought. And it slowly started eating away at me. Like black mold growing in the basement.
Before my revelation, I started reading this book called May Cause Miracles. It's a 40 day "course" in "miracles." In fact, the author, Gabby Bernstein, quotes a book called A Course in Miracles throughout the lessons in her book. So, I honestly believe this book and course material was written for people who have hit some sort of rock bottom, or middle shelf of rock bottom, so at first I wasn't into it and even now I still find myself feeling it is silly and stupid. But I also started meditating. I try to meditate once a day, but so far it has been about once every two days or so. Or whenever I'm feeling something negative, or something undesireable. It helps me find my center and promote inner peace and calm.
It's amazing. Quite frankly. I've also subscribed to Tinybuddah.com and get their daily email with inspirational articles and what-nots every day.
One of the biggest things I've learned in starting my practice to being a more peaceful person is to forgive. The first step is to forgive yourself. When I start having negative thoughts, I interrupt myself with "I forgive myself for having this thought. I choose love instead." By choosing love, I am training myself to think positively. To see positively. To banish negativity and fear based stories from my mindset. Fear based stories? You may ask. Yes, Fear Based Stories. These are the things we tell ourselves, that our non-Freudian ego has told us and we have learned to believe as truth.
For example, last week I learned to love my body. Easily done, for those of you who know me, I'm fit and I look great. But no. It was hard. I had so many body issues. I felt fat. I felt ugly. I felt like my body wasn't good enough. My ego told me these things. I learned that I am not a body. I am free. My body is merely a messenger to help me to choose love instead and to spread love to those around me.
This all sounds new-agey-crazy, I know, but it's amazing. I don't look at myself in the mirror and see a body with flaws anymore. I see a vessel of love. I see a powerful machine. The last time I went for a run, I ran over seven miles, even though I set out to only do 3. Pretty damn good for having not ran more than 3 miles in a long long time (like, since my half marathon last September). When I look at myself in the mirror, I see possibility. I see beauty and love. I CHOOSE to see beauty and love.
It's that simple. It's a choice. It's a choice to stay stuck in a negative rut rather than pull yourself out and think positively.
Another example is with my writing. After taking Laura Baker's class, I have everything I need to write this story. To layer it with theme and meaning and purpose. But, my ego told me I won't do it justice. I looked at my ego and said bull shit, ego. I can do it and I will. I forgave myself for having that thought and I chose love instead. I told myself I can do it.
It's amazing how these simple affirmations can stop my negative thinking cycle and get me back on track to being positive. It's amazing how meditating for 3 minutes, listening to my breath, repeating my mantra, can bring so much inner calm to me, and once I've done my meditation, just reaffirming my mantra when times get tough is enough to bring back that loving feeling.
Peace be with you, my friends!
Keep writing!
Claire L. Fishback
I know I've been M.I.A. for a while. A lot has happened in that time.
1. I took a class by the amazing Laura Baker called Discovering Story Magic. I'll do a little write up summary of what I learned in the near future.
2. I discovered I am an angry person and have started on the path to healing/forgiving my inner self in order to find peace and calm and a new energy and enjoyment of life and the relationships I have with others.
3. My doctor found glandular cancer cells in my cervix.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm going to talk about items 2 and 3 today because they are at the forefront of my mind.
Starting with 3 because it is the most "serious" of all of them.
It's not a cancer diagnosis, and I am staying positive that it will stay NOT a cancer diagnosis. I haven't told many people because I don't want people freaking out about it. I think my mom, dad, and sister did more freaking out about it than FishHubby and I did.
I had surgery on Monday this week. I had what's called a cold knife conization. It's where they remove a cone shaped section of the cervix, including any cancerous lesions. Draw this: Draw a W with rounded bottoms. Draw a diagonal line from each rounded bottom to meet in the middle. That's a very crude drawing of what they removed. Where the two rounded bottoms meet in the middle is the opening of the cervix. They'll test it, and if all is good I won't hear from my doctor until my two week post-op follow up appointment. If I do hear from her... cue ominous music and radiation treatment.
I'm staying positive about this, even though less than 1% of women who have cancerous cells in their cervix have glandular cancer cells. My husband asked the doctor "is this common?" and she immediately said "no," and shook her head. But she also told us we're catching it early, so there is a lot of hope if it turns out to be the dreaded "c" word.
On to item 2...
Once upon a time, I used to be incredibly angry. I was the person that made a public spectacle of being mad at my (at the time) boyfriend (who is NOT FishHubby... FishHubby would NEVER cause me to become that angry), including screaming and yelling. In public. Yeah. Mature. I know. I left that person and got my anger issues and jealousy issues under control.
So, a week or two ago (now I don't remember when it was) I had this horrible revelation that the angry person is coming back out. I am an angry person. I get frustrated and angry so easily and poor FishHubby gets the brunt of it.
I think my parents' pending divorce caused a lot of internal catastophes. Like earthquakes that knocked down walls and let in a flood of emotions. While I've been picking up the peices of those catastrophes, rebuilding, it's been rough and not easy and some of the flooding caused more damage than I thought. And it slowly started eating away at me. Like black mold growing in the basement.
Before my revelation, I started reading this book called May Cause Miracles. It's a 40 day "course" in "miracles." In fact, the author, Gabby Bernstein, quotes a book called A Course in Miracles throughout the lessons in her book. So, I honestly believe this book and course material was written for people who have hit some sort of rock bottom, or middle shelf of rock bottom, so at first I wasn't into it and even now I still find myself feeling it is silly and stupid. But I also started meditating. I try to meditate once a day, but so far it has been about once every two days or so. Or whenever I'm feeling something negative, or something undesireable. It helps me find my center and promote inner peace and calm.
It's amazing. Quite frankly. I've also subscribed to Tinybuddah.com and get their daily email with inspirational articles and what-nots every day.
One of the biggest things I've learned in starting my practice to being a more peaceful person is to forgive. The first step is to forgive yourself. When I start having negative thoughts, I interrupt myself with "I forgive myself for having this thought. I choose love instead." By choosing love, I am training myself to think positively. To see positively. To banish negativity and fear based stories from my mindset. Fear based stories? You may ask. Yes, Fear Based Stories. These are the things we tell ourselves, that our non-Freudian ego has told us and we have learned to believe as truth.
For example, last week I learned to love my body. Easily done, for those of you who know me, I'm fit and I look great. But no. It was hard. I had so many body issues. I felt fat. I felt ugly. I felt like my body wasn't good enough. My ego told me these things. I learned that I am not a body. I am free. My body is merely a messenger to help me to choose love instead and to spread love to those around me.
This all sounds new-agey-crazy, I know, but it's amazing. I don't look at myself in the mirror and see a body with flaws anymore. I see a vessel of love. I see a powerful machine. The last time I went for a run, I ran over seven miles, even though I set out to only do 3. Pretty damn good for having not ran more than 3 miles in a long long time (like, since my half marathon last September). When I look at myself in the mirror, I see possibility. I see beauty and love. I CHOOSE to see beauty and love.
It's that simple. It's a choice. It's a choice to stay stuck in a negative rut rather than pull yourself out and think positively.
Another example is with my writing. After taking Laura Baker's class, I have everything I need to write this story. To layer it with theme and meaning and purpose. But, my ego told me I won't do it justice. I looked at my ego and said bull shit, ego. I can do it and I will. I forgave myself for having that thought and I chose love instead. I told myself I can do it.
It's amazing how these simple affirmations can stop my negative thinking cycle and get me back on track to being positive. It's amazing how meditating for 3 minutes, listening to my breath, repeating my mantra, can bring so much inner calm to me, and once I've done my meditation, just reaffirming my mantra when times get tough is enough to bring back that loving feeling.
Peace be with you, my friends!
Keep writing!
Claire L. Fishback
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