Posts in the “personal” category

This image is from the longer Ram Dass article titled, Uncooked Seeds. As I get older, I find more wisdom in Ram Dass’ writings.

“It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”

Ram Dass

“Our interactions with one another reflect a dance between love and fear.”

~ Ram Dass

“Who you think you are will always be frightened of change. But it doesn’t make any difference to who you truly are.”

~ Ram Dass

“It’s very hard to grow, because it’s difficult to let go of the models of ourselves in which we’ve invested so heavily.”

~ Ram Dass

This is a great quote from my favorite book on spirituality about trying to change other people (and attachment and karma).

“And when Jung starts to deal with his archetypes, collective unconscious and so on, he is starting to deal with the fourth chakra ... he himself is afraid to go on, that’s quite clear. He goes just so far and then he stops, because he’s afraid that if he goes the next step, he will no longer be able to do what he does as Carl Jung.”

From a Ram Dass post, Chakras in the Body

Zeus, the Best Dog Ever, passed away on August 21, 2010. In an unrelated event, I almost kicked the bucket on the same day in 2016. That would have been kinda cool in that regard.

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ~ Rumi

“I am not this hair. I am not this skin. I am the soul that lives within.”

Rumi

Note (March 14, 2018): I’ve disabled comments on this website until I get through this current illness.

I woke up Thursday morning at 2:15 am and quickly knew something was wrong; if I didn’t act fast I was going to go unconscious for the eighth time. I threw down some Zyrtec and Benadryl, put some ice in a towel, went outside, and sat down with my head between my knees. (When I get close to passing out I feel extremely warm, like some form of hyperthermia, so I try to cool down as fast as possible.) I don’t even know what I did wrong this time, but that’s how life with MCAS rolls.

The mast cell disease has been kicking my butt the last few weeks, and I’ve come close to losing consciousness several times. Had this been eighteen months ago when I didn’t know what was going on I surely would have lost consciousness, but these days I at least know that I can try to rapidly load up on the meds and do some other things to stay conscious.

One thought I’ve had during these times is, “What joy is there in this moment?” I don’t mean that in a negative thing; in fact, I mean it as the exact opposite. For example, when the syncope started last Thursday at 2:15am and I ran outside to sit with my head between my legs in the icy cold weather on the porch, I asked myself this question. My first answer was that the cold felt good. After a little while I noticed the faint sounds of an owl making “Who ... who” calls somewhere in the distance, and combined with the cold dark silence, that was very pretty.

Frankly, my main thought was that if I was going to go unconscious again – something you never know if you’re going to come back from – I wanted my last thoughts to be of something joyful, and that’s when I started thinking to ask myself, “What joy is there in this moment?” If you’re having a bad day or a bad moment, I encourage you to ask yourself that question. For me it’s been a way of finding some gratitude in my most difficult moments.

“Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have been “sick” the last few weeks with a mysterious illness that has caused me to be lightheaded and even pass out. Whenever I get sick like this I think, “What has changed?” Well, one thing that changed is that when I returned home in late January I started using Truvia (Stevia) instead of Equal or Splenda. Sure enough, I stopped taking Truvia and I was fine, and then I tried it again yesterday and became lightheaded in a few hours, and nearly passed out again. I was able to check my blood pressure and heart rate during this latest episode, and my BP was fine (120/72), but my heart rate was 87 or higher. After reading other accounts of people saying that Truvia causes lightheadness and fainting, I hope I have found my culprit.

MedicalNewsToday.com has an interesting article for people with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases titled, Could targeting gut bacteria prevent autoimmunity? Except for their desire to use drugs to solve the problem, the concept is consist with autoimmune diets like The Wahls Protocol.

“95% of soy products in the United States are genetically modified, and do not have to be labeled as such.”

From the book, The Wahls Protocol

When I started meditating I was filled with anxieties, I was filled with fears ... kind of a depression and anger. And I took this anger out on my first wife, and after two weeks of meditation she asked, “What’s going on?”

I said, “What do you mean?”

She said, “This anger, where did it go?”

And I didn’t even realize it had lifted.

~ David Lynch, in this video

Doctor: You have more bacteria DNA in your body than your own DNA.

Me: My body??? (spoken in high-pitched voice)

Doctor: Yes. No. I mean not just you, everyone.

Me: Oh, good. I thought you were trying to tell me something.

“Real marriage is when two individuals share the same goals in life, and want to help each other attain those goals.”

~ Swami Satchidananda