An Interesting Day of Almost Nothing

There wasn't any school in my future today, or much of anything else. It seems I let myself get over-heated on Saturday even though I did spend lots of time indoors with the a/c running at Bohannan's Books and then at Stone's Throw yarn shop. Actually, I didn't think I had gotten over-heated at all until we were heading home and I said to Hubby, "My head is hurting." Yep. The head continued to hurt right up until about seven o'clock last night. By then I was, pardon my English, a very grumpy bitch. Luckily I was able to sleep lots and lots, and this morning when the alarm went off felt quite nauseous and ill which made me decide to stay home. Much to my own surprise, it was evidently the correct thing I needed to do for my body. Slowly but surely I am beginning to listen more closely to what my body needs and doesn't need. Tomorrow I will go to classes and hit the world wide open again, but am not going to venture out very much beyond the Sullivan's main building.

So, today was spent sleeping and drinking lots of water and, well, just relaxing and letting my body renew its energy. I also spent some time on reading The Healer Within which is a book Just Bill suggested I read. Although I have had the book for a couple of weeks I hadn't actually picked it up seriously until Saturday night because I had promised Just Bill I would read more of it before the next tai chi session.

It is a very simple book. It isn't long at all or difficult to read in the least, but some of the ideas it puts forth are, again, so simple my brain boggles which is forcing me to read it slower. One of the ideas that keeps being hammered home is that we can trust our own bodies and ourselves to know when something is wrong with us and that we know the speed we need to work at in order to help our bodies get better. Having been in the patient side of the world since I was a very young child, this idea keeps hitting me like a sledge hammer, mostly because I have always been silent after voicing a concern to a physician or a nurse and then been told what I am feeling and thinking. Now, here is a book that is saying I know how I am feeling and what I am thinking and it's perfectly all right. It is quite a surprise, especially how difficult it is for me to accept it even though I have wanted for years for someone to listen to me and not just tell me something and send me on my way with a prescription. It is amazing how this book is making me stop and take stock of what I truly think about myself and to trust myself where I am concerned. Despite the shock of it all it is refreshing and peaceful a read.

It seems the more I do tai chi and the more I let myself pray the more I am learning about myself. Some things are just reminders of what I knew before, but other things are brand new. Like confidence. I've struggled with confidence for years. In the younger portion of my life I can sadly admit I was arrogant. Now I realize the reason I was arrogant was I was afraid people would just look at me as a cripple and not as a human being, so I over-compensated. I also realize now that all I have ever wanted for myself was peace and acceptance. Now that I am actually getting the acceptance and the peace is slowly becoming more and more steady, I can actually see that I myself am accepting myself more and more which just so happens to increase the peace I am feeling. When I am not at peace with myself I am not at peace with anyone or any thing. I genuinely don't like feeling this way.

Some of you may be going, "Oh, I've known this for years!" To be honest, I've known it for years too--in my head, but not in my heart. Now the knowledge is progressing to the heart, which means I actually know it in the place where it really counts, matters. Who would have thought that with age there actually came wisdom?