The Super Power we ALL have: Positive Affirmations

 More than just this too shall pass.

As I was preparing for this blog post I clicked on a site entitled 7 Behaviors That Reveal You are a Free thinker. https://www.powerofpositivity.com/behaviors-reveal-you-are-free-thinker/

I thought it was funny that as I quickly scanned the article my next move was to check out the source, before I actually began to read it.  Then it occurred to me this is my habit. I always check out the source because there's just so much BS out there right? It's easy to agree with authors who say what you already believe in, but it doesn't mean that those who speak their truths with which you may not agree, are wrong or those with whom you agree are right. And sometimes we just have to suspend our disbelief long enough to try something new to see what happens.

That's the kind of story I'm about to tell you. This is the true story of what happened to me in my moment of despair. If you know me and you're reading this, then you know it's all true. If you don't know me, you will have to suspend your disbelief and get ready to hear my story. Stay with me on this ok, it's worth it. If I am asked to share my best piece of life advice with someone, this will be it.

THE BACKGROUND INFO

In the fall of  2008, a man I really trusted said three words to me that would change my life forever. Oh if only they had been the sweet three words you're probably thinking of. These words were absolutely the last thing I wanted to hear at this point in my life or ever. The words were: you have cancer.

I was a 46 year old, struggling single mom of a teenager whom I adored and who was also struggling with their own life and identity. Needless to say I was devastated, absolutely devastated. My child was still so depressed about losing their best friend to suicide about a month earlier that I was afraid they would follow with suicide as well. The stress of that alone was overwhelming. I would later learn that my child's father, my ex had passed away just 10 days before this news. We were the same age. It felt like my small family was meant to die out right then and there, we had  been selected for extinction, I remember thinking.

At the time I had been dating a guy for a couple of months and I really liked him, but with this news I didn't feel it was fair to burden him with my 'new' situation. He was younger than me so I set him free. And he left. Not long after, my daughter left too to find herself with friends and a new street family to give her the support she felt she needed and she really did need that support. It had always been just the two of us since my divorce 15 years prior. The rest of my family was on the other side of the country. Deciding to leave home would become a decision my daughter would later regret, but a decision that kept her from suicide because she said she couldn't stay and watch me die. But this was more than devastating, everyone leaving me right then especially those I loved, was pain that cut to my very soul and scarred me emotionally for what I thought would be forever even though I completely understood.

So I had my operation, during which time a third of my right breast was removed along with 12 lymph nodes. I felt mutilated, as though I was 'damaged goods' and so I cried my tears, which seemed infinite for a while. 

The next year would be filled with chemo and radiation treatments. Professional support for my child was minimal at best. I remember once after a chemo treatment, waking up to a cop standing at the foot of my bed (my bedroom was upstairs) saying they were looking for someone at this address who had called the suicide hotline and said they were bleeding. They were there to take my child to the hospital. My child had to ride with the police to the hospital to be checked out because they were underage and a report would have to be filed at the hospital. I would have to follow in my own vehicle. Just so you know, every time I would get a treatment it felt like I had the flu. I was in no condition to follow them but we'll do anything for our kids right? And I really didn't have much choice. You would have thought that the hospital, a children's hospital would have followed up with a social worker or something after seeing our condition in the hospital that night right? It never happened and I was too weak to chase after her a little while later when she decided to leave home for good, and so I lost my child to the streets. 

This is not sounding very positive is it. It ends even better than you can imagine, stay with me.

THE RECKONING

As time went on, things started to look up a little. My daughter who was male at the time, still stayed with friends most of the time, or on the streets of Seattle but we were in touch. My parents who were elderly would come to stay with me when I would have a treatment which always involved a long trip for them. I returned to work with my arm in a sling and only missed the time it took to recover from surgery. So I started to feel a little bit better and decided it was time to take charge of the situation. The movie The Bucket List had just recently been released and I thought, I'm going to do that, and you know what else I'm going to do!, I thought to myself, I'm going to laugh throughout the rest of this ordeal, and I'm going to survive this shit!!!! I am NOT my breasts and I WILL survive this!!!!

So I made a bucket list. I thought to myself, let's see if this positive thinking really works. Because I had always heard the phrase visualize and realize, and I really did believe it. I always had great luck manifesting what I needed. If I needed cash, somehow it would be there. If I wanted something in particular an article of clothing, a special meal, a piece of furniture, a phone call from a friend, whatever it was, I would visualize it and it would happen. It was kind of unbelievable. So I decided that in this bucket list I would list things that I thought would NEVER happen. My number one bucket list item was to get remarried. Ok that was probably number 2 because I wanted to live first, but  being alone and learning that I had a potentially fatal disease made me realize that I really didn't want to be alone anymore, so getting married again was at the top of the list, right after surviving. I wasn't dating anyone at the time, I was damaged goods as far as I was concerned so it just seemed impossible. The impossible list developed from there. I wanted to drive my dream car, a Mercedes Benz, so that went on the list. Why not? I had never been to Europe so that went on the list. I wanted to learn a foreign language. I wanted to learn to paint and become an artist, and so on. I got about 8 things written down on that list which I have since lost, but I will tell you straight away that each and every one of those things on my list came to pass. I even got the Mercedes Benz afterwards literally by accident!!!More on that in a future post

Even before I was finished with my treatments I met a man who was born in Bohemia (wow right? He was born in the Czech Republic during it's Russian occupation to Austian/Hungarian and Czech/German parents). He was a German immigrant, still a citizen of Germany and he had the most adorable accent and demeanor. The first thing he said to me was that he was an artist and he spoke 4 languages. He also lived in my area. My jaw dropped on the floor. 

 At the time, he had a German deli, which is where I met him(in person, we actually met online, another incredible story) and we started dating. He made me laugh after all that grief. Before the end of that first year he took me to meet his family at Christmas time. They were all still living in Germany, so I was in Europe for the first time in my life and fully immersed in the German language and culture, something I never dreamed would happen to me especially within the first year following my diagnosis. I was so motivated to learn the German language it was amazing!! 

 On New Year's Eve, on the balcony of his brothers house, with all of the bells tolling in the churches of the village where they lived and the smoke filled air from all of  the fireworks, he proposed to me in front of the whole family. In a thick accent he says, 'I like to marry you'. He sounded just exactly like Arnold Schwarzenegger, rolling those rrrrrrrrrrrrr's! All I could do was throw my head back and laugh maniacally and  then I said, say it again! After which I said yes, yes, yes!!!!!! Of course.

Since then, I've learned to speak German (a little, more than some) cook German, keep house like a German. He taught me to paint among other artistic pursuits. AND I got the Mercedes. Wow.

Now days, guess what, I'm retired and I have explored so many art mediums that I can now make a living as an artist. I can do things that I never knew I could do, because I believed that I could and so I can. I really believe that there was something about putting those things down on paper, no matter how improbable they were, that gave those positive affirmations the energy to materialize. I have heard many stories like this, so I'm not the only one who can do it. This concept is not exactly outside the realm of science. You know E=mc^2, which explains the relationship between energy and matter.  In my studies, I have learned that thoughts can  manifest into reality too. It has to do with quantum physics a science that no one understands but only bits and pieces, and it is bizarre! It all sounds very heavy and maybe even a little too new age for some, but until you try it, you don't really know. But I know because in my moment of despair, I could have laid down and died or I could dream my loftiest dreams and turn them into reality. 

You can do it too. Find a time, I usually do mine when I'm brushing my teeth or something and I just say my positive affirmations right to myself in the mirror. NOW my positive affirmations go like this: My body is getting stronger and heathier every day, and I am looking younger, and younger every day (right? why not?) and then I check myself out to see if it's working, lol. Yup, clothes fit better, I get lots of looks from younger guys, no really. It has worked!!!!!! Not to mention that here it is fifteen years later and  I am cancer free and living my best life. Here's a case in point. We had to call our electrician the other day, a handsome, young Latino. He's always very friendly and spends some time catching us up on the latest with his very large family. He spontaneously and specifically said to me "you look young". He could've said anything else but he actually said  'you look young'. Not the usual complement. There's so much satisfaction in knowing that I'm in control of what happens to me. You have to try it. You got this. Positive affirmations changed my life for the better in ways I had to imagine. I had to name it and claim it! You can too, you don't have to think "oh I'm dying" to make a bucket list. It's very much like goal setting, you just have to know what you want.

Try something new you beautiful, boho soul. If it's not new for you, maybe lets agree to manifest world peace and the end of hunger and to have the purest and truest love for each other, so that we can make the next evolutionary jump and become universal citizens. How exciting to know that this too is within the realm of possibility we just have to make it so.

Peace and love to you, Jorisoboho