Life sometimes takes us on incredible journeys, and often those journeys are not in the direction we consciously choose.   Have you ever been in a situation where it your tempted to not be one hundred percent honest?  Most of us are tempted at some time or other in our lives to tell that white lie, or, not speak up, or keep that thing that really doesn’t belong to us.  Being 100% honest should be the easiest thing in the world, but its not society shows us that over and over and over.   

Sometimes it seems easier at the time, to just tell that white lie, we all think no one will ever find out, no one will know.   

Problem is someone does know, and that someone is the most important person in your world ~ its YOU! As kids we take that extra sweetie from the sweetie jar, or pick up dads spare change and take it to the local shop to buy goodies.  We hope no one will notice, and often they don’t, but what about how what we do affects us?  How does not being honest affect your life?   Do you sleep well at night? Are your relationships healthy and full of trust and love?   Chances are if you tell the odd fib, then you will be someone who doesn’t trust other people, did you realize that? 

This is simply because the standards and values we base our life upon are actually our own standards and values.  Simple hey!  

Have you ever experienced telling a lie to someone you love and then being caught out?  How did that feel? What happened, I guess when all hell broke loose, you felt that you didn’t deserve the anger of the other person did you?  And you probably tried to justify why you told the lie, or did what you did.  You may even have told the story over and over to a dozen people trying to clear your conscience.   

When you do something wrong, you know what you have done.  Knowing you have done something wrong, affects your self esteem, self worth, self respect, self acceptance, and no amount of justifying will ever allow you to get past the truth of the experience.  

To me life is simple if you don’t do anything wrong then you don’t have to spend all that energy and worry trying to cover your butt.  Instead you can spend that time, thinking on things that are happy, living life enjoying the time, the experiences, and the people.   

So remember next time when tempted, and you feel like lying to get yourself out of trouble think again, doing the right thing may be a little more difficult in the initial moment, but its far better long term.  You won’t be living your life feeling guilty, or feeling that something is going to happen to expose what you did or said.   

It takes courage to live life with honesty – integrity and by doing the right thing.   So at the end of the day who are you?  How do you feel about your life, your relationships?

And remember this:  from this moment on you can make the choice to be a person of courage, after all what are you afraid of? 

Helping someone who is ill.Impatience, intolerance, anger, frustration, depression, regression, anxiety and recklessness, are all things you may witness in the lives of someone who is suffering from chronic illness.  Moods change in a flash, love becomes attack, and attack becomes love, all facets of life in the day of someone facing circumstances beyond their control.  Sometimes it’s the medications that bring on sudden mood swings, other times it’s just the simple mechanisms of the emotional upheaval of being confronted with ones own morbidity.   

Be the solid anchor in the storm.So how can we help, how can we give support and love when often our love is rejected, or we become the focus of attack?  The main resource we have within us is compassion, and tolerance beyond that the essential ingredient is “don’t take it personally.”  It’s true that people generally strike out at the one they love when they are scared, ill or just plain unhappy.  That is a fact of life I am afraid. 

The way to negotiate this passage is to stay out of your emotions, just don’t emotionally buy in, feeling guilty about what’s happening to someone close to you is unhealthy, very unhealthy for everyone involved.  There is an old saying, “If you’re into guilt your playing God,” and that is also true, guilt never fixed anything, all it does is eat away at the very fabric of your being.  So how can you stay out of the emotions?  It’s hard if someone is saying hurtful things, or behaving irrationally not to show emotional reactions, and at the end of the day, we are all human, we all look to that security of being linked firmly to another human being. 

Knowing in your heart what the truth of the situation is for one thing helps, and what I have always found is that to love someone else more than yourself, to give support unconditionally to the one in need is the one very thing that builds a firm anchor for the one in crisis to bounce around and then anchor back too when they are ready.  Its sometimes like standing still in the centre of a hurricane and not blinking, just be still, stay strong, stay understanding, and provide the energy that is love. What ever you do don’t get angry back at the person, walk away cool down, take a deep breath and bring things back into perspective. 

Be clear on what your personal boundaries are, by this I mean don’t over do things, make sure you take care of yourself in the process of taking care of the person who is ill.  So many times I have seen the carer become the one who ends up seriously ill from the stress of the situation, good intentions often lead to overdoing things, so know what you can do and when to say enough.  Have regular respite periods yourself, go for a walk, take time out for a coffee with friends, and take care of yourself.Dealing with the anger of feeling helpless 

This can be done in many simple ways, one way is to get an old phone book, and cut a piece of hose pipe 2 ft long of your garden hose, go into the garage close the door, sit on the floor and then beat the hell out of the phone book.  Give yourself permission to get angry, and process that anger in a positive way; just let it all out on the phone book.  Start hitting the phone book slowly and think about the issues at hand, then just keep hitting it, you will end up with a terrible mess but you will walk away feeling exhausted but lighter for the experience.

Dealing with Illness.

"To every life some rain must fall," I don't know who actually said that statement first, but my mum often repeated those words.  She always said, "Sometimes the rain comes in one great flood, other times it comes and goes, always leaving us wiser for the experience."  "You might be saying right now, yea some rain is ok but why the darn flood!"

If you are lucky enough to live to be a ripe old age, then you can be assured that illness will touch your life in one way or another, yet the real question is, "How will you deal with it when it comes?"  Believe it or not but its normal to find yourself asking, "Why me?" and its normal to get angry, its normal not to be able to cope, and its normal to be scared to death.  But will you allow any of the above to paralyse your life and stop you from living?  That is the big question!

Sometimes the illness that provokes you to grow the most is not your own, but rather the illness of a loved one, family or friend.  Just yesterday I sat scanning in some old photos into my computer of friends, having reached the mid years of my life, sometimes especially at times like Easter and Christmas, I tend to become a little reflective, not in a bad way, but more in a sense of appreciation of who I am today and how I managed to become the person I am today, having experienced all the ups and downs that have come my way.  This year however, this Easter has been a little different.  I found as I scanned pictures into the file, that I it was a time of saying goodbye, no I am not ill, or even sick for a change, thank God.  Although I was suddenly shocked to realise how many of the friends whose pictures I was saving for posterity, are no longer with me, or who are now gravely ill.  It was quite a sobering realisation that only a handful is in good health, and thriving upon life.

So back to my topic of dealing with illness;  I am one of those odd people, you know those who are strongest for those who cant be, one who puts themselves aside to help where ever I can, in some ways a champion of those in need, so I have been told.  I think nothing of diving in, helping anyone who needs a hand, and although there are dozens of people out there like me, the amazing thing is that not everyone can deal with illness.

Many times when someone gets ill, their families will simply not know how to deal with it.  They may get angry and push the person who is ill away, or blame them, saying you're brought this on yourself, or they may just pretend its not happening, or avoid the situation all together.  It's so important that in order for the person who is ill to recover, that families don't start a war over who does what or should I say who don't do what.  In plain truth some people don't cope and don't know how to deal with the emotions.  I suppose what I am trying to say here is, just because you are coping doesn't mean everyone else can.  It also does not mean they love you less or the person who is ill any less.  Sometimes people love so deeply that to see the person they love going through the anguish of ill health they just run away, it's all too much.  You see in order to deal with illness you must be prepared to go deep, deep into your emotions, deep into your own psyche, deep inside the realms of spirit, and not everyone wants to go there.  Not everyone is strong enough to swim the English Channel, and not everyone is strong enough to hold your hand while you die, or while you heal.

Acceptance of people is so important during times of illness, by letting people find their place in the chaos of the emotions is so important for everyone, don't expect people to do what they don't know how to do, and with any luck they will surprise you by stepping up to the mark in their own time. 

Find people who can give you the support you need, people like me are there, in the wings, waiting to hold out a hand, give a hug and cup of tea and sometimes a little wisdom of how to deal with things.  Blame, guilt, anger are all wasted emotions, after all they are not going to help make anyone better, they are only going to tare the fabric of your life apart even further if your not careful.  

Grief is not something that comes after someone dies, often the grief is more devastating while the person is ill, and undergoing treatment for illness.  And not every illness ends in death, thankfully.  However, relationships that may well have been healed in the process of healing the illness sometimes die instead.  The primary cause, terminal lack of compassion and understanding, terminal expectations of others, and terminal lack of courage, the greatest gift you can ever give other members of your family is to let them find their own position in the process.  Remember, not everyone has courage and some simply love too much.

Next to be publishes - article:

Living with illness  - Many Blessings. 

Overcoming illness is not as difficult as society would encourage you to believe.

Just for a moment, look back on your life - have you ever been in so much pain and confusion that you wished you were dead?  When you look back you grew from that experience, and it has helped you heal the weakness in your life to become with luck clearer about your life and what you will and will not accept in your life. 

Sometimes the illness we have today, is the results of seeds that were planted in emotionally turbulant times, I do beleive the mind has the power to heal and to destroy, and is simply powered by our emotional state.  What was thought yesterday, often is required to be worked through today, and that is how life works. In order to return the body to health, often there is a journey to clear the thought process of beliefs which supported the foundation of the concept of illness in the first place.

To be told you have a terminal illness and yet keep a faith that you will live and be well again takes enormous courage and self belief.  Humanity is to a large extent lacking the skills to know the power of thinking and how to listen to the inner knowing of pure consciousness, for a large part we are inducted from the day of birth into beleiving we are powerless and that we sould fear everything and everyone, when in fact this is a totaly inappropriate way to live.  In fact its not living, its existing.   More people live life as if they are already one foot in the grave than people who actually get out there and embrace life to the fullest, listening to their spirit and following even though they put one foot after the other outside of normal conventional ways of thinking.  Life is not about control, its about living in tune with the nature of the pure self, the only problem is that most people do not have a clue who the real  self is or how to find it.

I have worked with individuals who have overcome the odds, restoring health when it was said that this could not be achieved.  I have spoken with people who were told they only had days to live and yet 40 years later they are healthy and happy living lives which are dictated by their own self clarity and self beleif.  Miracles do happen, they happen every day, the only thing which prevents miracles from happening is a belief that they can not happen, and a toxic environment full of doubts, fears and environmental polutants.

Polution comes in many guises, it comes in the fearful thoughts you think, it comes by absorbing yourself in drama and murder on the television, it comes at times simply watching the news.  Most activities it would seem even the innocent ones such as watching tv, are not actually doing us any good. 

Laughter, sunshine, relaxation, plenty of sleep, plenty of clean water, plenty of fresh vegetables and meat that is not doused in antibiotics and chemicals would be the best start to overcoming illness.  Happiness does produce hormones in the body which heal, this has long been known and proven in medical science.

So what can you do to change the amount of negative influences holding back your healing? You may say that so many things are beyond your control and sometimes this is true, however, you can choose to turn the television off, or just choose to watch light hearted movies and stories.  You can choose to not read the paper for a few months, after all if you cant do anything to change whats happening in the world what is the point of knowing and worrying about it?

You can make the difference in your own life, by being aware of what you choose and why you choose it. Avoid people who feel sorry for you, that is an energy you dont want, you want support and encouragement to beleive you can make your own miracle, not people telling you its impossible.

Surround yourself, with beauty, what ever that means to you, good music, walks on the beach or in the park, good company, lots of TLC and lots of laughter and your well on the way to providing your body with all the good stuff it needs to make the best possible outcome in your situation.

Never give up, never give in, choose the reality you want and let nature help you, heal your life.