Inspirational Reflections: On Love, Life, and Your Inherent Spirituality.: July 2016

Thursday, July 21, 2016

It's 3 am on my 66th birthday, and I woke up. As I tried to fall back asleep, I used a mantra I've used for months now and just lay there silently repeating over and over again "Thank you, GOD!" This morning I remembered a discussion I had yesterday. This crisis you are having isn't about you not doing anything, look at what you are doing, you are doing a lot! You are making a difference people's lives! It's about you and your ego and how when you come to the realization you are making a difference you bump into a wall of self-criticism, self-doubt. It's your own view of your self-worth and self-love. So I changed my mantra and kept expanding it until I felt it was right. That's when I decided to get up and write this.

Thank you, mom and dad, I am worthy of your love.
Thank you, Jane, I am worthy of your love.
Thank you, kids, I am worthy of your love.
Thank you, Laura, I am worthy of your love.
Thank you, everyone, I am worthy of your love.
Thank you, Keith, I am worthy of your love.
Thank you, GOD, I am worthy of your love.

So on this my 66th birthday, I got up at 3 am to give myself some Love. As I sat down to write, I was reminded of how hard these feelings hit after I had shared my talk at Unity of Chattanooga on March 20th. How in April I was just lost and mired in a depression, a crisis of faith or confidence, that I could not extract myself from for weeks. How my dear wife Laura even wrote me a letter after weeks of trying in vain to talk to me and coax me out of it. Until one day I was finally successful at shifting my mindset.

This week I woke up two days ago wracked with self-doubt and self-criticism again. I was slipping into the abyss of depression again. The thank you GOD's were not working that night. I again woke up at three something and talked with my dear loving wife for hours under the moonlight on the back porch "what is it?" she asked. I reached out to others in various ways. I received so much love and support, but I still felt hollow.

Then yesterday I got a call. I ran through where I was how I had felt it coming on for some weeks. I told her I was trying to find out why. She told me: "you know you can do that. But even if you find out why where will that get you? You need to make a choice. A choice that no matter when the ego throws the self-doubt and self-criticism at you, you choose to say I'm going to do the things that support the me I want to be. Even when I don't feel good about the me I am at the time. That's the most important time to do it!"

My wife and I had a great discussion before I went to bed. It's all about choice. For me, I have self-worth issues, self-love issues to overcome. It's not like I haven't overcome something before. When I lost my first wife, Jane, nearly six years ago I was so mired in grief I was an emotionless zombie just going through the motions of living. Until one day I put a sticky note with SMILE, yes written in all capital letters, and with a big smiley face below it on the bathroom mirror. Just to see it every day, every time, I looked in that mirror and to remind myself where I wanted to get to. Then I added to it. I choose to be Happy. I love you. You are a good person. That was the beginning of how I walked out of the grief I was mired in for months and months. Now, this morning I was reminded of that as I walked in here to write this. I leave you with a picture of what wound up on my bathroom mirror. And my new mantras to love and cherish myself and where I am choosing to take my life:

As I was reminded of yesterday, find something that works for you and use it. Especially when you don’t feel you are the me you want to be.

All My Love Always, Keith