Take a look at this powerful documentary about a brave woman looking to take her life back from crushing pain. This screening is a real and unedited look at Kristie Farley’s session with Europe’s leading specialist and developer of the Willow System, Rita Harrison. You will more than “get back” the 55 minutes from all the surprising parallels to your own life that we can almost guarantee will show up. Whether your pain is the “small, nagging” kind or the beast that assaults you in a dark alley, you don’t have to live with it.
The screening will be followed by a Q & A session. RSVP for the Zoom link.
We’re an odd lot – Americans – when it comes to celebrating our holidays. Never mind the Christmas in October creep, let’s take Thanksgiving and our love-hate relationship with it. “It’s a really big deal here, i’n’t it?” notes my Brit friend Paul. Grounded in the tradition of breaking bread together and being thankful for blessings, it’s become a mad, frantic dash to… I don’t quite know… you fill in the blanks… gluttony, excess, strained pleasantries.
Take my shopping trip to Ralph’s two nights ago around 8:00. I strategically timed it to avoid the after-work rush, and thankfully, no jostling and weird cart-maneuvering were necessary. Of course the shelves were bare of some key items on my list – heavy whipping cream and Happy Eggs (organic, brown and delicious!), and the vibe was more Armageddon than Norman Rockwell’s depiction of warmth, home-cooked food and happiness. The clincher came when the rushed shopper behind me tossed two bags of frozen rolls onto the belt.
I wonder what it is that makes us so disconnected from the meaning and appreciation of days once dedicated to the rhythms of life and simple rites of passage. I’m going to let those musings lie for now because I’m busier these days with my own housekeeping.
For some time, my life has been about my disconnects and reconnects – with loved ones, my habits and purpose. The changes have been glass-shatteringly uncomfortable, but today is a good day – as it is every day – to stop in my tracks and notice the blessings that have come in strange packages.
I’m thankful that:
My daughters and I are happily spending the holiday apart, all of us comfortable in doing what we want and without the need to fulfill obligations.
It’s Thanksgiving morning, and I’m not in the kitchen over-cooking (as in cooking too much food) and burning.
It’s storming in Southern California, and I don’t need to get into a car today.
I have a new non-profit, The Pain to Power Foundation, that is reconnecting me to whatever it is that I want and need.
I’m sitting at my laptop and blogging with joy again.
May your holiday season be filled with strange gratitudes.
Fighting for Happiness 