Robert Lyman Baittie's Blog, page 3

Chapter 91. I do.

October 5, 2015

“It’s déjá vu all over again.” ~Yogi Bera

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If you didn’t pay attention the first time, sometimes life has a way of repeating things for you.

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There I stood with my daughter, arm in arm, as proud as a father could be. The two of us waiting patiently for this new chapter in her life to begin. 

On the other side of the door, a lot of people were anxiously waiting.

Was this really my little girl? How had the time managed to slip by so quickly? It seemed like just yesterday that I had been bouncing her on my knee. But now, there she stood next to me, looking absolutely beautiful in the dress she and her mother had picked out together just for that day. She was nervous and so was I. We both knew that once the door in front of us opened, everything in her life was going to change. Couldn’t I just keep her as my little girl just a few more years? Was she truly ready for this next step in her life? Was I? 

But how do you stop time? You don’t.

The door opened. 

All eyes turned to see the girl that was going to be coming down the aisle.

And just as she was about to start forward, she paused momentarily, turned to me and said “I love you Daddy! Everything will be ok!” 

I knew then it was time to let go.

That was nineteen years ago.

And in what seems like the time it took me to wipe away the tears from my eyes as that kindergarten bus pulled away from our house, I find myself again standing outside a door, with my daughter arm in arm.

You see, I’m now the Father of the Bride, and my little girl is getting married this weekend and I couldn’t be prouder.

I have no doubt she will look stunningly beautiful in the dress she and her mother have picked out together and I can only imagine how nervous both she and I will be.

A room full of people waiting for that door to open so they can all turn to see the woman that’s coming down the aisle.

And yes, of course I wish I could keep her as my little girl for a few more years, but you can’t stop time. Right?

Besides, I know she’ll be alright. And it’s time to let go.

“I love you Amanda. Let’s open the door.”

More to come.

Tremors in the Universe is available in e-book, paperback and hardcover through Balboa Press @ http://bookstore.balboapress.com/Products/SKU-000956591/Tremors-in-the-Universe.aspx or at http://www.tremorsintheuniverse.com

A portion of the authors proceeds are being donated to the National Parkinson Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

Tremors in the Universe Copyright © 2015 by Robert Baittie

Follow me on Twitter @RobertBaittie

Meditation sucks

September 22, 2015

You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day. Unless you’re too busy—then you should sit for an hour. ~Old Zen saying

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I recently became enlightened to the fact that my spiritual path resembles a game of Twister— Right hand—red chakra, left hand—green chakra.

How so?

My “Zen Den”—my private sanctuary for meditation, my temple for resting my temples, a converted window nook in our master bedroom, that I masterfully recreated to resemble a prayer alter in Peru by going to Pier 1 Imports and buying a Llama hair futon pillow to throw on the floor, along with a menagerie of zen-esque throw pillows, accented with an equally faux genuine Ming dynasty end table, an “All Buddha Statuary are 30% Off” Buddha water fountain, a bird cage to house my Dollar Store prayer candle, and my Zen sand and rock garden has now become the home to my wife’s collection of Redbook and Better Homes & Gardens magazines. 

Where is the sanctity? Where is my sanctuary?

How can I possibly gain the clarity to discover the ultimate truth and the meaning of life when “The 3 Secrets To A Flatter Belly” are just a page turn away?

What’s next? Using my Shamanic drum to call the family to the dinner table?

I can see why monks climb mountains to throw themselves into years of seclusion.

According to those who truly have mastered the art of meditation, (apparently those who bought their Zen Den at Pottery Barn) meditation should be done in a comfortable locale, with an upright posture, eyes open, and with a focus on your breathing while letting go of all thoughts and emotions for a length of time that allows your mind to settle without causing too much stress on your body.

Yeah, right! You know what else works? 

Vacuuming.

Nothing creates clarity like the Om-like din of a Hoover upright. Why, I’ve been known to be so far removed from the chatter of my brain during vacuuming that I have spent five minutes going over the same paperclip on the floor, rather than simply executing a downward dog to pick it up myself.

The point is, is that quality, mindful time can be spent anywhere, and that meditation can be so much more than centering yourself through the achievement of absolute silence. Much more.

With that in mind, I would like to share with you my guide towards meaningful meditation based on some of my most recent experiences:

Keep Thoughts Going & Wacky

Whoever said meditation is a state of peaceful bliss with a mind clear of all thoughts is not only highly disciplined, but they’re also a liar. Because that is impossible.

I always begin my meditation by creating bizarre, mundane or frightening thoughts. Sometimes if I’m feeling particularly determined, I’ll shuffle all three.

First, start by going over all the things you could be doing that your brain thinks are more important than meditating. Don’t be afraid to review your list of chores or get frustrated that you forgot to pick up the tampons your wife wanted the last time you were at Target. Remember, you’re meditating - use your thoughtless time wisely!

Next, start start thinking up bizarre or frightening thoughts your brain would have never delivered had you not tried to stop thinking. Perhaps you’ll start wondering what your life would be like if you didn’t have testicles or how many people will really attend your funeral. The possibilities are endless!

Meditate to Relaxing Music on Your iPhone

This way if you get a call, text, email or social media notification, you can promptly interrupt your meditation to check your very important messages. Like when my wife texts me “where are you?” when I’m in the bathroom meditating and she’s knitting rooster cozies for our kitchen canister set. Usually, though, it’s a Facebook notification because I left a comment on a picture of my friend’s dog that was wearing a hotdog outfit and I forgot to unfollow the post. I just gently open my eyes, say something like “Oh, someone named Fred thinks Dachshunds in Chicago should never have ketchup on them. I don’t know these people.” then I go back to my meditation. All in all, I probably check my phone’s beeps, dings and vibrations about 150 times per 15 minute meditation.

Meditate When Your Dead Tired

The only difference between a meditative state and a sleep state is whether or not your mouth is open. So, if you’re exhausted you’re almost there! Nothing clears the mind faster than falling dead asleep.

Focus on Your Third Eye Chakra

If the thought of having a third eye doesn’t totally freak you out, then at the very least it will seem a little weird at first, because it is. Focus on the zone right in between your eyes. Soon you’ll start thinking about looking at your mind’s eye, which will be a nice distraction from your obsessive thoughts of all the horrific things that might possibly happen, like a knife randomly falling off of a counter and falling on a baby. But now that I have you thinking about all the horrific freak accidents that can happen to babies try refocusing back on your third eye, so now you’re simultaneously telling yourself to focus while conjuring disturbing images that will make you want to bubble wrap babies at the same time.

Now tell me, what other species can judge themselves for thinking crazy thoughts while thinking crazy thoughts at the same time? 

Go ahead and meditate. You’ll soon discover, you really are wonderfully made.

More to come.

Tremors in the Universe is available in e-book, paperback and hardcover through Balboa Press @ http://bookstore.balboapress.com/Products/SKU-000956591/Tremors-in-the-Universe.aspx or at http://www.tremorsintheuniverse.com

A portion of the authors proceeds are being donated to the National Parkinson Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

Tremors in the Universe Copyright © 2015 by Robert Baittie

Follow me on Twitter @RobertBaittie

Chapter 90. Don’t give it a second thought.

August 20, 2015

We are confined only by the limitations of our own thinking. —Robert Lyman Baittie

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The human brain absolutely fascinates me—how something so intelligent can be so stupid at the same time?

I mean assuming you were gifted with a “normal” brain (and who really knows what that is anyway) there is no limit to what it can learn. It is a vessel capable of storing an infinite supply of information, without ever coming close to reaching capacity. There is no capacity for your brain. That’s truly an amazing thing. You can learn and learn and learn and still the brain is always capable of taking in more. Here is an organ so incredibly complex and intelligent that it can unconsciously run your entire body with all its individual needs, multitasking in ways that are unimaginable, and quite frankly impossible for your conscious mind, yet it is equally capable of making some of the most ignorant decisions at the same time. It can simultaneously process and categorize an endless stream of sounds and images, keep your heart beating, lungs breathing, eyes blinking, mouth chewing, legs walking and hands moving all at the same time for the livelihood of your existence without as much as thinking about it, yet in an instant can have you paralyzed in fear from its own imaginary thoughts.

When there’s no thinking involved, the brain operates just fine, but when there is active thought involved—watch out. Which makes me wonder sometimes, who’s really in control of my brain? Does my brain actually do all the thinking, all the time, or when emotions come into play is there another force or entity that’s intervening on my brains behalf in an attempt to program it with new information? Information that quite often is bogus. Shouldn’t our brains be smart enough to know the difference?

You’d think so, but the answer is no.

You see, one problem is the average human brain—a 3-pound, 75% water, warm butter consistency super computer only comes pre-programmed with the most basic operating system—Life 1.0. And while that is sufficient to allow it to be up and running right out of the box, or out of the womb as the case may be, it’s really only enough functionality for sustaining the operations that don’t require thought: breathing, eating, sleeping, going to the bathroom and watching sports. Beyond that, your brains really incapable of doing or deciding much else on its own without first being programmed with additional information. It requires additional software.

So how do we go about inputting the new information into our brains?

Well, there’s basically three ways: firsthand experience, direct observation or secondhand information.

Firsthand experience is just as the name implies, it’s everything you personally have experienced. Walk up to the stove and touch a hot burner, and you get your hand burned. You experienced the pain directly yourself and your brain processed and interpreted the information and categorized the experience. Firsthand knowledge is great stuff—the most reliable data you can get.

With direct observation you observe with your own senses an event outside of your immediate physical contact with it—usually someone else having a firsthand experience that you observe—an individual walking up to a stove, touching a hot burner and reacting in pain. Your brain again processes the information, and while better than secondhand information because you had some form of direct involvement in the moment (you were there), it’s still not as good as firsthand experience because it requires interpretation.

The final way our brain receives information is through secondhand information, which happens to be the way we receive the bulk of our knowledge and information. It also is at the greatest risk of being false or misinterpreted. You read in a book that burners on stoves can be hot so you should never touch one or you might get burned. Your brain has had no firsthand experience with the information, and you’ve never observed anyone touching a stove and getting burned, yet we’re often very willing to take as fact the written word, or what we are told as truth.

When Columbus lived, people thought that the earth was flat. They believed the Atlantic Ocean to be filled with monsters large enough to devour their ships, and with waterfalls over which their frail vessels would plunge to destruction. Columbus had to fight these foolish beliefs in order to get men to sail with him. He felt sure the earth was round.

My point is that, just because you’ve “learned” something, doesn’t necessarily make it true. Just because you are told something, doesn’t make it fact. You have to choose to embrace it as such with your thoughts. I think it’s important to always remain open to other possibilities, because the tighter we hold onto our beliefs that we’ve been taught or told, rather than experienced, the greater the opportunity to remain held captive by our own fears.

We are nothing more than a collection of our own thoughts about ourselves. An endless series of “I am’s.” I am smart, I am pretty, I am loved, I am worthy or in some mis-programmed instances, I am stupid, I am ugly, I am unloved or I am unworthy. Others may have thoughts about us too, but we can never actually be those things unless we accept the thoughts as part of our own thinking. Hold the thought in your mind, believe the thought to be real, and you ultimately make it part of your reality.

Not only can your thoughts effect how you feel emotionally, but they can also have a profound effect on how you feel physically.

The connection between the brain and the body is a strong one. One estimate is that between 50-70 percent of visits to the doctor for physical ailments are attributed to psychological factors. The brain is thinking the body ill.

So my strategy? Clear your mind and you’re healed—it’s really as simple as that. Think about that for a second, or better yet, don’t think about it at all. When you put disease, illness or pain into your consciousness, you give it life. Without the recognition of it through thought, it simply doesn’t exist. A mind distracted can be a body healed.

Now I realize I am oversimplifying it but it’s in an effort to try and make a point.

I was given a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. I know that. I have a piece of paper that says it on it. So I have it right? I mean, it’s on the piece of paper. And when I think about that piece of paper that says that I have Parkinson’s, and I think about the symptoms that my body sometimes exhibits, then I have Parkinson’s disease—because I am acknowledging it, I’m making it a conscious part of my being. I am actively engaging it with my brain and giving it definition and life with my thought. I am sustaining it. 

But when I am distracted, preoccupied or misdirected by the slight of hand employed by the magician called living, then for that moment I don’t have Parkinson’s. In that instant, I’m healed. I’m healed because Parkinson’s is no longer a part of me. It’s not in my conscious thought. It’s not me.

As soon as I re-engage my thoughts with it by saying, “Yes, but I really do have Parkinson’s.” then I have again, brought it back to life and into my existence.

My answer for Parkinson’s is simple. “Don’t give it a second thought.” 

My belief is that if I do that, maybe—just maybe—like a new world explorer, I’ll discover that having Parkinson’s doesn’t mean my life will fall over the edge of a cliff.

More to come.

Tremors in the Universe is available in e-book, paperback and hardcover through Balboa Press @ http://bookstore.balboapress.com/Products/SKU-000956591/Tremors-in-the-Universe.aspx or at http://www.tremorsintheuniverse.com

A portion of the authors proceeds are being donated to the National Parkinson Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

Tremors in the Universe Copyright © 2015 by Robert Baittie

Follow me on Twitter @RobertBaittie

Ear to ear.

July 30, 2015

Your smile always looks like you just did something bad…or you want to. 

~A good friend

If you were to ask me what I thought was my greatest physical asset, I would have to say it’s my smile.

I love to smile.

Having grown up in a midwest town called Downers Grove, one might find it surprising that I smile as much as I do. I mean the name alone sounds like such an incredibly depressing place to live. Downers Grove. You could easily imagine an entire community of residents shuffling slowly along through the streets with sullen faces, all wearing gray tee shirts that say “Life is Good… Enough”.

But that wasn’t the case—I smiled constantly.

I smile because I want to see other people smile. It has an amazing power like that.

To me, our smiles are a facial handshake that reaches out to others and opens the door for them to enter our soul as we enter theirs. Our smile pulls back the curtain that shrouds our heart and extends the invitation for us to look into each others eyes and embrace each others love.

A smile can transform everything that you are experiencing through simply engaging a few muscles in your face. Your smile is Universal. It is understood even when you can’t speak the same language as others. Your smile displays your spiritual perfection and shares who you are with the world. Your smile heals your pains and opens your heart.

Each of us have been crafted perfect, whole and totally complete in every way.  So the next time you are feeling despair or depressed, remember, nothing is ever broken COMPLETELY, not even your heart. Although it may feel like it at times, it still maintains a PERFECT and STEADY beat and sustains you even through emotionally turbulent times. Even in pieces, there are pieces of life to be enjoyed. 

Know the power that exists in you to change someones day—maybe even yours. SMILE.

More to come.

Tremors in the Universe is available in e-book, paperback and hardcover through Balboa Press @ http://bookstore.balboapress.com/Products/SKU-000956591/Tremors-in-the-Universe.aspx or at http://www.tremorsintheuniverse.com

A portion of the authors proceeds are being donated to the National Parkinson Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

Tremors in the Universe Copyright © 2015 by Robert Baittie

Follow me on Twitter @RobertBaittie

Chapter 89. Uh oh, I broke my brain.

June 27, 2015

Even the things that have broken us can be used to make us whole again.

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As a kid I used to dread telling my parents when I broke something. Why? Because it often followed their verbal warning to me, “Be careful, or something is going to get broken.” My having to tell them I broke something was proof of my guilt and an admittance that I hadn’t listened. I didn’t heed their warnings. 

My dad’s typical response was, “If you break it, you better be able to fix it, and if you can’t fix it, you better have the money to replace it.”

So when I broke my brain, naturally my parents were the last people I wanted to tell. I knew I didn’t have the money to buy a new one, and at first, I had no idea how to go about fixing it. Maybe it wouldn’t really be necessary, I thought to myself, after all the average human only uses 10% of their brain and I think I only broke half of mine. But then again, my dad had always said to me when I was growing up, that with half a brain, I’d be dangerous. Well I certainly didn’t want to be dangerous. I had to figure out a way to fix it.

When you suspect you’ve broken a bone in your body, like your arm, your wrist, your ankle or your foot, the most common medical procedures are to first x-ray it to confirm the break and then reset it, put a cast on it and give it some time to heal. Not so easy when you’ve broken your brain—after all your brain is 75% water and has the consistency of room temperature butter. The task of putting a cast on it is next to impossible, and even if you could there’s still the problem of what you would do when your brain starts to itch inside the cast? Think of sand paper?

I had had the x-ray of my brain in the form of a DaTScan® which measures the amount of Dopamine production by neurons in the brain, and as many a friend and teacher throughout my life had suspected, my head was almost completely empty (of Dopamine). I had somehow broken my brain and developed Parkinson’s disease. While a cast was most definitely out of the question, I knew I had ample time to try and heal if only I could find a way to reset the break.

For a brain thats been broken from Parkinson’s disease, that’s called a Mindset.

When one receives a diagnosis of PD, it requires a change in Mindset. Because it’s often easy for us to project our own bias “I think it’s broken, therefor it is broken” or even worse “I think it’s broken, therefor it is no good,” settling in to an attitude that somehow you’ve been weakened and can never be as strong as you once were. When in fact, quite frequently when something gets broken, through the process of mending it or putting it back together, something greater and even stronger can result. The greatest risk I faced with the diagnosis of Parkinson’s was exacerbating the injury and breaking my connection with Life altogether. I could have chosen to stop living. But I was determined there was a way to come out of this even stronger. I needed to look at this “bad break” as an opportunity to mend and heal other parts of my life. I may not be able to put things back together the same, but I was confident I could put them back together better.

An immediate change in attitude is just what the doctor ordered, and I wrote my own prescription.

Face my life’s challenges head on, look at obstacles as opportunities to conquer, and realize that through personally mending my spirit and my heart by shining loves light into the darkness of my fears, I could not only persevere, but I could enhance my meddle for any future challenges I might face.

On the days that my body is slow or my muscles don’t respond the way I think they should, I just tell myself that’s just the Parkinson’s in my brain reminding me that I’m still alive, and though I’ve been broken, there’s still a lot more living to do.

More to come.

Tremors in the Universe is available in e-book, paperback and hardcover through Balboa Press @ http://bookstore.balboapress.com/Products/SKU-000956591/Tremors-in-the-Universe.aspx or at http://www.tremorsintheuniverse.com

A portion of the authors proceeds are being donated to the National Parkinson Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

Tremors in the Universe Copyright © 2015 by Robert Baittie

Follow me on Twitter @RobertBaittie

What color is love?

June 20, 2015

When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls! 
― Ted Grant, Photographer

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When we first set out to get to know someone intimately, a question often asked is, “What’s your favorite color?” It’s one of those rudimentary “small talk” questions that go along with a whole list of favorites like, “What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream, your favorite flower or even your favorite junk food?” I myself being a graphic designer, tend to always answer the favorite color question the same way, “I’m an artist, I don’t have a favorite, I love them all.” I mean, really, how could I possibly choose one color as my favorite—the one I love the most—every color is beautiful. Is there a best color in God’s pallet?

Is the intense green of the grass after a rainstorm in June a better color than the blue of the sky on a crisp Spring morning in May? Is the brown of the dirt on a young child after playing in the mud any less beautiful than the bright red of a lipstick adorning a woman’s face? Or what about the golden yellow of a sunrise compared to the coral pink and orange of a sunset? Each color is uniquely beautiful. 

But unfortunately, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and even more unfortunate is that the “red” or “blue” that you and I may see is not the same “red” or “blue” that everyone sees—and the proof is black and white.

This past week, nine people were murdered in Charleston, South Carolina because of color. It wasn’t because of the white paint that coated the walls outside of the church they chose to worship in, nor was it because of the yellow daisies that patterned the dress of one of the women. It wasn’t because of the blue tie the young man wore as he sat next to his wife with the red polka dot dress and it certainly wasn’t because of the gold cross hanging on the wall. No, the reason was because of the color of their skin.

Something is terribly wrong in our world.

If the slaughtering of innocent human beings because of their skin color is what is needed by fanatics to light the way for their racist ideologies, I’d rather be plunged back into an abyss of darkness—void of all color for certainly it can’t be any darker than watching the horror of how man treats man.

What we need to understand is that the spectrum of color that exists in art exists in the the same spectrum of human kind—every color is equal in the fact that every color is different. We are all the same in the fact that we will never be the same. We are all united by the reality that all colors and all cultures are distinct, individual and uniquely beautiful. We are harmonious in the reality that we are all held to this earth by the same gravity and we share the air that keeps us alive. One color no better, and one color no worse that the other—just different. Our differences in color make my brothers and sisters on this planet no less themselves than I am me.

We are all different. We are not the same. But that’s beautiful. And that’s okay. In the quest for unity and peace, we cannot blind ourselves and expect to be all the same. Because in this, we all have an underlying belief that everyone should be the same as us at some point. We are not on a journey to become the same or to be the same. But we are on a journey to see that in all of our differences, in all of our colors, that is what makes us beautiful as a human race, and if we are ever to grow, we ought to learn to accept all colors as colors to love.

Chapter 88. You can't be serious.

June 16, 2015

Laughter is the sound of the soul dancing. My soul probably looks like Fred Astaire. ― Jarod Kintz, Author

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This past January I found myself standing alone outside in 20 degree weather, in the middle of a snow covered field, on a 200-acre farm near Green Bay, eating Twizzler’s and talking to three rocks. Well, I wasn’t really alone, because there was a cow about 200 yards away watching me with a most peculiar look on her face. And as far as the rocks go, I was doing all the talking, they weren’t talking to me. Because talking rocks, that would just be crazy.

It was while standing out in the field that I discovered God has an amazing sense of humor—one that actually had me laughing out loud.

You see, my being in the field had a purpose. It was part of the Shamanic healing retreat I was on, and the three rocks I was talking to were actually part of my “mesa” which is a portable altar or healing bundle that contain “kuya” or sacred stones I had brought with me. I was in the field as part of a ceremony intended to empower the stones with healing spirits from Mother Earth.

We were to go to an area on the land of our choosing to create the equivalent of a ceremonial sand painting. Using the land as our pallet we were instructed to mark out a large circle, and offer our stones to the earth by burying them within the circle allowing them to be empowered. We were encouraged to visit the area as often as we liked and to bring offerings and prayers until we felt the stones were ready to be unearthed.

It was on the second day, while visiting my site that I was shared a taste of God’s sense of humor.

Our teacher had informed us that it was not uncommon for magical things to happen—sharing how in the past one students stones disappeared entirely. Never to be found. So that we should simply be aware and observant as spirits love to be in communication with us.

Now because I was in Green Bay, Wisconsin in the middle of January my rather obvious artistic method of choice for marking out my circle the day prior, had been to walk a path in the snow, dragging my feet as I walked to push the snow away from the earth below, exposing a trail of grass as I walked. The resulting circle was about sixty feet in diameter. And after I had walked the path three times clockwise (the same direction the energy in our chakras spin—duh!), I had said a few prayers and then walked to the center of the circle where I made an offering of three pine cones, before clearing away the snow to bury my three stones.

I returned to the site to easily find the circle I had marked. I stood silently in the sunshine and breathed in the crisp air, as I offered prayers to God, my angels, guides and the spirits of my ancestors. And I have to say, as I stood there, recalling the teachers instructions, along with my heightened anticipation because of the spiritual work we were doing, I was expecting something magical to happen.

So after finishing my prayers I looked back upon the ground, and as I stood there surveying the area I had marked out the day prior, I suddenly began to chuckle. Because in my head the thought occurred to me, Gee if I could find a hundred bucks out here in this field, now that would be some kind of magic! Knowing full well I didn’t really think that I was going to find that kind of cash, but as I began to retrace my steps around that circle, I did momentarily find myself looking down around the ground as I walked. Who knows?

But to my surprise what I saw as I walked around again, was a deer print right next to one of my footprints from the day before, only this print looked fresher than mine. And as I walked, I began to notice more deer prints. Around my circle in the snow. The deer that had to have come out here the night before, had walked my entire circle right along side of my own steps. Wow! How cool was that? I actually did have something magical happen out at my stones. So I began walking back to the retreat center anxious to tell everyone what I had seen, when God decided to deliver the punchline.

As I was walking back it suddenly was as if God had put its hand on my shoulder and stopped me, because I stopped and stood there momentarily motionless. And I had a thought, and I began to laugh.

If the deer that had been walking the path around my stones, had been a male, then it would have been a buck. And given there were probably at least a hundred paw prints or more in the snow—I guess you could say I found a hundred bucks!

For me the answer was clear. When you’re getting caught up too much in the seriousness of life, in the day to day living, and you’re making your requests of the Divine to please help you out with all of your problems. God’s trying to tell us its not all so difficult. If we just believe and we just trust. To me it was a message to lighten up. Laugh. Enjoy all of life. Because it’s really been made for your enjoyment. And when the tough times roll around, relax, take time to laugh, because even that has a purpose.

The bottom line is this: Don’t take yourself and your emotions too seriously. That’s how I approach Parkinson’s. If you have a sense of humor about it, Parkinson’s won’t rule your life. The most important heart connection you can have with yourself - just you and yourself - a heartfelt sense of humor.’

Humor can’t be described in words. It arises in our heart and a smile appears or laughter comes out of our mouth. It brings a new vision and perspective to everything. We don’t have to take this short life—with all its challenges and demands—so seriously. Especially knowing that ultimately we will have to drop all of it and leave this life, as in the Tibetan saying, The brief time that we have in this world would be well spent trying to wake up from seriousness.

More to come.

Tremors in the Universe is available in e-book, paperback and hardcover through Balboa Press @ http://bookstore.balboapress.com/Products/SKU-000956591/Tremors-in-the-Universe.aspx or at http://www.tremorsintheuniverse.com

A portion of the authors proceeds are being donated to the National Parkinson Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

Tremors in the Universe Copyright © 2015 by Robert Baittie

Follow me on Twitter @RobertBaittie

It’s enough. It’s plenty.

It’s enough. It’s plenty.

It’s about respect.

Women are never what they seem to be.  There is the woman you see and there is the woman who is hidden. Buy the gift for the woman who is hidden. ~Erma Bombeck

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Hearing the heartbeat of a woman has never been a difficult task for me, after all, I first fell in love with a woman long before I was born.

Growing up, my mom taught me to always hold the door open for a woman, not because a woman was incapable of opening a door for herself, but more importantly, because she deserved the respect of having the door held open for her. It was about politeness, kindness and simply doing the right thing. It didn’t mean anything more than that.

The honoring of women by men must reflect women as a natural manifestation of God and also a call to a supernatural love. As the highest manifestation both of beauty and of the production of life, women deserve reverence. A natural form of “worship” for a “natural grace”.

Women are after all a visible manifestation of God. 

When women’s bodies are worshiped in a selfish way they are made into objects and divorced from the personal bonds of love. This is still the domination and the division first introduced through the fall from grace.

In a culture that has demeaned the role of women, and has not allowed them to be treated differently than men, we need to rediscover the distinct roles and relations of the sexes. Women need not act like men and should not be treated like men. They are too wonderful for this! When women are treated in this way, we also lose the essence of masculinity.

There can be no masculine without the feminine.

The definition of ones masculinity is not measured by the inches in his pants but rather by the space between his ears. How a man thinks is how manly he is. And the true test of ones manhood is in how well he treats a woman. All women. Any woman. Every woman. If a man cannot respect a woman, he can never expect to be more than half a man.

Masculinity is also not about conquest.

We live in a society where women are taught how not to be raped rather than teaching men not to rape. This needs to be fixed. 

No man goes out at night worried he might be raped, sexually abused or catcalled and these are all serious instances of aberrant male behaviour that we must address, punish or discourage as a society.

We can continue to acknowledge that we are men and women, but at the same time we have to keep in mind that we are all also human beings, born to cherish and to help one another. The same conscious Self is present in all beings. Soul has no sex, it is neither male nor female. It is only in the body that sex exists, and the individual who desires to reach the spirit cannot at the same time hold sex distinctions.

Treating women with respect should not be contingent on whether or not it “gets you somewhere.” Women have value. Women are people.

Our language we use needs to be looked at as well. I’m not talking about profanity but rather the meaning behind our words. You cannot “get” a girlfriend, because a girlfriend is not an iPad or a burrito. Women are people. You aren’t entitled to “have” people, just because you think it will cure your unhappiness. Your unhappiness is your problem and no one else’s. And thinking about a girlfriend as a thing that you “get” and not an equal partner whose humanity you respect and cherish will never result in a satisfying relationship anyway. 

If you really do want to treat women like human beings, just internalize these simple truths:

1) A woman is more than just her physical looks.

2) She has a complex inner life.

3) A man’s fulfillment is not her responsibility.

4) A woman is not obligated to get romantically involved with a man, and she is definitely not obligated to stay with him. People are not property.

5) A woman’s time is valuable, and it’s her right to choose how she uses it.

Women are people, and women just get to exist, set boundaries and say no. Always. Any time.

It’s about respect.

Chapter 87. Glad to be.

May 27, 2015

Note to self: It’s always easy when you let go. Accept and let be. Simply just let be. Let go of everything holding you hostage. — Malanda, Overlyxclusive 

_____

I’ve played the scenario over and over in my mind—ten to fifteen years from now, my doctors saying “Well Robert, apparently you were one of the lucky ones. It would appear that you had a very mild form of Parkinson’s disease”, and me walking away with my characteristic sheepish grin, mumbling to myself, Yeah, right. Whatever.

And you know what? They can think whatever they want to think. It really doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that will matter to me is that I did it. That I lived my life with Parkinson’s disease, and I beat it—I lived my life happily and I lived my life well. Just the way I chose to do it right from the beginning.

To have accomplished that task will not have been easy. Staying true to a positive mindset is an every day effort. One I undertook immediately upon being diagnosed.

Learning you have Parkinson’s is like receiving a diagnosis of “who knows” and a prognosis of “your guess is as good as mine”. There simply are no concrete answers that anyone can give as to what the disease is going to be for each specific individual. Each case of Parkinson’s is as unique as the nose on the patients face. Yet for all of the uncertainty, there’s no shortage of dismal expectations—a never-ending list of statistics that point you toward a path of negativity. That’s ok. That makes sense. Not too many people who are doing well go to see their doctors. So it would only seem logical that the plethora of information would be of the doom and gloom variety.

But I chose not to focus on that. I chose to focus on the “who knows” and the “your guess is as good as mine” as a good thing. If they don’t know with any certainty how bad things may get for me, then they certainly don’t know how good things can get either. The choice for me was simple—given the option of picking one of the two unknowns, I naturally chose the one with the positive outcome.

Wouldn’t you?

To do so I had to establish my mindset. Putting my mind to work towards contributing to my own healing. I was convinced that the levels of stress I had allowed to take over my mind prior to my diagnosis contributed to the onset of my symptoms, so I felt equally confident that my mind was fully capable of contributing towards my healing.

When you cut your finger and are in pain, you innately have confidence in your body’s capacity to mend the cut. You do not have to do too much: simply clean the cut and allow your body to do its work—take positive steps and the cut will heal on its own. You don’t even question its ability to do so. Your mind can work the same way. But you have to have the confidence in it to do so. You have to instill into your mind a sense of trust. You have to take positive steps. By learning to trust, you can clean the mind of fear, anxiety and stress which I believe acts like a bacteria destroying your bodies efforts to heal itself.

For some patients, a diagnosis of Parkinson’s creates real suffering, leaving them to think that living is impossible and they can’t go on. When we lose some of the abilities we’ve become so accustomed to over the years, or we judge ourselves based on how we think others might perceive us, we may think that we cannot survive. To have lost all reason for living is to open up an abyss of suffering. As influential as external conditions may be, suffering, like well-being, is essentially an interior state. Understanding that is the key prerequisite to a life worth living—and in time, realizing that we can go on living. Practicing mindfulness of our body and feelings, we feel better. The force of healing is always at work in us, and we can trust it. Our ability to persevere, our capacity to let go and transcend will help us through.

Our imaginations feed on our own energies, because it is our own energy that is required to keep them alive. Use your energy to imagine positive outcomes. Practice filling your mind with positive thoughts and soon you’ll find you’re filling your life with happiness. Happiness is above all, a love of life.

Changing the way I choose to see my Parkinson’s does not imply a naive optimism on my part or some artificial euphoria designed to counterbalance the adversity associated with it. My search for happiness is not about looking at life through rose-colored glasses or blinding myself to the realities of this disease. Nor is my happiness a state of exaltation to be perpetuated at all costs; it is the purging of mental toxins such as fear, pity and negativity that can literally poison my mind and incapacitate my body. I’m learning how to put things in perspective and reduce the gap between appearance and reality, for in its deepest sense, suffering is intimately linked to the misapprehension of the nature of reality.

My reality today is that I am alive—and for that, I am glad to be.

More to come.

Tremors in the Universe is available in e-book, paperback and hardcover through Balboa Press @ http://bookstore.balboapress.com/Products/SKU-000956591/Tremors-in-the-Universe.aspx or at http://www.tremorsintheuniverse.com

A portion of the authors proceeds are being donated to the National Parkinson Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

Tremors in the Universe Copyright © 2015 by Robert Baittie

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