Ellen's book will strengthen and guide you in your role as caregiver to an elder parent or relative, and help you understand your own physical, emotional, mental & spiritual needs.Now available at
Archive for December, 2008
We are everything.” –Debbie Ford
We bought our first home over twenty years ago, a tiny semi-detached, two-story house in the east end of
Toronto. After a while a very large extended family moved into the twin side of our house. They left overflowing trash cans by their front door in the heat of the summer, parked their vehicles on the lawn, sometimes got drunk and shouted at each other, and so on. I had many judgments about this family and felt that no good would come of the situation.
After a few months of this we went to my mother’s cottage up north for a long weekend, and I had a dream. I dreamed about my neighbors next door, and in my dream I received the message “You are just like them…you have had a life like theirs in the past.” In the dream I realized that I could not judge them because we were actually very much alike.
At the end of the weekend we returned home to Toronto to find that our neighbours had cleaned up the garbage, removed their van from the lawn and planted flowers out front in a large tire planter. There was no rational explanation for this event that many would call coincidence, but I knew that something out of the ordinary had taken place. Somehow my dream had allowed me access to important information, knowledge I didn’t have during my waking hours. It had given me a window into a place where we are all connected.
At her Shadow Process Workshop in early November, Debbie Ford told us: “We are everything…all the light and all the dark.” The idea that each of us has parts of ourselves – both positive and negative – that are hidden in our daily interactions wasn’t new to me, I’ve been interested in Jungian shadow theory for many years. Grasping that we all embody every light and dark quality takes it a step further. Debbie’s wisdom, along with the careful design and flow of the workshop brought the message home to me in a profound way.
If we believe we are everything, we by definition include all the good qualities available as well as all the ‘negative’ ones we try to hide from the world. We’re the same as the wealthy woman, or the woman on the downtown east side of Vancouver, or anytown USA or Canada.
What better time of year than the holiday season to embrace this idea of oneness? If we do a personal inventory we may recognize that when we judge others we’re really showing distain for parts of ourselves. This simple action will be reflected in everything we do and say this holiday season.
Announcements:
The Caregiver in MidLife, my new e-book for women caring for aging parents can be pre-ordered now through my website.
Canadian politics…not so boring anymore
I take it back, this week American politics are not way more interesting than Canadian ones! Our federal election 7 weeks ago was pretty dull, especially with the fascinating goings on south of the border. The Conservatives, led by Steven Harper, who were already in power with a minority government, won again. Still only a minority, but a larger one this time.
Now, only 7 weeks into the term, the government may be brought down by a non-confidence vote. Hard to believe isn’t it? Two things have set the other parties against Harper and his right-wing crew: Firstly, no significant plan for spending to stimulate the recessed economy (yes they finally admitted we’re also in a recession). Admittedly it is controversial whether to spend, how much to spend, and most importantly, what to spend it on, that’s true.
But what really p–ed off the opposition parties was that the Harper government reversed a law that gave each party $1+ for every vote they received. It doesn’t sound like much money, but when you add it up it is. It actually makes up about 2/3 of the revenue of the opposition parties, but much less for the ruling Conservative party.
So the 3 opposition parties are out for blood, and have made an agreement to form a coalition group, and to ask the Governor General to dissolve the Conservative government and appoint this very disparate coalition group as the governement of Canada.
Pretty cool huh? Maybe good things will actually get done for a change if this happens, because they’ll all be compelled to co-operate, rather than act as from an adversarial position as they usually do.