Last week I didn’t post an article. This week will be brief and very personal. My head is spinning with all of the external overwhelm. Of course, I’ve labeled it overwhelm, in all honesty, it’s just life doing what it does. My 55 year old father moved from Wisconsin to Washington last year, and now he’s moved down to Northern California, just a few hours north of us.

wake up call
My dad at my favorite restaurant (Himal Chuli) in Madison, WI 2013

After only a few days in California, my father ended up in the hospital. He was diagnosed with COPD a few years ago, but for the past 10, I’ve listened to him cough day in and day out. He’s been a smoker for as long as I can remember and it’s really caught up with him.

We went to the hospital at 2am last Monday morning, and I waited for about ten minutes before they let me enter the ER, alone as only one person could enter at a time. Joe had to sit in the waiting area. Someone led me back, and I could hear babies crying, what sounded like hundreds of machines beeping, nurses instructing delirious patients, and it was complete commotion. My father was straining to breathe, and his face was bright red. They had certainly drugged him, because he was slurring his words. He asked me, “please tell them to stop poking me, it hurts!” It was difficult to look into his eyes, I could see the pain and fear.

I will stop the story here, to say that today he’s doing much better than in that very moment when I saw him in the ER. However, he’s no where near 100%. Far from optimal functioning. It’s extremely challenging to witness him going through this. It’s been challenging for years, but it’s worse now.

My dad and I were chatting before bed yesterday, and he said that he had a realization while we were sitting with the herbalist I brought him to. He said that he was “hurting the universe by hurting his body.” Maybe I’m going a little woo-woo with this share, but I’ll go with a scientific explanation to balance it out.


Butterfly effect

In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. Wikipedia


Very simply put, one person’s crappy health can certainly effect the greater whole.

But why am I telling this story? It was a wake up call. The call wasn’t so much for me, it was for my father, of course. It reminds me of a quote I’ve heard Tony Robbins say at seminars I’ve attended.

[Tweet “”Everybody’s life is a warning or an example.” Tony Robbins”]

It’s a challenge for me to view this situation as a blessing. Conversely, I will not help anyone (or myself) while feeling fearful and upset. I am grateful for this wake up call. I want to live each day feeling incredible in this temple, my body and treat it with respect and love. What can you do to respect, and love your body today?  How do you feel about your life? Are you setting an example? How do you feel about your overall health? How is it affecting your relationship/s?

honoring the temple
loving my temple

 

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