Entry 38/365

Work. 

from Latin labor "toil, exertion; hardship, pain, fatigue; a work, a product of labor," a word of uncertain origin. 

I am reading and listening to Phil Stutz's book, The Tools ad continuum.  The thing I most like about it apart from a well-thought-out concept is the final conclusion. Work must be done ad infinitum. There is no getting better point, or I don't need this thing anymore. 

It took me almost 20 years to understand that I will need some form of therapy - mindfulness, exercise, writing therapy which I've been practicing here, reading, quiet time, the tools (!) (...) - in order to live my life the best I can. In order to be a healthy mother and partner. I treated my past for most of these 20 years, but the most progress I experienced in the last three years thanks mostly to my daughter who prompt me to actively work to get out of The Maze. 

Every day, I make the point of remembering where I started and where I am today. I think it became another way to keep me in the Grateful Flow. It works. The stuff I experienced as an adolescent growing up in a house without any reins left marks I won't be able to undo. I have come to accept this, I won't be able to change because my psyche was changed by those events, and my brain's physiology is not normal. It found ways to process something I couldn't at the time and what I felt years later - depression, breakdown at the age of 23, obsessive thoughts, and compulsive behaviour to name a few of the issues - were coping mechanisms.  My brain still trying to make sense of it. 

Surely, there is a way out of this but maintenance is something I have to do on a daily basis. 

I am on the other side of the rainbow, so to speak. The view is great and the feeling of balance is something I have never experienced before but what keeps surprising me is that newfound connection with the Universe. The Higher Forces which I knew existed but never felt so close to me. 

"Seek and you shall find." - this phrase was like sandcastles in my head. 

Find what? I asked myself a million times. 

The answers would reveal themselves to me so many years later through a lot of effort, trial, and a billion errors, pain, suffering, and hardship. That is the bit no one tells you between seeking and finding there is a lot of work. Unescapable work and the work remains after we get to that "better place".

Finding The Tools by Phil Stutz was a present from the Universe to me. It feels as if it came out of The Flow of Life and landed on my lap: "Here, this will also help." 

I could carry on because the book is that good, the Audible is that good and The Netflix documentary is that good. I am not sure which stage of life one may be at for this to yield benefits and I cannot say if this would have helped me before as it did now but there are no answers to these questions. 

To be honest the answer is not important. What matters is that the book made my life. 

If the book made to your life. Remember that there are no coincidences. Let The Flow of Life take you. 

Thanks, Phil. Thanks, Barry.

Giselle C.