Word of the week: Enough

Painting by Emily Martin @ The Black Apple

Enough: 1. sufficient; all that is required, needed, or appropriate. 2. used to express impatience or exasperation.

Holidays are over. Well, not that they were really holidays for me, but they are over. Kids are going back to school. Phew. I really had a hard time. I was impatient. I was moody. I wasn't proud of me. I felt annoyed, most of the time. I guess anyone would be, as they were fighting all the time, crying, whining, yelling... Aaaaaargh!

And that sky. That grey sky that I dread. Was there. Every day. For 2 weeks. My SAD is knocking on the door... "knock, knock, it's me, Seasonal Affective Disorder, remember me?? Trying to avoid me with a lamp?! Better stand under it 12 hours day, HA HA HA!"

Enough of having two "I don't know what to doooooooooo!" boys at home. Enough of never-ending renovations. Enough of this. Enough of that. Enough of myself, even, sometimes.

Is it? Enough?

Word of the week: Silence

Photo credit: ~jjjohn~'s

Silence: 1. The condition or quality of being or keeping still and silent. 2. The absence of sound; stillness. 3. A period of time without speech or noise. 4. Refusal or failure to speak out.

Word of the Week: Patience

Photo credit: Batikart

Patience: the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.

It's been almost 2 months since the oil tank spilled its content in our basement. Oil smell is still there, nothing is being done, house is a real mess (with all 4 of us upstairs - kids are not sleeping downstairs in their room since then)... Bedroom is upside down. Living room looks like a bedroom. Office has become play room, full of toys everywhere.

We are waiting for the insurances to send a check for the builder. And with Christmas coming, I guess the guy will take a break so we'll not start anything until January. I'm getting so fed up!

But. Will. Have. To. Wait.

Patiently.

Word of the week: Winter

Winter: 1. The usually coldest season of the year, occurring between autumn and spring, extending in the Northern Hemisphere from the winter solstice to the vernal equinox, and popularly considered to be constituted by December, January, and February. 2. A year as expressed through the recurrence of the winter season. 3. A period of time characterized by coldness, misery, barrenness, or death.

What else can I say. She's here. Yesterday, I woke up to see her first flakes, her white blanket, her biting cold wind. Every year the same thoughts. Will I survive her grey mornings, her short days, her cold nights?

Oh Winter! Let me see your good sides, show me your qualities! Please, please winter, don't be so harsh on me this year!

Oh Winter! Be gentle and be quick, so my dearest Spring can come back soon...

Word of the Week: Privation

Photo credit: Betty Crocker recipes

Privation: a. Lack of the basic necessities or comforts of life. b. The condition resulting from such lack.

Is sugar a basic neccesity? What about pineapple? Bread? Can we say that coffee is a comfort of life? No, no, no and no? Than why am I suffering, why do I have this feeling of privation if non of the above is a 'basic necessity of life?' Shouldn't the definition include the dimension of lack of something we got so used to that it feels like a privation to do without it? God, I feel like I'm being deprived of some kind of drug.

Why do I perceive privation as being so negative? Isn't there a positive dimension to privation?

I made the exercice of writing down what privation means to me. Here is what came to my mind.

Boredom

Exclusion

Suffering

Envy, lack of

Prohibition

Solitude, incomprehension

Hunger

Sickness

No pleasure

Effort

Sadness

Dryness

Health, Vitality

Yes, in the end, health, maybe. Most probably. It's not a privation that will kill me. And I don't need others to approve my decision. My body doesn't miss anything even if I have this feeling of lacking something. It's a privation of senses, not a vital one. It's an habit, a step to take. I have not a lot to loose and a lot to gain.

Health. Vitality.

I have to make sens of this hard period of privation.

Word of the week: Sickness

photo credit: Mortensen Dogmar

No wonder why I was so tired. My body was annoucing the arrival of an infection in my throat. Very painful.

Sickness: a harmful deviation from the normal structural or functional state of an organism.

Being sick is the way our body talks to us, we know that. But do we really take time to listen what he is saying? I was not functional for a couple of days and complained to a friend that I was doing nothing since... two days. She said to me 'Two days? So what is the problem? You're sick! You need to rest!" Resting for me means, most of the time, laziness. Doing nothing and being really 'off' for more than one or two hours make me feel useless and guilty. My body is talking to me but... what? What are you saying? Don't hear you very well!

Sickness should mean nothing else than sickness. Being sick is a full time activity in itself. Not only I have the right to rest but in a sense I have the obligation to. Let me say that again, in case I didn't make myslef clear to myself: Not only I have the right to rest but I have the obligation to.

I might need a fine or a speed ticket...

Word of the Week: Fear

Photo credit: Welshio

This new Word of the Week section will be a weekly reflection on a subject that is relevant for me - and maybe for you.

I wanted to start with Fear, because even if not all of us feel it these days, I can clearly see that the medias are trying to instil this fear in all of us with the pandemic flu and mass vaccination campaign.

Fear : A feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger.

Are you scared? Worried? I am, sometimes. I made a great meditation exercice yesterday to help me deal with that sense of fear. First, I tried to recognize the fact that I am scared and see what it was doing to my body - my heart beat, my breath, my internal movements. Then I went through acceptation of that fear. Again I was trying to feel the effects of that acceptation on my whole body. Next step was to interrogate the fear. Why are you there? What is your purpose? Finally, I consciously decided not to identify with that feeling of fear. I'm not the fear. It is external to me. During that final step I felt a shower of light on me. It was very intense and very nourishing. I felt like a protection surrounding me. A barrier against that fear. What a great experience! I know I still have worries but I also trust God and it helped me to control the impact of the fear on me. I realized it was not me, it was something coming from outside and I don't have to let it eat me! If you have some fears, too, try to meditate in 4 steps (RAIN method): Recognition, Acceptation, Interrogation and Not to identify with the fear (or any other feeling).

I think fear and worries are more destructive (and more contagious!) than diseases. Fear is a weapon of mass destruction. The best way to protect ourselves from diseases and other harmful situations is first to protect ourselves from irrational fear, from suggested fear.

Do you have any fears?