Showing posts with label mental health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mental health. Show all posts

Sunday, September 4, 2022

LOVING YOURSELF MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD: Focus On Love


 Dear Readers,


It has been said by the great writer of our time, Louise Hay, who is now dearly departed but lives on in our hearts and her ample library of self help writings and new age awareness:

"When you don't know what else to do, focus on love. Loving yourself makes you feel good, and good health is really about feeling good." 

This past year, I've hit a personal crisis. Mental health and emotional health. I lost a job that meant a lot to me. A job working with seniors at a retirement home. I was targeted, bullied and harrassed by management over my bad knee. From February 2021 during my first diagnosis over x-ray of osteoarthritis in the knee, to limping on the job in March and April, to getting a cortisone shot that helped me for three months and then the subsequent pain and limping that followed in September (once that shot had worn off in July), I was targeted by management for my "disability." 

November brought a knee sprain diagnosis, running around a dining hall serving meals to seniors. Two weeks off work, a WSIB claim, and management spreading lies and rumors about me through the building ("it's not a tear, you can't use that language in your insurance paperwork," the nasty, control freak business director screamed at me on the phone. "These agents don't want to pay out the money. I've dealt with these people for a long time, I know my stuff." She went on to brag that her "daughter is a soccer star in Spain, and she tore a ligament and needed surgery." Comparing MY injury to her daughter's? Then invalidating me and shaming me without having the final word from my MRI? How atrocious and appalling, not to mention, completely out of line from a Human Resources point of view. In the end, my agent at WSIB was more than accommodating with all my paperwork, doctor visits and backbiting with staff. He happily refunded every penny to me that was lost on two weeks worth of wages, while being sidelined at home.

I was wait-listed three and a half months for the MRI, from the November booking til the March appointment. To add insult to injury,  a maintenance guy at work got in my face and yelled at me over a broken vacuum (not my fault). He shouted: "you're just lazy and full of shit. All you want is to go off on another insurance claim." This could not be further from the truth. I'd just had an MRI at the hospital on March 1st, and the results came in March 30th, via my booked follow-up appointment with my surgeon. It was a meniscus tear under the knee cap. But the buffoons at the seniors home did not wait to hear back from my MRI results. The manager fired me March 15th and I was devastated.

My work at the retirement home was one filled with love, and I poured that love into every day I spent there, four and a half years of it. The seniors were my "family," and our mutual affection and respect for one another was felt deeply. When job loss occurs, there is a strong mental, emotional and physical downfall that happens. First, the shock that it happened at all. Second, the depression over losing my community and sense of self. Third, social life is nonexistent, and you now have a life that you do not recognize that is waiting at home. It was a bitter pill to swallow, and I would spend the next number of months in deep sorrow, gloom and self punishment. When the first week of August hit, I dragged myself out of bed one sunny afternoon and dusted off the exercise bike that was sitting there being neglected. My first ride was 12 km and 30 minutes clocked. Then, I worked my way up to 16 km and then 18 km for 44 minutes in a session. Four times a week, I forced myself on that bike. "Rochelle, you've got to get yourself out of this slump, or you'll be good for no one. Not even for yourself," my inner critic chided.

Suddenly, I had perspective. I also had something that I'd lost with the job dismissal; MEANING.

As with anything that leaves our life, we have to find our way back to the meaningful part. I attached MEANING now to my daily routine. It was not just getting out of bed at noon (because, what else was there to look forward to?) but it was also the fact that I had an exercise routine. I had my coffee, my oatmeal, and my Tetley lemon tea and three liters of water per day. Get the muscles moving, release those positive endorphins, change my mindset, stop beating myself up, don't be so glum.

To add to the mix of sorrow, the man I love had distanced himself from me over a misunderstanding when a "frenemy" of mine phoned up the funeral home behind my back and badgered my Special Person with demands that he" take Rochelle out to dinner or give it up with


her."

I'd waited 11 months for this beautiful man to come back from the west coast where he lived, and have a wonderful reunion of souls this summer in Southern Ontario, just east of Toronto, while he split his time between the cottage up north and his sister's place, a 10-minute drive from me. Well, after that frenemy sabotaged my Specific Person and me, it was game over. He broke my heart by saying he "didn't want a relationship, I hope you find what you're looking for, I wish you well." I picked up the phone to explain everything and try to tell him my side, but he refused to answer. He ghosted me after that, and I spiralled down into a deep depression for months. This is a man in his '60s who was raised by a good father and mother, and knew better than to lead me on this way. He also has serious health issues that might require surgery down the road, and he'd endured a heart surgery in October 2020, so the drama from that traitorous ex-friend of mine just seemed to be the "nail in the coffin" for us. He won't speak to me.

My heart is shattered beyond repair at the ghastly and devious events that have transpired this year. It has been an awakening that has gutted me, in so many ways, and I have felt paralyzed with the depths of sorrow and heartache. My Specific Person means the world to me; he inspired three of my books, he has seen me through the hardest times of this past year (getting Covid, knee injury, bullied at work, losing the job). He was also my biggest cheerleader when the first book in the "Love Walked In" series was released in July 2021. To put it bluntly, he is my soulmate and I love him with the magnitude of an earthquake and the force of a tsunami. His arrival to my life on Nov 9th, 2018 forever transformed me, and I can't feel anything but massive love and compassion for this incredible man. To say my heart is brimming with devotion for him would be a huge understatement; my heart belongs to him. I don't want to do this life without him. I mean that. 



Back to the "feeling good" part. It was surely a process, and a long journey back to self, indeed. After getting my heart broken and losing the job, my new life is now about caring for my bad knee, updating this blog, seeking a job, and healing my brokenness. Yes, this is the "new normal."

I have every faith that my Special Person will return. He is taking a break, getting ready for a medical procedure out west when he returns home this month (hopefully to put him into remission with his illness) and he is still grieving his parents who both died in early 2020. Hence, the funeral this past July, a celebration of life for his beloved father, who was also one of my own soulmates. He has a weak heart from a heart valve replacement, and that is no walk in the park.

Tell me, in the comment section under this blog, have you ever endured a separation from your Beloved, and how long was that? What was the outcome when he/she returned? What discoveries did you make along the way about yourself? I would be intrigued to know what took place and if there was a happy reunion?

As you know, I am a big fan of the Law of Attraction and I apply it to my life every day. I've seen the massive returns from it, over the course of the last seven years or more.

This road back to Self really is about Loving Yourself. Focus on that love, and it will fill you up so deeply, and will overflow into other areas of your life. It really does all begin with Self. 

I am sending you healing vibes and massive love today.

I hope to hear from those who have reunion stories with their twin flame or Specific Person.

Cheering for you always,

RR xo



Monday, September 23, 2019

100 Day Gratitude Challenge -- Day #3 -- Surround Yourself With Nature and be Grateful For The Sights

Dear Readers,

It's Day Number Three of this Gratitude Challenge which I will be posting about daily!

Today's mantra: "Surround Yourself With Nature and Be Grateful For The Sights."

What in your path today brings you joy when you are out walking or commuting?

I know for myself, it is my absolute FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR -- Autumn -- and incidentally, today is the Autumnal Equinox.

I can't resist those blue skies and fluffy white clouds that seem to float by without a care. The air is cooler and the earth has this wonderful scent of "Goodbye Summer, Hello Fall time." Trees that have been around for many decades are losing their leaves before the younger ones do in early to mid-October. Southern Ontario (GTA) has some really majestic scenery, depending where you are.

Farmer fields and rolling hills with magenta-tangerine sunsets have always been my favorite. The sunrise lately has been a lovely periwinkle-mauve-grey with splashes of hot pink across the canvas. Even if you're in the city, you can glimpse the trees shedding their leaves and some other older, quaint homes with fireplaces are burning logs, creating an atmosphere that is irresistible. I just love the scent of a wood-burning fireplace when I'm strolling past a storybook village or nice community.

I am sharing a poem that I just learned! It's beautiful:

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Let thine shadows upon the sundials fall,
and unleash the winds upon the open fields.

Command the last fruits into fullness;
give them just two more ripe, southern days,
urge them into completion and press

the last bit of sweetness into the heavy wine.

He who has no house now, will no longer build.
He who is alone now, will stay alone,
will awake in the night, read, write long letters,
and will wander restlessly along the avenues,
back and forth, as the leaves begin to blow.

                         Rainer Maria Rilke
                              
 
(tr. Cliff Crego)


http://picture-poems.com/week4/autumnday.html


What is YOUR favorite part about fall time and Nature? What are you grateful for this time of year, and what steals your breath away? A few of the pics in this blog post belong to my own past memories of Autumn - October 2013. Hope you enjoy!

Please do share! I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Love,

RR xo