The ART of Creating Your Reality

I just popped off an email to Unity here in KC as I have felt compelled to write to the ministers there for the past week. They are starting a new series this Spring “The ART of Creating Your Reality”. Since this past Sunday, as they announced the new theme, I have been looking back on the past four and a half years and how I have created my new reality. I wrote to them because I want people to know that no matter where you are in life, what you have gone through, if you have experienced great tragedy or have a blessed life – that things can change. Life is what you make of it. Life is meant to be lived. Life is meant to learn. 

Through the quiet that was Doug – the quiet humor, the quiet manner of him – well, as I’ve said before, I learned so much from him. I wanted to be a better person because of him. I still want to be a better person because of who he was in life, what he taught me in life and of what he has taught me in death and through his death. He is on my mind always and in my heart eternally. 

In creating my reality, I have learned so very much from many different experiences. Some were wonderful and spiritual experiences and some were experiences where I needed to learn a lesson and they were certainly going to teach me. I do not regret anything in my life. I do not regret any of the lessons I have had to learn or the experiences I have gone through. It has made me the person I am today and you know what? I am so thankful for who I have become and I am so very thankful to all the people that have stood by me, cried with me, yelled at me, hugged me, got me drunk, taught me lessons, let me grow. I am also thankful that I have seen the harshness that comes from death. The loss of friendships. The loss of family. The loss of expectations of people. It has opened my eyes to the beauty that surrounds me in every moment. It all has made me look directly at what is best in my life versus searching for something – a something that I never needed in the first place. 

I have certainly learned to live fierce and love fierce and I am happy to say, grateful to say that through all the muck and harshness that I have happened upon, a very wonderful person that embraces who I am, embraces my life and the love I will always have for Doug, supports me, loves me, loves my son. 

Man, this life really is meant to be lived. To be loved. To rid yourself of the muck and shine. Shine bright. Embrace everything new and embrace your past. I am Doug’s soul mate and it is strange at times to think that I have found this once again – and believe me – he had to work hard to win me over. I feel Doug’s spirit every day and it is nice to know that the heart I thought stopped beating and turned black is really truly capable of being completely filled with love. Love for Doug, love for Lido, love for my family and my friends and now love for Mr. New. I cannot begin to describe the change I physically feel – the change I physically feel in my heart. Only a person with such a great loss, my fellow widows (and others) – can really understand the physical – physical pain you feel in your heart. The physical pain of not being able to catch your breath. As the darkness fades and enlightenment – lightenment – comes…it is a new sensation. An energy that was always there within…I hope that others will find their reality and understand that we truly have the power to create what it is that we need, what we want in our life. Invite the love in. Invite the joy. Create your reality today. 

The ART of creating your reality

 Over the past week, I’ve felt compelled to write to you in regards to the spring series starting this week – The ART of creating your reality. The reason is that four and a half years ago, on September 20, the day after I turned 35 and four days after my son turned one, my husband was killed in a helicopter accident. He was a helicopter flight instructor for Hillsboro Aviation outside of Portland, OR and flying with a student who was to be sitting for his Certified Flight Instructor rating with the FAA the very next day.

That was the day when my reality and my future disappeared. At the beginning, creating a new reality just wasn’t in the cards. I was lucky to shower once a week, eat at least once a day and it was an extremely good day if my infant son was changed out of his pajamas. I had always been a spiritual person but at that time in my life, I turned my back on all of my beliefs because my mind could not wrap around the fact that my reality – this amazing, loving, compassionate, fun, kismet of a reality was taken from me. How do you move beyond something like this – how do you create a new reality?

This is a common phrase in the young widowed community – “my new reality”.  It is one of the hardest things I have ever created. Birthing a baby was easier than creating a reality from nothing. From grief. From a very dark place.

As I look back on the past several years, I have realized that I wasn’t creating my reality from nothing. Yes, I did lose so much. Yes, I did lose the future with my husband. Yes, my son lost his father and their future together. Yes, we lost. However, an amazing perspective was given, an amazing life was remembered and I became aware of all the things my husband taught me in his life – through his death.

This is where I began creating my reality. Not from the ashes but from the life. 

There was a lot of trauma I worked through. I suffered from PTSD for quite some time. Going to the grocery store was a challenge as I couldn’t bring myself to purchase anything because that damn can of beans reminded me of him making his famous chili in that damn red ugly soup pot. So, I ended up eating out a lot. Jalepeno’s in Brookside became our dinner table most evenings. But slowly, slowly, I worked through it all. Even though I really had turned my back on my spirituality and meditation and everything I used to be about – I made myself do the things I knew would eventually get me to a place of creation.

It really has been over this past year and a half that I feel that I have created the most. I stuck with looking at the harshness and stuck with the ART of creating. I really started listening to what was coming from inside of me – trusting my instincts and believing that diving deep was the only way to come back up to the surface.  I did what I needed to do to survive and then so much more.

I had moved my son and I back to Kansas City within weeks of my husband’s death. I also bought a house. I know many questioned my decisions at that time but honestly, I was working from shock and I needed control over something and it seemed that buying a house and moving all of our stuff here was the only control I had over my life. I think I looked at over 30 houses in 3 days and when I walked into the house I would buy – my current home – something in my brain, in my soul said this is the house. The house if FULL of windows. Coming from Portland – well – as you can imagine this spoke to me in volumes and especially because my soul was in such a dark place. I needed light! My soul said, this is the house where you will create a new reality. You will fill this house with warmth, with love, with a family, with friends. This is the house where you will create your new reality. I also really felt my husband there. I continued to feel him very close to me in this house for quite some time. I would walk into our son’s bedroom at night and it would be intensely cold and I knew that his spirit was there. I had to buy boxes upon boxes of light bulbs as it seemed that every light in the house was going out every other day. I had electronics fried and believe me, even though the house is over 80 years old – my electrical was just fine…my electrician became tired of checking it…

Granted, the thought of a new reality here in this house entered and left my mind within seconds but it has been the thought that has pushed me forward the past 4 years. It has always been with me. I have never known if it will all come to fruition but it was a tiny little belief, a tiny little light in my very, very dark world.

And you know what? This house has wrapped its walls around little parties, birthdays, anniversaries, tears, anger, moments of enlightenment, friends, wayward pilots needing a place to stay, other friends going through transitions of their own. I have used necessary renovations as therapy – a hammer and glass and tears streaming down your face can be very cathartic.

This house, the house that is too big for just my son and I, has been just the right size for the journey of creating our new reality. 

Who knew, that four and a half years ago – the little light in my dark world would shine so brightly today? Well, I did. I had hope. There was nothing left to cling onto but that.

I guess the reason I wanted to share this with you is that I want each and every person out there that is finding themselves needing to create a new reality, create and enhance the current one, whatever ‘creating your reality” means to you – that all it takes is just a tiny little light, a little bit of hope and faith that it will be – and movement. Movement every day. Even if that movement is just a tiny thought. The movement can be a simple action or a great action. No matter what, with that little light, hope, faith and movement – the energy will build. It will be all that sustains you on some days and on other days it will move you forward by leaps and bounds. We need to be easy on ourselves in this journey as creation is a powerful thing. It is hard work  but amazing work. I always see it as I said before – diving deep under water, into those dark places, not enough oxygen in your lungs and as you work on creating your reality – the one you know you want even if it is not fully defined – you leave the dark places to rest as you no longer need them, your start towards the surface noticing the beauty around you, the life around you, just above the darkness. As you create, your lungs expand, the colors are more vibrant, the light shines stronger and soon you find yourself floating gently towards the surface, taking a breath not out of desperation for air but as a new beginning and you feast upon the vision that surrounds you that is the reality you created.

It’s a powerful thing. It’s within you.

Amazing to realize, huh?

Explore posts in the same categories: Uncategorized