Day 1 Karma Yoga- Stress!

Things are crazy, super crazy! I have to pack for my trip, pack up the rest of the house for renovations, take our the things we will need for this summer down to our interim accommodations (2 months in a tiny suite with 5 people!). Chris is leaving tomorrow for Ottawa, I will not see him again until he arrives in California with the kids on June 22nd. All this plus Karma yoga, blog entries, getting money for my trip and taking care of a number of other things which I have procrastinated. Yes, I am a little stressed out!

The question I am putting into 12 days journal #58 is, “How do you handle stress?”.

Today I am handling it by grouping tasks, calling in favours, directing friends and family who have offered help. Also by minimizing the things I have to do. This entry is one of those things. So I am minimizing my stress by leaving this entry at 200 words (not an easy task for me).

I plan to go over to my friend Kim's house tonight. To give her a massage. She is suffering with an injury that has the muscles in her shoulder seizing. She is a massage therapist, like me, only she is the sole income for her family. She is a single mom of a sweet little daughter. Her family is larger than this though, because she is a mother to us all. Just last weekend she put a plan into action so I could go say good-bye to a dear friend who I won’t see for FAR too long. She saw an opportunity for me to experience joy and just took care of everything. She often opens her house up on Sunday mornings to feed all her weekend weary friends. She makes tinctures for any ailment we have and rides them just like a mama to take their medicine. The list could go on, but I am suppose to be keeping this short.

I am going over to her house to mother the mother. I love ya Kim, I am so very blessed to have you as my friend...and sometimes mother.

372 words....not quite 200 but not too shabby!

Day 10 Community Support- Contact Comfort

Anyone who has taken introductory psychology is likely familiar with the wire mother experiment by Harry Harlow. An experiment which proved that the need for “contact comfort” is as integral to our well-being as food. I remember footage of the Romanian orphans, kids rocking manicly back and forth in a desperate search for comfort. The children where housed, fed, clothed, but they were not held by another human being. Not long enough anyway to prevent serious emotional damage from lack a physical love. I woke up this morning CRAVING “contact comfort”. As I brush my teeth I decided I better go find my good friend Erin. She always cuddles me, rubs my shoulders, absentmindedly strokes and squeezes my thigh as we talk, sits nice and close. I adore it.

On yesterdays blog a very astute follower commented that normal is just a statistical measure of how far something falls from something considered to be deviant. What this means is human needs and behaviours falls within spectrums. There may have been some children in those orphanages, who happened to need less contact comfort than others, and who happened to have a caregiver who needed it more. This fortuitous combination may have saved this child's soul. As for where I live on this spectrum, well I would be on the end of “touch me I dig the endorphin release!”. And so as my anonymous commenter on yesterdays entry pointed out, because of this I make the “choice” to surround myself with a “sub sample” of cuddly folk. In a number of the crews that I hang with I am the norm. Right smack dab in the middle, a scientist’s dream representing the average, just the right balance between maintaining personal space and desire to touch and be touched.

I found Erin right where I thought I would, and she fulfilled my need for contact comfort. I also got cuddles from two of my girls in bed this morning, before they went to school. I haven’t seen Chris today, but I am sure when I do he will have some snuggles for me. About an hour ago I lay on a massage table, coming up from the depths of a contact comfort induced meditation. My Mother Goddess of a friend, Pam, is the talented member of our community that I am supporting today. Supporting someone else never felt so gosh darn good! Her fingers are the human embodiment of Durga Ma:

"One who can redeem in situations of utmost distress".

My muscles were in distress, my heart still a little raw and needing skin to skin contact. She worked softly and in silence until I was hypnotized and satisfied. I feel full again, ready to now give the comfort that others desire. And this my friends is the cycle of love! Filling up and giving away, filling up and giving away, preventing the heart from becoming stagnant. My “giving away” part in the love cycle this afternoon will be taking 12 days journal #43 to Pam's house with payment for the massage. I have found that people really feel loved and honoured when they are given a journal, it is deeply satisfying to give love in this way. It is a way of taking care of me, while taking care of others. Today’s question is “How do you take care of yourself?”