Author: Jothi

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Forgiveness

Jothi

The topic of forgiveness came up today in my world. I was reminded that a few years ago, I had anger, grudges and resentment directed at a number of people in my life. In my ongoing quest to heal and recover from cancer, I knew that part of the journey was dealing with my mental/emotional garbage.

I would have conversations in my head to the effect of:

“I’m so mad at so and so for this.”

“I can’t believe you did that to me.”

“I hate you for doing that.”

“You’re such an %$&*!!!”

I realized that I was really the only person suffering from this. Person X Y or Z, who I had a grudge or hurt feelings against, had no idea. If they did know, they didn’t care to rectify the situation. Some of these people I hadn’t even had any contact with for years.

I do believe that mental and emotional hurts have an effect on the body. If someone calls you a bad name or makes fun of you, it actually can hurt you physically, a lot of the time, you feel it in your chest.

I do also believe that there is a mental/emotional component to developing cancer and having cancer. (Certainly going through cancer has an ongoing mental/emotional strain.)

Like most people, I had emotional baggage stored up from my past, it was making me miserable. Why was I doing this to myself?

Mayo Clinic wrote this about grudges:

“What are the effects of holding a grudge? If you struggle with finding forgiveness, you might:

  • Bring anger and bitterness into new relationships and experiences.
  • Become so wrapped up in the wrong that you can’t enjoy the present.
  • Become depressed, irritable or anxious.
  • Feel at odds with your spiritual beliefs.
  • Lose valuable and enriching connections with others.”

So this is how I dealt with my mental woes, in case it can help you deal with yours.

I accomplished this in a couple of different ways, depending on the person, my relationship with them and the level of hurt.

I talked with people, explained my feelings and received an apology. I didn’t go this route very much. In retrospect, a lot of the times, the problem was within myself.

If my hurt was from say my parent or sibling, now that I’m older or now that I’m a parent, I can put myself in that person’s shoes and try and understand (which doesn’t always work) why they did what they did. Sometimes, I would realize that I probably would have done a similar thing in the situation, and that would bring understanding to me.

I would then say out loud, “I forgive you Person X, for doing this, that or the other thing.” Sometimes, I had to say it a few times.

Other times after doing that, I would say to myself, “that sob #*$&#&$*#&#*$&#!!! GRRRRRR…..” and I knew that method didn’t work.

There is a practice of writing things down on a piece of paper and burning the paper up. You can burn it in a fireplace or buy a clay pot and burn it outside (in a safe burning spot!).

You write down all your emotions. All your anger, resentment, rage, sadness, whatever. Write down the situation that happened to you. Write like you are writing a letter to someone, if need be. For particularly hurt feelings, I found for me personally, writing swear words a lot helps.

The key is to pour your emotion into it. Spelling or handwriting tidiness doesn’t matter at all! Finish your page and lite that paper on fire, throw it into your pot and watch it burn. Depending on your level of hurt, you may have to write several pages about the one incident to be rid of it (or a ream of paper). If it still bothering you, keep writing.

“Person X, how could you have done this to me?”

“You are a #*$&#&$*#&#*. I’m so mad at you.”

“You made me feel ___________.“

“You #*$&#*-&#*$! And the time you did this #*$&#+#*!#&$!”

Once I could feel like I was working through it or getting it out of my system, I would write on a new piece of paper,

“I forgive you Person X, for doing x, y and z.” Lite it, throw it in the pot and watch it burn. You may have to write a whole sheet of paper of “I forgive you Person X” for you to have resolution.

Just like that, I let it go and I was free (time to work on the next person or situation). It’s also quite amazing, once you actually forgive someone, how you forget about things. It just melts away.

At times, the person you need to forgive, is yourself. People make mistakes in their lives and can hold onto it, beating themselves up for it. Everyone is human and make human mistakes, bad judgments and thoughts. If I need to forgive myself, I look at myself in a mirror and say “I forgive you.”

As a personal example, every time I had a meeting with my oncologist, I would generally be ticked off and frustrated afterwards. My oncologist was about 1000 years old, stuck in his ways and if he wasn’t a doctor, he would have been a politician, the way he dodged all my questions (that pissed me off the most).

I would get so mad and I’d walk around cursing his name, #*$&#&#*. Of course, he was completely oblivious to most of my annoyance (occasionally I expressed my displeasure to him 😡). I was torturing myself, and it wasn’t doing me any favors and I was the one suffering.

I wanted to work it out within myself, because that’s where the problem was. He wasn’t a bad person. I realized he was part of a medical system that only allowed him to talk about certain things, so they weren’t sued. I realized he has a tough job, where the majority of the time he fails. I wrote a lot of swear words and situations, and a couple pages of saying I forgave him and watched it burn. It was gone and no longer harassing me.

Sometimes it is excruciatingly hard to want to forgive someone or actually forgive them. It can be one of the hardest things you ever do. It can take so much effort and drum up so many negative emotions that people won’t do it. Forgiveness can and will change your life. It changed my life, my relationships and released me from my torment and I feel so much better.

If you are struggling with the idea of forgiving someone, do it for selfish reasons. Just like how you can be the one suffering the most from a grudge, you will be the one who benefits the most from forgiving. Your life will improve greatly if you can forgive.

Forgiveness comes from within yourself. Other people can’t do it for you, and other people can’t prevent you from doing it. It’s all up to you. Please give it a try….

Wisdom

A Person’s Best Wealth

Jothi

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.

Dalai Lama

To suppress the grief, the pain, is to condemn oneself to a living death. Living fully means feeling fully; it means becoming completely one with what you are experiencing and not holding it at arm’s length.

Philip Kapleau

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.

Barack Obama

A good spouse and health is a person’s best wealth.

Benjamin Franklin

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

Nations do not die from invasion; they die from internal rottenness.

Abraham Lincoln
Blog

Day +77

Jothi

I’m at day +77 from my transplant today. I had blood tests and a bone marrow biopsy done last week. We are going to talk with the Dr. today to go over the results. It will be interesting to see how well the treatment worked.

My hair is starting to make a bit of a comeback. My head was getting fuzzy, but it looked like a bunch of my hair turned white or gray. I decided it was all chemo hair and shaved it all off again. It’s fuzzy again after a week and has my darker color this time, so I think it’s about to take off (my hair typically grows fast).

My facial hair went through a weird cycle. I lost my hair on my neck, cheeks, my chin and the left part of my lip. It looked like I had a bad biker mustache. Now around my mouth, it’s coming back with a vengeance. Making up for lost time? Especially my left part of my lip, the hair is thicker than it was before and growing like it’s on steroids. Hopefully the right side of my lip catches up. Maybe I can grow a good curly mustache now?

Sigh, the weird effects of chemotherapy….

Blog

Fear

Jothi

Leading up to my stem cell transplant, I’ve had a few people ask me if I’m scared or afraid.

Having cancer, it’s a question that I get asked frequently at times.

For those who aren’t familiar with the transplant procedure, a person gets dosed with high dose chemotherapy, that kills all of your bone marrow. All of your blood comes from your marrow, red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Obviously, without those cells, you die (and people do from the procedure). A couple of days after the chemo, they infuse your own stem cells back into you and after a few weeks they engraft and your body starts producing blood again.

When I was first diagnosed, I definitely had fear go through me. With death looming over me and all that uncertainty, who wouldn’t be afraid. I went over that a bit in my post “The Elephant In The Room”.

Fortunately, a plan of action was formed and I learned a few weeks after my diagnosis, that I wasn’t powerless against cancer. There were things I could do myself that would increase my odds. I started transmitting my fear, although it still took time to work out. I had to face my fears otherwise it was going to drive me crazy.

Let me tell you, being afraid is EXHAUSTING. I just can’t do it anymore. So the answer to the opening question is “no”. I’ve more or less made my peace with death and once I got passed that, there isn’t a lot to be afraid of.

Being scared all the time, I don’t know how people can do it.

Fear is meant as a temporary mechanism to keep you alive. After a certain point, people let fear consume them, and it stops you from living.

Of course, the world just went through a worldwide scare with covid. I know people whose whole lives turned upside down with fear from covid. It was really amazing to witness. People wouldn’t leave their homes for anything. Spraying all their grocery’s with bleach. Avoiding all human contact.

I couldn’t help thinking, “if you’re terrified of covid, try having cancer”. I’m not belittling people’s reactions. Everyone is at a different point in their lives, being able to handle different levels of difficulty. It was just a bit odd for me to watch from a perspective of someone who has cancer. Having myeloma is like being hospitalized for Covid, waiting to see if it’s going to overwhelm your lungs or not.

Worrying about something is like paying interest on a debt you don’t even know you owe.

Mark Twain

I must say that I do find that I do have to remind myself from time to time, to not worry or be fearful. Fear is very good at creeping into the cracks in your mind. It plants little seeds that will grow into bigger things that can be very hard to get rid of.

Cancer test anxiety! What if the cancer is coming back? What if we can’t stop the cancer? Is that pain just a pain or is it cancer? What if, what if? It can go on forever, which is why I find it exhausting. If the answer was yes, to the cancer coming back or being unable to stop it, would worrying about it change anything?

Worrying about things will not change a single thing, so why spend energy doing it?

If you stop to think about it, fear pretty much always has its root in death.

If you are afraid of spiders, they are going to crawl on you and bite you and you’ll die.

If you are afraid of heights, you are going to fall off and die.

If you are afraid of the dark, something you can’t see is going to get you and you die.

If you are afraid of Covid, you’ll catch it and die.

If you are afraid of clowns, umm I’m not sure about that one, but it probably leads to death (🤔 they are creepy and get you?).

If you have cancer, you are going to die.

If we had an amazing perfect life, living in a bubble and nothing bad ever happened to us, we would still die. Death is part of life. Fear is part of life. Being paralyzed by fear is the problem. If I’m going to die from old age or cancer (or from clowns 😜), wouldn’t it be more useful, instead of being fearful, recognize it, overcome it and make the most of each day? Make a positive change in my little section of the world. Affect what I can affect. Wouldn’t you want to do the same?

You are either in control of your mind or your mind is in control of you. I prefer to be in control and not have fear dictate my life. If your mind is in control of you, then you have to work and train your mind. And believe me, it is work and it’s ongoing. No one is born with a perfect mind. It has to be developed and strengthened. Ironically, having adversity and overcoming adversity is one of the best ways to strengthen your mind.

When I was about 8, I had a little stuff animal T-Rex. It was only about 10 inches high. I really loved that little guy. One night I was in bed and I wished really hard that the T-Rex would come to life. I was pretty sure my wish would come true. I was lying there, thinking how cool it would be to have a pet T-Rex, and then it dawned on me, what if (there’s that “what if” again) it came alive while I was sleeping and started eating me (and I died)??? I quickly threw it out of my bed, across the room. I thought, “I’ll just see the alive T-Rex in the morning”. My mind had just created the impossible, and it was terrifying.

“Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.”

–Thich Nhat Hanh

I was trying to come up with the opposite of fear. Would it be bravery? That seems logical but it doesn’t quite seem to fit. A better fit in my mind would be, if you’re not afraid, you probably have peace or tranquility.

So how do you obtain inner peace or tranquility? Firstly, I would say it’s not something people can have all the time. It comes and it goes for most of us. After all, we are all human and have human reactions. You have to keep working at it, and do your best.

Some people obtain some peace through religion, prayer or being in a holy place. If you don’t believe in any of that (or it doesn’t work for you), try to spend time in nature, such at a forest or beach. In such places, you can face/talk about your fears, accept them and maybe find some contentment.

I like to spend time with giant redwood trees. When you are sitting next to a being that is 2000 years old and will out live everyone on the planet today, it can put life into some perspective. Connecting with nature energy heals your heart and mind.

Breathing techniques can knock out fear quite quickly for immediate or unexpected fears. It helps rein in control the mind. Meditation helps you stay in control of your mind all (or more of) the time, so fear doesn’t take hold.

Practice forgiveness. You can’t have peace within yourself if you are carrying around the bitter baggage of the past. True forgiveness is a tough one for people. “I have forgiven you”. “Then why do you keep bringing it up monthly, yearly, every 5 years?”. If you can let go of grudges, then it’s easier to let go of fear.

You can practice gratitude. If you are thinking about things you are grateful for, and grateful for things that are going well in your life, you spend less time on fear. Gratitude keeps our mind in the present, whereas fear keeps our mind in the past or future.

Your mind can be either a strength or it can be a weakness. It takes effort on your part to strengthen and have control of your mind. I think it’s worth the investment of our time to do so, after all, think of the time and energy we currently invest in our fears.

Dale Carnegie says, “You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.”

So snuggle with your stuffed dinosaurs, for they won’t bite. High five the next clown you see for trying to make you laugh. And maybe dying is really just the great next adventure.

Wisdom

The Happiest Moments In Life

Jothi

If you recall the happiest moments in your life, they are all from when you were doing something for somebody else.

Desmond Tutu

Carefully watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Manage and watch your words, for they will become your actions. Consider and judge your actions, for they have become your habits. Acknowledge and watch your habits, for they shall become your values. Understand and embrace your values, for they become your destiny.

Mahatma Gandhi

If you want to be miserable, think of yourself. If you want to be happy, think of others.

Sakyong Mipham

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.

Abraham Lincoln

Never ruin an apology with an excuse.

Benjamin Franklin
Nutrition

That’s Some Big Kale

Jothi

I spent a bit of time working on the soil in the garden this winter. I looked at the existing soil and could tell it needed some work. I like to see my soil alive with worms and bugs. Where life is happening, it’s usually a good thing. I added a ton of self made compost and manure (the manure wasn’t self made 😜). With those things, came a lot of worms and bugs.

Digging my bare hands into the earth of the garden bed and I could pull out a good handful of worms. When I could see that, I knew we were in good shape.

I started some kale, purple mizuna and purple kohlrabi in late winter. I planted them in the garden right before my transplant, hoping to have some good nutrition out of the garden afterwards when I got home.

Mizuna is high in many vitamins, especially vitamins A, K and C. It’s also a good source of calcium, iron, and antioxidants. Kohlrabi is an excellent source of vitamin C and a good source of fiber, vitamin B6 and potassium.

The kale had gotten mature enough to harvest about a month ago. I picked some today for lunch and holy cow, the leaves were enormous! It’s the biggest kale I’ve ever grown. Maybe some of the biggest ever grown for the variety?

The cutting board is 18×13 and I don’t have small hands
The next generation of kale is on the way
The kohlrabi is starting to bulb up. The leaves are really tasty to eat as well, they kind of remind me a bit of taro leaves
Inspired by last years successful celery grown in the garden, we are starting a bunch indoors from celery ends and then planting them in the garden when they are big enough
Blog

Bumblebee saloon?

Jothi

We went to the beach yesterday. We found a good spot for lunch. After sitting there for a few minutes, I noticed bumblebees were flying around in larger quantities than you normally see. I looked over and could see fresh water leaking out of the hillside opposite the ocean.

It looked like they were coming and going from whatever they were doing (visiting flowers?), and stopping in for a drink. Perhaps they were swapping stories at the water cooler? I thought it was pretty cool and thought you might like to see.

Blog

Tradition

Jothi

My eldest son is graduating from high school this week. I’m sitting here in California, weaving ti leaf leis. It is bringing back memories of learning and weaving ti leaf leis in my “Hawaiian Auntie’s” garage, so many years ago now, when I was a teenager. I lived on the island of Kaua’i for half of my life.

It got me thinking about traditions, as I was weaving a traditional Hawaiian lei. A ti leaf lei and giving a lei is not part of my born traditions. And yet, some Hawaiian culture and the islands are definitely now and forever part of me.

Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in my Ukrainian Grandmother’s kitchen in Canada, eating borscht and perogies. But, despite that being part of my born heritage, weaving a lei feels more part of me. (Although, Russia invading Ukraine does feel a bit personal, but I haven’t been to the Ukraine either.)

In fact, if I think about it, I probably have more adopted cultures than what I was born into, mainly Canadian and European descent. I have Chinese Buddhist culture now part of me, from learning about Chinese medicine and Qi gong. Also, I have Sri Lankan and Indian cultures weaved into my being.

I called my youngest daughter over while I was weaving the leis and asked her if she wanted to learn how to make a lei. All of my children were born in Hawaii, so I wanted her to learn. I’m passing on a little Hawaiian tradition, despite not being Hawaiian.

I just found it interesting, of things that become part of your being. You are born as one thing, and life’s experiences will add or change parts of your being.

Parts of Kaua’i still feels like home, even though it’s changed so much in the last 30 years. That got me wondering. Do you leave part of yourself behind when you leave a place that meshes with you? It’s more of a feeling when you go back to a place, than a bunch of memories that are resurfaced. A lot of cultures, and some scientists, believe that we are just energy. Do parts of our energy get infused throughout our lives?

Oddly enough, the place that I feel like I’m drawn to, is Japan. I’ve never been to Japan, but I feel connected to there. I flew over Japan on my way back from India a few years ago. We flew right by Mount Fuji, and I could feel myself being pulled. I hope to make it there someday. Maybe I was Japanese in my last life? I don’t know, I hope you enjoyed my random thought of the day.

Blog

Yukon’s Pose

Jothi

Yukon is taking a break from a nap and striking up his regal pose, showing off his manly chest hair.

He says, “I’ve been working hard on my chest hair. It was cold this winter, so it grew extra long. I make sure to get lots of chest rubs, to get hand oil on it and it exfoliates my skin. I make sure to get extra exercise by stealing the human’s slippers and try and get them to chase me. My goal for next year is to keep working on it, and hopefully it will be black and curly. Doggone, I’m a manly!”