Countering Negative Self-Talk

Posted on November 9, 2023 by Diana Rankin

People think of me as a positive, optimistic person, but it wasn’t always so. It’s been a long and often difficult road to this inner joy that I now am grateful to experience.

There was a time, however, when I felt I was at the bottom of a deep well where the light was so far away I couldn’t see it. There wasn’t anyone walking past the well, so it wouldn’t do any good to even put my hand up and scream for help, yet scream I did, at myself until I finally got my attention. It was then I started listening to myself, started listening to my inner talk, that self-talk that either destroys or creates.

Here’s what I heard” You’re not good enough. You’re not smart enough. You’re not successful enough. You haven’t done enough. You’re not enough, etc., etc., etc. You’ve heard it all before. Unfortunately, most of you are saying some of the same things to yourself, and it’s time to stop. Yes, easier said than done, but we have to start somewhere, right? So, let’s get going, together, today, right now.  This very minute.

Let’s make the promise – come on now each of us – to listen a little more carefully to our inner voice so we can tame that inner bully and turn it into a voice of loving kindness toward ourselves.

This isn’t a one day activity that once we make the commitment all our self-talk will be loving, encouraging us to be the truth of who we are. This is a lifelong commitment to be our best and live our best life. It may not always be easy listening to ourselves, but it is well worth the effort. Even when that self-bully slips back into our thoughts, it’s worth the effort to ask it to leave.

On the other side of negative self-talk is joy and the creation of the life we want. We will have the life we want because we will self-talk ourselves into knowing we deserve it . . . and we do!

Come on now, who’s with me?

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When Piper Misbehaves

Posted on November 1, 2023 by Diana Rankin

Most of the time I’m a really good girl. Honest I am. But sometimes I’m a brat. Mom doesn’t say that, but I know she’s thinking it.

I’m a brat when we get into the car, and I bark and bark and bark. I keep telling Mom I’m supposed to ride in the front seat. She thinks I’m supposed to ride in the back. She even tethers me to the back seat. The nerve. Ok, ok, she says it’s safer. I still don’t like it. And I tell her so.

I like to carry my own leash. I’m allowed to do that when we’re walking back up the lane after getting the mail. But I don’t have to wear my leash when we walk down the lane to get the mail. Mom puts my leash on me before we cross the road to the mailbox. But she won’t let me carry it. I tell her I’m supposed to carry my leash, but she won’t let me have it until we cross the road again to go up the land to the house. I tell Mom this is very confusing. Just let me have my leash when I want it.

I can be bratty when we come back inside the house. I know where the treat box is. I run to it faster then Mom can close the door. And I bark and bark, “Treats Mom! Treats!”

I like food. And sometimes Mom is really slow getting my breakfast ready. So, I have to tell her over and over to hurry. I’m hungry!

I’m a brat when I want to play ball and Mom is tired. I bark and bark at her until she plays with me. Sometimes I just look at her with really sad eyes. That works too. It works to get treats too. The sad eyes. Not the barks.

I get treats for being a good girl. That’s a good reason to be a good girl. Guess it’s a good reason to not be a brat. Hum, maybe I should always be a good girl.

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7 Ways to Heal Pain that Binds Us

Posted on November 1, 2023 by Diana Rankin

Our lives should be filled with joy, right? It’s our spiritual heritage, right?  So why then is there so much pain and suffering in the world? And what, if anything, can we do about it? Are we just supposed to suffer, or can we heal our own pain and that of others? If so, how? Is there a purpose to pain? Why does it feel so deep?

Certainly, we do not have all the answers, but perhaps one of the suggestions following will give you answers without negating the pain and suffering of grief and loss, of lack or illness, or the heartbreak of every evening’s news headlines.

Never do we want to stuff pain, thinking it will go away if we refuse to acknowledge it. When we refuse to deal with our pain in a healthy way, it only hurts us more. When we close our hearts to allow the pain to pass through, we also close our hearts to love and joy.

Neither do we want to negate our pain or that of others. Pain is part of the human experience that none of us are immune to. What we do need though are ways to deal with our pain when it seems to overwhelm us. These following seven suggestions are to help you work through pain, grief, anxiety, anger, depression, fear – any suffering that takes you away from love and the joy of life.

Breathe:  Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us to use the breath to relax by thinking “relax” when we breathe in and “let go” when we breathe out. We can modify this by thinking, “I breathe in “love,” I breathe out depression/anger/grief/anxiety/fear and so on. Soon our consciousness mind relaxes, and we hear ourselves saying, “I breathe in love, and I breathe out love.” Then we just relax and thinking ceases.

Guided Meditations:  Keep a favorite guided meditation near, so when you feel overwhelmed, you can relax into its calmness. There are several on the market or YouTube, including mine. Below are the links to a couple of my meditations on YouTube.

Journaling: Begin with writing down why you are in pain. Go ahead and blame everyone you want, including yourself, and then move past the blame and start mining the gifts, which are often hidden in the lessons we must learn in life. Write about why you are in this situation and what it brings to your life. Write about what pattern, if any, is at play here and what you need to do to change the pattern. Write until you have reached a place of calm understanding. Write about your hurt until you go beyond the pain and reach a place of gratitude for that which caused you pain.

Call a friend: Especially when we are experiencing grief, we must have a support group to which we can turn during those awful times of our deepest grieving. We don’t need a friend to fix it. Grief cannot be fixed. We do need a friend to just be there, because the human heart, when broken, must be tenderly held in love until we can mend it back together.

Prayer: The words spoken silently or aloud are never as important as the emotion of the prayer. We may simply say, “help.” That is enough. Once you say a prayer, become the high witness and watch yourself as you go through the experience. Keep in mind that you are the one having the experience; you are not the experience.  If you are the one having the experience (and not the experience itself), you can at any time choose a different experience.

A prayer of forgiveness is essential in easing your pain, and please start with yourself, then move out to any others who may have caused you pain.

Sob: Sometimes we need to just let the tears flow without reservation until we are spent. Rest and sleep are helpful at this point.

Primal scream: This scream is one long from the toes up to the top of the head and beyond scream that shakes and shatters every cell of our body. It begins from the deepest pain in our heart and moves in and through our entire being until we are spent. This releases the pain from our bodies, which begins the healing process. Laughter or tears of release often follow this scream.

This scream should not be done by people with high blood pressure or other medical conditions. You should never, ever scream until you feel dizzy or faint. That is not the purpose of the primal scream. Do not practice primal screams in the near proximately of people unless you first let them know what you are doing. This scream is so powerful that you will scare others into thinking you are in danger.

Your pain may not leave immediately, or it may leave temporarily and return. The greater the pain, the more you need to be patient with yourself and with your healing. Be kind to yourself during your healing process and remember to breathe until the pain eases.

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Bullies, Bullets, and Blame

Posted on October 30, 2023 by Diana Rankin

Back in 2011, I wrote this article about another mass shooting. The names have changed but not much else, including our part—and responsibility—in these horrid tragedies.

I yelled at my cat today. It was a sharp piercing wail that surprised both of us. Seconds later one of my favorite tea mugs fell off the counter and crashed against the hardwood, smattering and scattering pieces of hardened clay across the floor.

Both LilyCat and I were so stunned at my outbreak we stopped and stared at the shattered mug and in that eerie and charged moment of silence it struck me how my angry outbreak had nothing to do with my cat. It had everything to do with my own frustration inappropriately taken out on her.  The cat doesn’t have the power to make me angry. No one does—whether feline or human. It is my anger and I must own it, and I also must own how my personal anger contributes to the greater atmosphere that brings energy to a Jared Lee Loughner, a young man in Tuscon, Arizona who fired 31 shots from a semiautomatic pistol into a crowd. My angry outburst scared my cat; Loughner’s killed six people, including a 9-year old child and wounded 13 others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Our anger certainly is different in the degrees, but my nonsensical anger does help to form the energy pattern of a Loguhner’s murderous rage.  

Politicians and political pundits have been quick to point fingers of blame against each other for the Tucson tragedy, but they have neglected to see that three fingers are pointing back. Certainly some politicians and pundits, opportunists, and talk-show hosts are bullies who have waged a war of angry words, and certainly some of the rhetoric is filled with such hateful fury it makes me cringe.  And, yes, I do believe these bullies have contributed to an atmosphere of divisiveness that spawns wrath and a sense of entitlement that if you do not believe as I do then I have the right to spew anger at you and take out my rage on your person. But also, I believe that I too must shoulder some of the responsibility for the Tucson tragedy—as we all must.

We are not responsible for pulling the trigger, but we are responsible for feeding the insanity of murderous rage. Every time we lose our temper, we fuel the insanity of murderous rage. Every time we refuse to take responsibility for our own pent-up stresses and frustrations and blame the other for our emotions and actions, we fuel the insanity of murderous rage. Every time we make—or listen to—hate-filled speeches, we fuel the insanity of rage.  Every time we watch a television show or movie that honors violence, we fuel the insanity of murderous rage.  Every time we engage in a thought, deed, or action of anger, we fuel the insanity of murderous rage.

There is a lot of anger in our country. It is not the first time this country has been filled with anger and divisiveness. We knew anger during the Revolution War, the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War movement against the Vietnam War, to name just a few. Perhaps as a nation we will not grow pass the anger that erupts whenever we have difficult times, but perhaps, just perhaps we will come to understand our personal contribution to the murderous rage that brought forth a Jared Lee Loughner, and in the understanding of this we will be better able to see our responsibility to be watchful of our actions that may be perceived by the other as bullying, be aware of the words that may feel like bullets to the other’s heart, and lay the blame of our anger where it belongs—at our own doorstep.

I would like to tell you I will never again yell at my cat, never again bully her, but that would be untruthful. There will come another day when I live in unawareness of the build-up of my own stresses and frustrations and hear myself scream when LilyCat gets my negative attention. What I will tell you is that in the awareness of knowing I am capable of loosing my temper, I grow in mindfulness of my own anger, anger that contributes to the atmosphere where a murderous rage can take hold. It is in the accepting of my personal contribution to the greater whole that I feel the depth of my responsibility to do my best to keep my own heart peaceful and my actions pure.

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Piper’s Visitor

Posted on October 26, 2023 by Diana Rankin

Juno came to visit me. Aunti Juliet brought her. She’s really big. And I mean really, really big. Juno, not Aunti Juliet. Juno’s a doggy like me. Aunti Juliet’s a human.

At first I was scared. The last time I saw her she was a little girl, not much bigger than me. She’s all grown up now. But I’m older. That makes me in charge. She’s only a little over a year old. I’m 10.

At first Mom and Aunti Juliet ate lunch. They gave us treats. I watched Juno. I had to make sure she didn’t get into trouble. Or eat all my treats.

Then we went outside and played in the meadow. Juno liked that. I could tell. Aunti Juliet said she did. I was in charge, so I told Juno to run and play. She even tried to get me to play. I didn’t want to play with her though. I just wanted to keep an eye on her. I had to make sure she didn’t get into any trouble.

Then we went down to the lake. We went on a long, long, long hike. I told Juno I was the leader. She said okay.

It was a really hard trail. There were boards we had to walk over sometimes. They were slippery and had holes between them. I was really glad my little feet didn’t fall between the boards. Juno’s feet didn’t fit between the boards, so she didn’t have to worry about that.

I didn’t have to worry either. Mom let me walk around the boards if I didn’t like them. She even let go of my leash so I could run ahead.

Aunti Juliet took Juno’s leash off too. Still, I was in the lead. Everyone knew that, even Juno. She stayed behind my mom. Aunti Juliet said Juno was watching out for her and my mom. That’s why she stayed between them.

I’m Mom’s watcher. I take good care of her. Always. Still, I guess it’s okay to let another doggy help when I’m busy leading us out of the forest and to safety. Especially if that doggy is a big girl like Juno.

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Chopping Wood and Carrying Water

Posted on October 25, 2023 by Diana Rankin

I guess I should have known the day wasn’t going to go as I planned when the first thing I saw when I stepped out onto the deck Sunday morning was a red tail hawk taking flight from my backyard garden.  Often, I see hawks fly over my home, even occasionally see them land in the meadow out beyond the backyard or in the fields when swooping down to pick up prey, but this was the first time I had seen one take off from the garden. He gave me a quick flash of his pale belly with its band of darker feathers, the color of the top of his wings, before he fully spread his broad wings out wide as he rose above the ground and was off among the treetops and out of my sight. I thanked him for his visit, and then got about my day, well-planned as it was with a full to-do list of outside chores.

Now you would certainly think I would know by now that the best laid plans of humankind usually go astray. The first glitch came when the riding mower refused to start—this after it started up just fine—twice. But it refused to start the third time, and this after I had hooked up the garden trailer and driven all 900 feet to the end of the lane and filled up the trailer with newly-trimmed tree branches. So here I am at the end of the lane, with my plans to deliver this load of newly-cut branches to the brush pile at the other end of the lane.  On the way, I thought I’d pick up a couple small trees that had come down in the last storm, throw them on top of the tree branches and be off to the brush pile. But here I was, stuck with a mower that refused to cooperate with my well-planned day.

I turned the key again in hopes of the mower starting. Nothing. The engine wasn’t even turning over. Not one single gruuuu or spit or sputter. Red Tail flew overhead going from a tree in the north woods to the utility pole almost directly above my head.  Hawk sat on his perch eyeing me below the way he watches for small mice and moles among the rows of soybeans. I pushed in the clutch, put the gear shift in neutral, and turned the key to start once more. Nothing.

Sheeeee, went the hawk. I turned the key again. Still nothing. A breeze kicked up and ruffled the velvet tops of the soybeans sending green waves across the fields. Once more I turned the key to try to start the mower. Not sure why I kept turning the key. You would think I’d get it that the engine wasn’t turning over, but isn’t that the way it is with our thoughts and deeds? We keep thinking the same old thought and doing the same old thing and expecting a different outcome. So there I was doing the same old thing and expecting the mower to suddenly change its mind and start. It was having none of it.

I pushed the lever to engage the blades, and then disengaged them. Sometimes the blades stick in place, which keeps the engine from starting. Still nothing, but at least I had a different thought and tried something different. But still it didn’t seem to do any good. Hawk looked down at me. The sun was growing as hot as my temper. A familiar panic was beginning to grow in my gut as I started fretting about what to do. The starter probably went out again. How am I going to get the mower to the repair shop without a trailer hitch? Who could I call to come here to fix it? The mower’s old. Should I buy a new one? I need a new roof. Not the time to buy a new mower. And on and on and on.

Red Tail screeched as he took off, circled a few times over the field, and then landed on a utility wire at the other end of the south field. I started walking down the lane, on my way picking up one of the fallen trees and dragging it to the brush pile. I did that a couple more times, walking down the lane to drag back a fallen tree or push the trailer full of cut-limbs back to the tree line. Between trips up and down the lane, I trimmed the trees at the tree line, even bringing out the ladder to reach those over my head. 

It would be nice to tell you that friends unexpectedly showed up and fixed the mower, but that didn’t happen. I could have called a friend for help, but that didn’t happen either. I just spent the next several hours trimming trees and walking up and down the lane, and as I did I let go of control, and somewhere among all this chopping wood and carrying water, all those jumbled thoughts, plans for the day, and questions of what should I do now, all left my mind, replaced by the quiet of the day and the knowing that life was unfolding as it should, so I might as well just enjoy it.

About the time I was spending as much time drinking water as I was trimming trees, I figured it was time to quit and turn to less strenuous work. Mowing would have been perfect, but it wasn’t to be, and I was okay with that. Still, I did not relish pushing the mowed all 900 feet back down the lane. As I started walking toward it, I asked the mower to work, saw it running, saw me riding it with the blades cutting off the top layer of grass for a smooth finish of green along the lane. Thanked it for serving me so well and faithfully. And then I let go, knowing I would have the strength to push the mower back to the garage. So I kept walking, enjoying the day, the breeze that cooled me, the quiet of the countryside, and the way my life was unfolding this day.

Joseph Campbell said, “We must be willing to give up the life we have had planned in order to have the life that is waiting for us.” I suppose that is true whether that life be a well-planned life or a well-planned day. When we are able to let go and let life move through us, we are able to live in a much greater way.

On the way down the lane toward the mower, I stopped to pick up a feather—a red tail hawk feather. “Thanks, buddy,” I said, knowing that at some level he heard me. And so did the mower. As soon as I sat on the mower and turned the key, it purred into action.

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Butterflies, the Dove, and the Shaman

Posted on October 19, 2023 by Diana Rankin

There’s a patch of un-mowed grass in my yard. It’s there because a dying butterfly claimed it, and I saw no reason to disturb her. Having a neatly manicured lawn just isn’t that important to me, at least not as important as giving a butterfly her chosen space as she begins her transition into the next world. She wasn’t the first butterfly I say die—or the first winged one in whose death I was involved with.

Once I found a butterfly in my office building. She flew in through an open doorway and stayed where she landed—just out of reach of the sun in the hallway of a man-built structure in the 1870s. After watching her for a while, finally realizing she wasn’t going to get up and fly away, I carefully picked her up and carried her outside. She rode well on my palm and transferred through my nervous system her gratitude for her new place—a shady spot just beside the sun between day lily leaves and hydrangea bushes.

It wasn’t my place to extend the lives of these two butterflies, or to mourn over their passing. It was for me to thank them for sharing their magic with me, for giving me the energy of their lives, of what they represent—transformation into a new form. This is difficult for us—to watch something so beautiful die and not mourn. It is even more difficult when we are the instrument of that death, which I was the week I found the butterfly in my office.

It was a dove that ended its life on the front of my vehicle as I drove to the office one bright morning. There was no way to miss her. She flew up without warning from the side of the road and into the right front wheel well. I saw her hit. I heard her hit. But when I looked there was no bird on the side of the road, no bird impaled on the wheel well. No bird in sight. Yet, she had been there. Of that I’m sure.

“No! It’s a dove,” I cried out when I hit her, my heart thumping and breaking. And then I stopped. I heard her in my heart and knew she had come to me to give of her energy, her magic, her medicine. It was my choice to stay in the mourning of taking her body from her, or to engage in the interchange she offered me. I chose the latter.

It is in Ted Andrews’ book Animal Speak that I so often turn when a winged one or animal comes into my life, giving of its energy to help my life in its transitions and changes, celebrations and smooth pathways. Dove came to say, “These are the Between Times—a time in which there is a thinning of the veils between the physical and the spiritual, the past and the future.” She came to help me see the creation process within my own life.

She came to give me her song that I might mourn what has passed but awaken to the promise of the future. She came, as did the butterflies, to confirm the transition of which I have been aware, and to help me see what I can give birth to in my life.

I think of that dove and butterfly as I now watch the one in the un-mowed grass. And I think of the new birth in spirit world that comes for them.

The shaman’s life is full of new birth, the new that only comes after a death, an ending. All our lives are full of little deaths, mini deaths that—if we let go—allow us to move into the new—a new way of being, a new home, a new job, a new realm of existence.

We can hold onto the winger ones, mourning their passing. We can feel saddened by our part in taking the life of another of God’s creatures. Or we can thank the ones who come for imparting their medicine, their energy, to us, for gifting us with the magic they carry within them and have chosen us with whom to share this magic.

In accepting what is, we honor them, and we honor ourselves as beings who understand our oneness with all life and the miracle of the continuous circle of life and death and rebirth.

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Piper Goes on Vacation

Posted on October 19, 2023 by Diana Rankin

I caught my mom packing the suitcase. I looked right at her and barked. “Make sure you pack my things,” I told her. She listened.

She packed my water bowl and food bowl. And of course, my food. She even packed my portable bed. Best of all, she packed my treats. She’s a good mom.

That was my first vacation with Mom. We had two.

First we went to visit friends of Mom’s. We drove a long time. Sometimes it was scary because there were big trucks on the road. They made really loud noises when they went past us. I liked it better when we were on the quieter roads. Mom calls them country roads.

We went to a place called Oxford, Ohio. I met Aunti Carole and Uncle Michael. I like them. A lot.

We went for long walks. Mom said our walks made us smarter. Because we walked on a college campus. It’s called Miami University. It was pretty. At night we stayed in a room with Aunti Carole. I liked our vacation.

We took an even longer car ride on our second vacation. We went to a place called Warren, Ohio. We stopped to take walks on our way. We walked near the woods. Still sometimes those big trucks made noise. I don’t like big noisy trucks.

We took another walk when we stopped. A nice lady, Aunti Marge, told us where to walk so there wouldn’t be any big noisy trucks.

Later we were inside a great big room. I was allowed to walk around. Everyone loved me. That’s ‘cause I’m so lovable. And pretty. My Aunti Jenny helped keep a watch on me. I think everyone else was watching me too. I met lots of new Auntis, Aunti Donna and Aunti Sharon and Aunti…well, lot of Auntis.

One of the women named Bev said there were a lot of sad people there. That’s sad because it was a big, big room and lots of people. Bev said I was making all the people feel better. They came to hear my mom talk and ask her to give them messages about people they love who had crossed the rainbow bridge. That’s what my mom does. Help people feel better.

I helped Mom give people messages. That made them all feel better. I like helping Mom. I liked making people feel good.

That night we stayed all night with Aunti Jenny and Uncle Paul. They are really really nice. I even let Aunti Jenny hold my leash. Not that I need a leash. Mom said I had to have it on because we were far away from home.

Aunti Jenny let me jump up on the sofa and sit near her and Mom. They talked and talked. I got really really sleepy. They just kept talking anyway. Uncle Paul was smart. He was already in bed.

Finally, after forever we went to bed. I slept on my travel bed right next to Mom on her big bed. And I watched her all night long. Well okay, I slept too. But I slept near Mom. I protected her. Who know a ghost might come to disturb her sleep. And that’s my job. To protect Mom. And to make everyone who is sad happy.

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Program Your Sleep for Happiness

Posted on October 9, 2023 by Diana Rankin

What you watch on television at night can affect your mood the next day. So, what are you doing watching shoot-em-up television shows or the news before you fall asleep, or please-don’t-say-it, even while you fall asleep? What pre-sleep suggestions are you feeding your mind? Do you really think you can feed yourself with violence at night and expect to wake up feeling refreshed and happy? Come on, you’re smarter than that!

Am I saying you should never watch television or the news? No. In fact, I believe we have a responsibility to keep ourselves informed about what is going on in our world. What I am saying is that you should be selective. Use discernment when selecting what to watch on television and listen to on the radio. The same is true for movies, films, books, and yes, even your conversations and your thoughts.

If you are going to bed angry, guess how you are going to wake up in the morning. Certainly, sleep helps to defuse and cleanse a lot of our thoughts, but if you want happiness—if you truly want happiness–you have to give up feeding yourself unhappiness.

Try this to help you do just that: Program your sleep. Spend the last thirty minutes or so before you go to sleep in peaceful contemplation, releasing any anger, frustration, or other non-life affirming emotion. Spend the time in meditation, reading uplifting or sacred text, journaling to release the day, thinking about the beauty in life, or just being in silence and listening to the quiet of the night sounds. Then as you give yourself over to sleep, give yourself the suggestion that you will spend the night in a peaceful, restful, and healing sleep for a specific number of hours, and that you will wake feeling happy and full of joy in the morning.

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Piper’s Morning Meditation

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Diana Rankin

Every morning my mom goes into a special room. I go with her. That’s ‘cause I always stay by her side. Mom calls the room her meditation room. I think it’s just a room where it’s quiet. And I can sleep.

Mom thinks it’s special though. Every morning she goes there to sit and write in her book. She calls it a journal. Sometimes she reads. She says it’s where she talks to Phillip. She calls him her spirit guide. That’s a special angel. He watches over us and helps us to do the right thing.

Mom says we all have a spirit guide. Daisy’s mine. She used to live here before me. When she crossed the rainbow bridge she came and found me. She told me Mom needed a doggy. That’s me, a doggy.

The room has a big chair in it. That’s where Mom sits when she’s writing. And there’s a table with a lamp on it. There’s also the table Mom calls the altar. It has a candle on it that Mom lights before we sit down. The altar also has feathers on it and pictures and a bundle that smells funny and other stuff Mom calls sacred. I’m not allowed on that table, but I can sniff.

The room also has my favorite thing in it. That’s the pad we sit on. We get to do that when Mom stops writing. Mom doesn’t really sit on the pad most days. She sits on a little bench. She puts her feet under the little bench. Her knees are right near me.

Mom’s really, really quiet when we’re on the pad. She calls it our meditation pad. It’s so quiet I can hear Mom breathe. Then she gets even more quiet. I have to listen real good so I can hear her. And make sure she’s alive. That’s my job. To take care of Mom. Even if it means being real quiet. Even if I’d rather be playing ball.

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