Before/After
I recently saw in the Instagram account of a Triple Negative Breast Cancer fellow, a challenge to post a Before and After. The Before was meant to be a during treatment photo, and The After a happy and thriving photo. The purpose is to give the newly diagnosed ladies something to look forward to.
I don’t yet have an “After” photo. I only have a Now Photo.
Now.
Is there any such thing as After? Everything after Before is progress and process.
After makes it seem like “it” is done, dead, and over. But few things are.
Even after remodeling our home, I realize it is a living entity that requires constant care and upkeep. Painting, termite work, a new deck, weeding, purging closets. The house looked one way Before. But After the remodel it has been and is many things: A homeschool, party central, the gathering place for our Suzie’s Farm Tribe, a home for wayward wanderers, a nursery, a home gym, the location of Arbonne Discovers and Spa Parties, a movie theater, a white sage production site, a restaurant/cafe, a therapists office, a luxury retreat.
Lately, it has been a recovery unit. In the Summer of 2017, I used my home to recover from the loss of our Suzie’s Farm business - a business I had spent ten years developing and growing. After two years of recovering from that loss, I was ready to return to the Land of the Living when I was diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer. I’ve used our home to recover from chemo treatments which started in January of 2020. Then Coronavirus hit, and we’ve used our home as a haven for our family.
This is what the home is now.
So Before and After isn’t real for me.
Before exists. But Before is also long - a long long period and there isn’t necessarily one picture of myself that encapsulates “Before”.
There I am in 2nd Grade, two ponytails tied with slippery sky blue ribbons and a small cowlick.
There I am in 8th Grade, dancing in a royal blue, cotton dress swirling with white and ruffles.
The picture of me getting ready for The White Party. Pictures of me camping or traveling or from Suzie’s Farm. Headshots and blurry shots. Pictures from my wedding and from when I was pregnant. Pictures in my costumes or from plays or marathons.
All of these are from Before.
Each one was also a Now and immediately became an After.
So I can load my stream - make a layout of Before - But I can’t yet do an After. I can only do a Here:::Now. Because even that will become a Before as soon as the photo is taken and posted.
Before my lumpectomy. Before my radiation. Before my hair grows back. Before I regain my strength and stamina. Before I lose the weight.
There is no getting back to Before. Just like the person I was before I got married or had kids is gone, so is the person I was Before Cancer.
Perhaps that will be the After. The person and the process of becoming and recovering and discovering Lucila again. That’s After. That’s Now.
A Fuller Expression of Myself
Intellectually I thought if I did everything right I would be invincible.
Arrogance of Youth? Hope? Trusting in the current science? A Rule Follower?
I believed that if I exercised, ate well, drank water, didn’t smoke or do heavy drugs, limited sugar, red meat and dairy, meditated and prayed, volunteered, took my vitamins, slept 8+ hours per night, I was sure to be indestructible. These were to be my shields, my force field, my armor, my protection again cancer.
But they weren’t.
Unless they were and the cancer was stronger.
We will never know.
So that’s Now.
After is nebulous. Constantly evolving and developing. Being created and destroyed.
Kali Ma, the Hindu goddess of time, creation, preservations, and destruction.
I have everything I need right here for my whole.healed.beauty.
I play in the dirt. I get some sun. I create. I move my body to music. I eat well. I rest.
I surround myself with beauty and possibility and positive thoughts and love.
I explore - going farther than I’ve given myself permission to go.
I grow.
I live and am reborn, to live a fuller expression of myself.
Spiritual Season
The Autumnal Equinox is behind us. Days seem shorter as the night creeps into day.
School has resumed. Hours are filled with projects and deadlines and rehearsals, practice, and homework. Fewer daylight hours make the time feel cramped and tight, like pants that no longer fit. Yang rages. Yin comes.
This season of darkness signals a shift. This is a time to look inward, a time to decide what to do with the things, relationships, occupations nearest to us. A time to ask and discover, what still fits?
With cooler temperatures and night coming soon, we will spend more time indoors. We may change into more seasonal clothing. We may crave different foods, drinks, diversions.
Look around you; in what condition is your home, pantry, closet?
In what state are your relationships, activities, fitness?
In what condition are you to travel around the sun once more?
Have you sat still long enough to notice?
This is today’s Monday Meditation. Keep a journal nearby.
- Set a timer for 20 minutes.
- Find a comfortable place.
- Settle in. Take a five deep breaths. Count up to 4 for the inhale. Pause. Count down from 4 for the exhale. Notice how your body begins to relax and settl.
- Imagine a scene from nature. You walk along a path. Large rocks soar above and along the path. As you stroll, notice large trees reaching toward the blue, cloudless sky above you. The tree branches resemble fingers stretching toward the light. Leaves the size of plates, colored amber, persimmon, burgundy, and light green, drift sleepily around you. Your feet step peacefully among the fallen leaves. A light breeze caresses your face.
- Imagine yourself as a tree, solid and regal. You slowly lose your leaves. What does each leaf represent? What burdens do you shed? What unnecessary things fall easily away?
- Witness the leaves and what they represent with no judgment. Note if some of the leaves cause you distress or anxiety. Observe your feelings without blame or guilt. Let your spirit guide the process instead of allowing your mind to dictate what or how things should be. If you feel agitated as certain thoughts come up, return to your breath counting by four on the inhale and exhale.
- After the timer goes off, imagine returning to your body. You walk along the path, peacefully, enjoying the stroll.
- Become aware of your surroundings. Slowly open your eyes.
When you emerge from the meditation, pick up your journal and write for a page. What came up for you? What did some of the leaves represent? Unfulfilling relationships? A stale job? Wishes for more? Increased fitness?
Write down the things that came up for you. We will continue to explore this shedding.
Until next time,
do well
be well
xoxo
Lucila
Flawed, Imperfect, Done
For a few years now, a friend has talked about starting a podcast.
She adores podcasts. She spends all of her alone time listening to podcasts. She asks for recommendations. She makes recommendations. She and her podcast pals discuss them. It's her number one source of entertainment and information.
The Podcast.
Oh, how badly she wants to start one! She laments her inability to start one. I've encouraged her and made recommendations to her. At one point we even met to discuss starting one together.
But she can't get past *that* point.
Do you know which point I'm talking about?
It's an imaginary point in our heads. We all have one. It's a line in the sand, drawn by us, which we refuse to cross.
I figured it out a few months ago.
She listens to well known and well-produced podcasts.
She listens to so many podcasts, she is frozen. She can't, or won't, move forward on her project because it won't be as good/perfect as the mighty podcasts she's put on an imaginary altar.
Can you relate?
I can.
I waited two years to start this blog. I looked at other blogs and their ancillary social media outlets and their photographs and their styling and their outfits and hair and make-up and I could not get started.
For two years, I watched and waited. What was I waiting for?
I was waiting for me to catch up to the idea of me. The illusion I had about what this blog should be or what my "product" should be or what I should offer or even the idea that I should have an offer.
Jeez Louise...I could have died before taking action. I could have withered looking at other Instagram and Facebook accounts.
My Mom always talks about perfection being the enemy of the good (or perfection getting in the way of getting it DONE).
Look...I ain't perfect. And, news flash, neither are you. Neither are the podcasts that my friend listens to, or even the other blogs or the rest of the people out there.
And this blog will evolve like I am evolving.
The point is to get quiet and listen. Your True You wants to emerge beyond all the other voices you listen to. The chatter holds you back. There is strength in silence.
I recommended to my friend that maybe she stop listening to other podcasts for a bit...that perhaps the other podcasts were crowding out the space in her head and heart for her voice to develop. If she could get quiet and give herself some time, her fabulous podcast would surface.
The world waits for her podcast, for her voice, for her take on things, for her story.
Nothing revelatory or earth-shattering there.
The world waits. The world doesn't wait. The Earth spins, stars explode, trees burn and die, and our dreams go on. We can either live them or not.
The pleasure she feels listening to podcasts is greater than the pain she feels not starting her podcast.
The day the pain is greater will be the day she forms her podcast.
That's the day I forged this blog...the day my drive to create something and put it out in the world was bigger than my pity party.
And here it is, flawed and imperfect and mine.
Choose Love
I stayed up late looking at an Instagram account of a leader who is racing to the top of the Direct Sales company I’m with.
She has over 110, 000 followers and I scrolled back through over 2,300 posts to try to figure out why and how…what is her secret sauce.
She is young; I’m easily 20 years older than she is. This is what the IG story showed. Her days of prom and high school graduation. A father who has Parkinson’s. She has two moms. She adores her family. She has a younger sister and two (at least) brothers. She was going to study graphic design and has now become a make-up artist. She was overweight. Now she’s fit. Her IG feed is about 80% pictures of herself looking extremely attractive and 20% other which could include the food she’s eating or her family or her companions or celebrations.
What is her secret sauce? What makes her attractive? I suspect it is her confidence; her complete and total SELF that she is being. Her BEING. I could judge or criticize her for any number of petty things. This only serves to point out to me my insecurities. I don’t understand how or why taking so many pictures of herself ATTRACTS. She gives little advice or encouragement. She shows her beauty, creativity, confidence, and zeal. She is the story.
I fear to be perceived as vain. I rarely take photos of myself because I can’t imagine measuring up.
But my mantra is Love You Be You, which is fulfilling – self-fulfilling, and she is fulfilling that.
That’s where the pangs are. She is doing, acting, being, that which I wish to be.
I’m playing the comparing game and losing to a stranger.
I was raised to hide. Even the other day my Mom admonished me not to tell, “No one needs to know that.” She said. Not because it’s shameful but she didn’t further say why.
I’ve spent so much of my life not even knowing who I am, listening to other people describe their experience of me with wonder…is that really who I am? I have no idea. I go about my business, my day, my joy, present but unexamined. It is the privilege of my position, living as I do where I do, that I get to experience this.
Stay with it.
After my workout today I bawled.
I’m sure it can be said that the focus and intention and strength required of me kicked my ass a bit. I do hard things with joy and sweat and determination.
I think the tears came in part from the realization that I am doing something big and open and scary. I am putting myself out there again.
I pray that I will be safe and held and encouraged along the way.
I have been abandoned at times. I have heard the whispers. When certain people see me coming they move away, avoiding me because of what they perceive I am going to say or do.
Bottom line, I have committed to this journey of self-discovery and more important, self-love, which is the scariest thing of all. I have exposed myself, made myself vulnerable, and am willing to show more to help others reach what I can only describe as ecstatic peace.
No one can pull it out of me. Only I can Love Me.
Only you can Be You.
Are you?
I thought I was…but the more I do this living thing, the more I realize I was not. It’s terrifying and exhilarating.
Sometimes I have to take it slow.
Sometimes I have to race.
Sometimes I have to do jumping jacks in place to move the anxiety and anger and disappointment and rage out of my body.
Overall, I promise to persist.
Do you hear that, Lucila? Persist.
I make a contract with myself to choose me.
I choose me over poor feeling thoughts.
I choose God to rule over it all.
I choose Life.
