History, Heritage and Hope

Our Hope & Heritage

If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see all your ancestors.

All of them are alive and present in your body.

You are the continuation of these people.

Thich Nhat Hanh

We can gather strength today from the women who came before us. They often had challenges that we can’t imagine. Remembering them can give us strength and hope. If they did it ,so can we.

Women’s History is so important yet it is often overlooked. Since whoever is the “victor” usually writes the history, women’s contributions are often not recorded and therefore not celebrated

We can’t Honor what we don’t know.

We can’t honor what we don’t know. The contributions of women are unsung and they are usually too busy to record it themselves.

For most of my life, I didn’t think of my friends and the women in my family as heroines, but I have come to see them that way today.

I’m very sure there are women in your life whose lives deserve recognition and appreciation, including yours.

Remembering them gives me hope and courage – they faced and overcame so much. I am very grateful that their stories and their heritage have been passed down to me.

The Red Taffeta Petticoat

In my Thanksgiving letter, I wrote about my grandmother, who grew up without electricity and lived to see a man on the moon. She lived through two wars with two sons in service, weathered the Great Depression, and buried 3 husbands but still loved to dance in her red taffeta petticoat. And she thought she was nothing special.

My mother had cancer at an early age but felt she had to live to take care of her kids. While pregnant, she experienced a world war that carried two brothers into service. She had never worked outside her home but started a florist business at age 42 when my father became ill. Through very hard work she was able to send me to college. She loved to laugh and spread beauty, through her flowers, to many people. And she thought she just did what anyone would do.

We are not alone.

I know so many women like them who think they are nothing special but they truly keep the world going. And they pass on their example of courage and love of life to us.

We cannot honor them any more than to remember them and pass on their stories and their joy. And to remember, when we feel overwhelmed, that we are part of an amazing heritage and we can’t do any less. We are not alone.

THE DOCTOR IS “IN”

Who is the Expert?

With all the talk about health insurance and the many products that are marketed to “fix’ our health, we have totally overlooked the most available resource that is available to us all…. our own bodies’ wisdom. This wisdom is a gift that we are all born with but we usually discount in favor of an outside “expert.

Our bodies’ wisdom is a doctor who is always “in,” always makes house calls and never charges a fee. Yet, we don’t listen to that small “voice” that says, “Rest now’, “Move your body,” or even, ”Something is wrong.” Instead, we ignore it and wait until it is screaming before we pay attention

Relationship Break-up?

And just like other relationships, ignoring our bodies’ wisdom is a sure way to mess up the communication. But unlike personal relationships, we can’t have  “break-up”. We can disregard it until it is hard to hear but fortunately it is built in and never goes away. We need to check in with our body and often. Just pausing a moment to ask,” How do I feel” or “What do I need to do now”, gets us an answer.

Our role in this relationship is to not ignore the answer even if we don’t like what we hear.

We really do know what makes us feel good or bad and what makes our body happy.

The trick is to tune in often and to establish a relationship that has open communication …just like our personal ones. The more we listen and act, the more we can trust ourselves. What great freedom that is.

Doctor Me …

The Buddhist have a lovely practice in which they scan their bodies each morning to check in and see how every part is doing. That seems like a great way to start the day and to gently pay attention to the most important health expert of all, “Doctor Me.”