Keep Climbing No Matter What!

~ Published ~ 12 November 2016 ~
 
I’ve been working so hard recently… harder and longer hours than usual… still just trying to catch up on office work and my home life after all the preparation, traveling and attending of the recent end of semester Logotherapy Introductory students’ three-day exam workshop.
 
At the workshop, I presented to the students twice.  I presented our course directors Presentation on “Optimal Mental Wellbeing”, and my own most recently created presentation, “My Journey to Meaningful Healing and Freedom from Suffering Through Logotherapy ~ Part 2”, which had never been seen before; a presentation that our course director Teria, asked me to create, covering how I used to be and live before Logotherapy found me in my 50’s, contrasting how much better I live, function and am today as a result of Logotherapy…
 
There has been so much growth that I personally stand in awe of how far I’ve come and how much healing I have gained over the past 10 or so years of my life so far.  A personal miracle for me and something for which I am so very grateful, beyond words. 
 
Both presentations were received very well by our Introductory students and created a fair amount of debate, which is always exciting.  I am not very good at answering questions and tend to shut down when asked even the simplest questions which I should have instant answers to, so I was grateful for the student enthusiastic feedback and participation when I struggled… this gave me time to reassemble my thought processes and find my courage/confidence again, to come up with at least half decent answers so as not to end up looking like a complete fool as I so often feel in such situations where I am unable to respond in the moment with much intelligence when feeling tested…
 
“mother’s useless idiot” once again!
 
After presenting and whilst sitting in silence as the students wrote their exam, (Teria had left me there alone to finish off the last hours of the course with them) I wrote the following down, just to express how I was feeling at time:
 
Alone I stand in victory
Surrounded by trust...
By confidence in me
Even though I still struggle
To feel confident in myself
How is this possible that I
Could have arrived at this place
Never knowing before
That it even existed
Did I find it, or did it find me
Yet all I know…
Is that “Life” has already spoken
And here “I am”…
Because I heard
My gratitude knows no bounds
 
My confidence in my latest presentation is boosted and I now look forward to sharing it with others in future. 
 
I wrote on my personal Facebook page (adapted):
 
I had a most wonderful three-days with the Introductory students and our course director, Teria.
 
It was the smallest Introductory group we've ever had... only four students managed to finish their work and attend in the end... but four with the most beautiful souls. It was such an intimate and beautiful time with like-minded, lovely people, sharing from our hearts without judgments... feeling free to "BE"... something my heart yearns for... no false pretenses... no airs and graces designed to please or keep the peace...

Just being real... "AUTHENTIC"...
 
And me... in my happy place with people I feel I can trust completely... my “Wonderful Logotherapy World”... it's a beautiful place for me to be...
 
How I wish my family and friends would all join me there by doing the Logotherapy courses... so that they too could share in what I’ve come to know.
 
I feel like I've been standing on my magnificent mountain in Israel again... the one I use as my cover photo on this website... that's the sense of goodness and freedom I feel right now... I can't let this world take it away from me anymore... it's too precious and I want to hold onto this lovely feeling and sense of being loved and accepted unconditionally… a sense of true inner peace… in my happy place with people I feel I can trust completely... it's a beautiful thing...
 
 ***
 
Health wise, my feet are swollen and sore all the time these days... worse by the evenings, but this last week there has been an improvement so I’m feeling hopeful again that I will be able to put normal shoes on soon... I’ve been wearing my big, oversized fury slippers since July when the gout flared up again after a big stress-LOSS episode, followed by the sad news of the loss of a dear friend and having to put our beloved old dog down the very next day to that.  I still need to write about our dog Woody… I want to honour him in writing, but I’ve been avoiding it, I guess because I miss his presence too much still.
 
I think the gout has gone now, but arthritis has taken hold in it's place.  I have to wait a year before the Medical Aid I've just signed onto will help me with that so I just have to do what I can on my own… I have mostly taken care of myself all my life anyway… no difference now.  My bones feel very sore, but not the same intense pain of an acute gout attack… so I do believe it’s arthritis now… inflamed joints lingering on where the remaining recent gout damage was done.
 
My hands and wrists also hurt a little and other joint from time to time.  I have to be careful not to strain or hurt my joints, or it will cause the painful inflammation to flare up... better not to pick up heavy things, weed the garden, or even stepping on a small stone or the edge of a carpet can cause painful flares as joints are strained or bones bumped or rubbed together.
 
And life goes on... and while it does I have so much important work to do... I have no time for this ailing body thing!!!  AAARGH!  Just when my whole life is coming together AT LAST, my body decides that if my mind can't hold me back anymore, "it" will...!!!!!... So now I have to beat that problem too!  I can’t let this aging/ailing body win!!!
 
I feel that life can be really cruel sometimes though!  Just when I feel that maybe, just maybe I've reached a place where I could trust in “ True Love” again... that my “Cinderella dreams” have somehow come alive again, I now have this aging/ailing body and on top of that problem, so much loose skin due to my healthy eating habits since 2012 and my resulting huge weight loss!  What man would want me now?  A fat woman could still find a man who would love her, but a thinner woman with disgusting loose flapping skin all over… HUMPH!  Sometimes life just doesn’t seem fair...  I never did have a good body image, but this just seems like a cruel joke... or twist of fate to add to what has always been anyway…

When I see the loose skin on my arms though… I say to myself: "I’m starting to grow my wings…"  Heehee!
 
For now, I don’t have time anymore to place too much focus on the problems in my life… I need to make full use of every valuable moment still given to me.  The self-editing on my book needs to be done by the 21st of this month… it’s then that I must hand it over to Teria for her proofreading work on it.  I am extremely grateful to her for offering to do that for me, because I know how very busy she is.
 
The thought of having my book published someday is something so very exciting to me… a dream I am still holding tightly onto and it feels so close now… a real possibility.  How it will be published I have no idea, because I certainly don’t have the funds, but in my heart, I know that it is going to happen, because of how many incredible, unexpected, wonderful, healing and beautiful doors have already been opened to my life since I started to study Logotherapy in my 50’s.  Surely this book was “meant to be”, and therefore, I have to believe that there are still more doors waiting to be opened and that this incredible dream will come true someday… soon I hope.
 
On the 23rd of this month, I will be celebrating my 60th birthday… shew!  May my 60’s be as wonderful as my 50’s has been, or even better still.  I aim to make it so…

My work for transcendence over my past must never stop…
 
I will someday die, but still fighting for my life and my healing from the lifelong effects of child abuse until my very last breath!    
 
This will be my greatest revenge over my abusers and my victory over all the debilitating sufferings they caused to a large portion of my life… and if in the process, I can help others along the way to fight their own “good fight” to find their healing and become all they were meant to be… to do all they were meant to do in this world, then I shall die a truly happy and successful woman, which I believe will even make me victorious over death.
 
I WILL NEVER EVER GIVE UP!
 
Written with LOVE for “the others” who are struggling to find your way out there… this is for you…
 
~ Pana