On February 5th, 2012, a friend who calls herself, the Frugal Xpat, commented:
Category Archives: healing
Vietnam War veteran recalls his journey
Dealing with the Vietnam War becomes a little easier each time I write about it. I “desensitize” myself. I now see my actions as separate from the emotions I felt while a young soldier, as well as the feelings of guilt many veterans like me, imposed on ourselves while readjusting to civilian life. It’s helpful when a high school student asks questions and you try to be honest and direct.
Continue reading
Let the Superfluous go, Cruise a Freeway
Shifting into cruise control, I let myself glide through many of life’s activities nowadays. I relax, take several deep breaths, and seek a place inside where there are no thoughts, no worries, and no frets.
Where is the boy I left home for the war?
Greet your road with love and compassion
Abide in the moment you just completed
I am Complete.
I am Finished.
I’ve done what I have done and everyone can be satisfied with my efforts, including — and most importantly — me. Continue reading
Omega opens doors to lost PTSD veterans
I didn’t want to go back to Omega Institute this year. Each time I travelled to this land of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, I’d get high from the holistic experience. But then I’d change into an Ichabod Crane feeling chased by the Headless Horseman, who’d tell true-life stories that caused so much pain I couldn’t hold it inside. Continue reading
Keeping all Alive a ‘Lifetime Achievement’
After serving in the Vietnam War, I turned my back on anything having to do with the military, and so I was totally surprised years later when, requesting my medals, I got one that I still don’t believe I earned.  Continue reading
Mindfully cleaning pot helps cleanse mind
Cleaning a pot can be very meaningful, particularly if you block out all thoughts and concentrate on nothing but you and the instrument that has helped provide you with so much nourishment.  Continue reading
Being present for the dying brings all alive
Death entered my life recently and I’ve felt so alive with its presence.  Continue reading
Only the Pure in Heart Will See their Goal
Purity
There’s something in it that resonates with me. In my private moments, I try my best to connect with it, but once I start to analyze it, it vanishes. Continue reading
Exercise Gets Me Higher, Step by Step
I get such a high while exercising that I can’t imagine why I haven’t done this more often in life.  Continue reading
Point of the bruising is in the treatment
A Benefit Can Outdo the Pain Sometimes
A black and blue mark developed on my chest, and I didn’t notice it until a fellow swimmer pointed it out while I was in a pool at the gym. The mark is a full inch in diameter, and I would gladly take on a half-dozen more for the immense benefit the initial bruising provided me.
‘Mammy’ can you hear? It’s your little boy!
View All You have Contact with as Your Mother
There is a tradition in Eastern philosophies where you’re taught to view each person and other sentient being as if he, she – or it is your mother. I never knew how nurturing this could be until I allowed the child in me to reciprocate and bask in the most secure and loving place.  Continue reading
How many times must we say “I’m Sorry”?
Will I ever Be Forgiven for My Actions?
Saying you’re sorry can be downright scary.
Enlightening Chant Charms Meditation
After chanting a non-English mantra for some time, I finally learned its definition and discovered a gem of wisdom while contemplating its meaning. Meditating will never be the same, and I want to share with others a little of the enlightenment it’s provided me.
Om Mani Padme Hung Continue reading
A Change in Time Helps Change my Reality
Reality shifted on me the other day, and it helped me realize that I have more control than my “resifted” thoughts allowed me to see. Now, with a “time-control outlook,” I can try to change my world for the better.  Continue reading
Rush Limbaugh should Study Reproduction
We should accept Rush Limbaugh’s apology for calling a woman a slut only if he agrees to take and pass a course on female reproduction. Then, and only then, can we be assured that someone other than locker-room juveniles has finally taught him the real facts about the birds and the bees. Continue reading
Seeing a Veteran’s’ History Never Repeats
Do all of us & yourself a favor.
Keep an eye out for a Veteran.
Actively seek out someone in your church, synagogue or temple and befriend him so that what happened in Philadelphia last week never happens again.  Continue reading
No where to go but ‘up’ after looking down
The damn branch broke my concentration. I had not planned for an overhanging tree limb to block the pathway, walking three-quarters of a mile from my home to the train station, with my head facing my feet the entire time.
Daily Meditation Desperately Needed
It’s time for my disappearing act to begin. I close my eyes, wave an imaginary magic wand, and slowly begin to vanish from existence here. All thoughts and fears come to an end as I find protection beneath a cloak of invisibility, safe from the savages outside and the demons within.  Continue reading
‘Too Afraid’ to Say a ‘Woman Scared You’
Life-Long Habit ‘Stroked’ Up In Smoke
I can think of many ways to stop a bad habit without having to suffer a stroke that goes untreated for years and years.  Continue reading
Resolve to Stop Anger from Feeding on Me
Anger
It hits like a poison arrow causing me to drop what I’m doing and focus on the pain it inflicts.
Recalling childhood angels with dirty faces
I can think of no worse place to be than in a church, a temple, or a synagogue when an unbidden and involuntary giggle would invade my psyche and take control of me. A “giggle” is too mild a word: uncontrollable laughter would rise to the level of guffaws and downright knee-slappers, right at the most somber parts of a religious service. Continue reading
Getting High With A Little Help From . . .
I got High Again.
I didn’t know how much I needed a “fix” until my head slumped on my chest and I “awoke” to a restful, calm, and peaceful world I had been away from for what seemed a lifetime. I felt.
Love & Comfort Your Self on Sick Days
There’s something about getting sick on a day off that allows me to feel sorry for myself free of all guilt. I take pity on myself; I baby myself; I pamper myself. Nothing prevents me from going “easy” on myself and refraining from pushing to get something done. Continue reading
My life is dependent on the rest of you
I am as dependent on you as you are on me, as we all are on the kindness and labor of others we too often take for granted.
As I look around, I see that my fortune is dependent on the cooperation and contributions of others. Continue reading
My Loving Prayer to Saint Francis of Assisi
I want to follow you and not lead
War is never the answer today (11-11-11)
On this Veterans Day, 11-11-11, what would you tell yourself if you could go back in time and greet that young man recently returned home from the war?
Breathing mindfully helps to unclog me
I never thought I’d be thankful for a stuffy nose, but it helped me to meditate without really trying. It all started on a day I was off from work, and I stayed in bed as ten thousand thoughts ran through my mind. I noticed a clogged nostril and focused all of my attention on trying to reopen it.  Continue reading
“For the Signs, they are a ‘Changing'”
(From Part I, These are true signs of our Times/)
The greatest protest of our generation is seeking change in all shapes and sizes. You can see it in the signs the demonstrators carry, writing the letters out really big with magic markers so that passersby need not squint to get the messages.
Bliss Arises when I Still My Self Inside
Ah, Bliss!
Choosing death so that others might live
Eight Tibetan Buddhist monks set themselves on fire to protest the Chinese occupation of their country. They took their own lives when soldiers of the army set up quarters in Tibetan monasteries.
End needless suffering in US debates
Tone it down, America. You are cutting off your nose to spite your face. The face of the body politic, that is, we are creating needless hurt for the countrymen we’d like to lead to our mutual goal: the pursuit of happiness.  Continue reading
Acupuncture: ‘Dragon drives out Demon’
A Dragon entered me and drove away a Demon last night!
A student at the WON Institute performed acupuncture, penetrating into my psyche as well as my epidermis. More importantly, she opened her heart with such compassion I wept, feeling her healing spread throughout my body and soul.  Continue reading
Can A Wrong Ever Serve Into A Right?
“Conduct Unbecoming an Officer and a Gentleman.”
Never thought an affair I had with a married woman before turning 21 would qualify for “conduct unbecoming,” but looking back, I see how conflicted parties to such an act could become.
Recovering from my road rage confession
Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I have cursed out drivers on the open highway and prayed their mothers had never conceived them. In or at of wedlock, those dirty b . . . . . .
Can Hell Actually Be Just ‘Other People?’
Felt disconnected from the World as I knew it yesterday.
A tough road makes journey a little easier
When my father spoke Greek with the disciplinarian of the Catholic High School where I played hooky at age 14, I thought I had it made.
Continue readingForgive warrior’s defense of the sensitive
You invited me to your House, and I broke confidence in you.
Walk a Labyrinth full with love & no desire
All I want to do, is Give. Not Take. Continue reading
Abraham, Martin & John Live On Within
Rain pours on me outside, while soft music warms me on the inside. “Abraham, Martin, and John,” the song, plays from this relatively new gadget called a portable, hand-held, transistor radio.
The shame of it all starts an upward ascent
Be careful what you wish for. You could get your heart’s desire and wish you had never asked for it in the first place.
St. Michael Strikes and Heals All at Once
I felt like Alice falling in the hole after chasing a White Rabbit. But, falling “upwards” defying the laws of Gravity and Rational Sense.
Act of Contrition Helps Regain My Purity
Got Blanket Absolution yesterday. And, it felt so good, I became a 12-year-old again. Ready to face the world with a clear conscious and a pure heart.
I See You for the Very First Time, Don’t I?
- I see You more and more each day. All I need do, is look for You. Kinda scrunch up my mind a bit, squint, and let my Self go. Continue reading
Suffocate? Let go of Control & Open up Self
Grace suffocated and I retaliated by smashing my ego to help free up her passageway during group meditation this morning.
Pain Endures from Struggles in a ‘Back’ Life
The pain feels like someone thrust a spear in my back. That I was in battle. At the city of Troy. Fighting with fellow Greeks for the foolish prize of a minor King’s run-a-way, but lovely, wife, Helen. She with a face that will launch a thousand ships.
Unexplained ‘Pull’ leading me back Home
A gentle “pull” manifested in my Life recently. I noticed it last night while driving and wanted no more than to live in each passing moment.
Angels Appear as Earthly Messengers
(This story was created in October 2009 but not published in its entirety until now.)
It’s just like heaven . . . Being here with you . . . You’re like an Angel. Too good to be true. When You are near me. My heart skips a beat. I can hardly stand on. My own two feet. Because I Love You; I Love You, I Do.
‘Angel Baby‘. My ‘Angel Baby‘. Oh, Ooh, I Love You, Oh, Ooh, I Do . . . No One Could Love You . . . Like I Do!
Concealing & finding self –a life-long effort
Hello! Anybody here? It sure is dark inside. Like a huge cavern with hardly any light.
Falling in Love with the Love of Your Life
Fell head over heels in love the past few weeks. Didn’t want to do it. Had always gotten “hurt” in relationships, knowing from the start they’d come to an end one day. Love seemed to change that way. To peter out. End not with a “bang,” but with a “whimper.”
Weekend Euphoria Needs Time To Set
The Greatest Weekend — No. II
* Uncertain if my true love would ever be mine, I fell to my knees . . . praying for her affection. It was . . . a Sunday.
Conspiracy of Love to Heal Us All, Now!
Glenda “laid hands” on me; I lost track of who I was and why!
Even on bad days, music can lift me higher
“The Crossing” filled me with sounds of the Rapture last night as I surrendered to the harmonies some 25 voices offered me on entering Heaven. Continue reading
Labyrinth opens a hidden maze inside me
Walked a Labyrinth and stepped back into the Vietnam War last night.
Trouble is . . . I liked it. Did not want to leave the maze despite what lay ahead. Strangely, I felt “safe” there. Secure in my “skills.” Didn’t want to come home. Just like years earlier.
Shiatsu workout straightens out back & Chi
Back talk. Anyone experiencing pain might know where I’m headed. My back is talking loud and clear, and no matter what I do, I can’t shut it up.
Goin’ to farm; pick blueberries barefooted
Cousin Rosemarie Lieb.
A Hagel/Westergom Union Fits my Granny
The Only Grandfather I Ever Knew was a Hobo.
Don Quixote battles PTSD in Philly courts
I never felt more like Don Quixote than when I represented a woman charged with a crime.
War stories penetrate a family gathering
The knife “broke skin” and went an inch into my back.
The Gospel According to Bobby Darin
Wasn’t sure a Gospel Song would fit in with Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs) at a music appreciation meet last week.
Answer is Within, 2nd Coming Proclaims
“The Gospel Writers got it All Wrong!“
‘Divine Madness’ Reaches Out To Me Daily
“Divine Madness“
Seeing improves with my cataract removal
My “Fishbowl” Look is Gone.
Bliss arises in cherishing of another’s woes
An African American woman showed me how to take on the suffering of the world during a five-day retreat on perfecting perpetual peace in my soul.
‘Do the Right Thing’–do what’s right for you
Part II from Escaping-Brewerytown
The moment of truth came down to one question: “Who else was with you?”
Escaping Brewerytown in 1 Piece Not Easy
I never took my eyes off the gun. The man’s hand shook. I was afraid it would go off. Raising my own hands, I prayed that he would not shoot, and said “I’m coming out,” slowly climbing out of the window, placing one foot on the ground and then the other as I exited the ACME supermarket warehouse building two blocks from my home. Continue reading
‘Garlic’s Imprint’ Holds Many Limitations
A friend dreamed she could not swim well in water and had to return to the shore or face peril. It seems the dream reflected her real life. (See “To Be Me.”) She said she was not a very good swimmer, and she wondered why — even in one’s dream — we impose such limitations on ourselves?
‘Sound Bath’ Calms & Heals us with Love
I feel a healing begin, as tears form, and I am so grateful to release what’s building inside — something so wonderful it becomes too good to contain.
I’m heartily sorry for having offended thee
“Michael J,
The biggest lie you ever told was that you could say something about sexual orientation and not hurt someone whose way of life might be different from yours.
Going back home sans the Maidenform bra
What’s the biggest lie you ever told?
Saigon Lady offers wisdom at check out
Saigon Lady taught me about Life and Buddhism last night.
Continue reading
Hopping Trains Fools No One but Myself
I’ll Never Hop a Train Again.
Dream of Swinging on a Star Rings Out
Part II Smith’s Playground inspires years later
Reaching out with my right hand, I’d grab the metal ring. I would stand on my toes to pull it closer to the wooden platform I was balanced on.
Blogging creates craving when ‘Net’s down
I’m hooked. Couldn’t go an hour without needing a “fix.” I wonder how many others this phenomena effects? And how dangerous this addiction could be to my health?
Unconditional love comforts a Buddha cat
Sundance sneezed five times. Shouldn’t have surprised me. I “felt” I was helping her as she lay across my legs, jettisoning hundreds of microscopic objects onto my leg and arm where her small furry head had just rested.  Continue reading
Time to get back into the swim of life now
Thirty-Six Laps!
The “kid” still got it. Swam 36 laps this afternoon, the first time I’ve exercised in four months.
Mary’s Tears help Battle Flashbacks of War
The only thing that seemed to help Mary was the tears.
The act of crying seemed to “loosen up” and cushion the fear and anxiety that would strike her unexpectantly. Every time she’d hear a siren, she’d feel her chest tighten, her palms sweat, and her heartbeat race. “Twenty minutes” she’d say and look at a watch or a clock. It will all be over in 20 minutes. The world as she knew it would all be over. Destroyed by nuclear war.
Answers to Questions about Vietnam War
This Veteran tells a Student about the War
Continue readingOld love songs morph into new spirituals
A soldier bows in salute to heartfelt words
A Soldier, and No One Else!
Light shines here from a tip of the candle
Veterans Can Share Understanding of War
‘Veterans are the light at the tip of the candle, illuminating the way for the whole nation.
50 chews per bite is goal, not meals’ end!
The Outcome Doesn’t Matter
Imperfect clergy always been kinda cool
Merging Two into One Okay, Michael J
“Belief in God, and
following Buddhism
is not incompatible.”
Grief Delayed me while in Military Service
I was in the Army less than a week when the news hit me. I had my head shaven; my civilian clothes exchanged for fatigue pants and a shirt, not to mention boots and headgear, something I had never worn before in my life.
Got drafted on the Third of June, the day that Billie Jo McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge! I was 19 years old in 1968 — knew no one — and was away from my Philadelphia, PA, home for the first time.
Hudson River Magic Calls me to Omega
Got a check for $9 in the mail yesterday. It was for travel expenses on a trip I took five months ago. It came to me like magic. I must have lost it in the IKEA store of Conshohocken, and it just appeared out of nowhere for my return trip.
Old warriors share PTSD woes with young
Never thought of myself as a “warrior.” Wasn’t that a term used by Third World tribes or ancient civilizations building empires on one war after another?
‘Sutta Nipata’ Calls me to Omega Institute
Will return to Omega Institute this week for a 5-day Retreat to meditate on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) with veterans led by the Rev. Claude AnShin Thomas, an ordained Buddhist monk and a Vietnam War veteran.
Meditate and it will ‘erase’ all but the Now
Ruby,
You tell me you wish that we could have an eraser in our lives to go back and “Erase Our Mistakes.”
Writing clears up the ‘clogged up’ space
Put a finger on ‘Sa Ta Na Ma’ Meditation
Got a quick “fix” for you. But don’t try to finger this “hit” unless you’re alone, or with someone you trust.
Loving, Longing, Yearning for My Beloved
When will I see my Beloved? To feel arms surround me, a touch to comfort me, the warmth of an embrace to shelter me from any harm man can devise against another.
A body speaks its mind to free and heal you
I felt free for the first time in a long time today. Dr. Jodi Schwartz-Levy conducted a Somatic Therapy session for four practioners, and each walked away with all expectations met. And then some.
Remembering the Greatest Time of my Life
What does your first memorable kiss, and then scoring a break-away touchdown and opening to your Higher Self all have in common?
Acupuncture pitches ‘halvies’ to a Vet
Had an “Out-of-Body” Experience.
Don’t let Love speed away; but yield slowly
Cont’d from Part I, Dolphins display love as human escorts
Opening up to a stranger is never easy. But when you feel trust and an open vulnerability offered to you, you can shed your safeguards and become the loving person I believe we were always meant to be. Just yield slowly.
‘I Wanna go Home’ Starts & Ends Within
On reading “I wanna go home,” I was moved to respond about Love Within:
Reach inside of yourself. Look for the Love. It’s there. Now, let it flow throughout your body, your system. Never mind thoughts trying to intrude onto this feeling. Your love is stronger and mightier than any thought — negative or otherwise.
Contoveros 