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Blog-a-thon Day 14
Still bloggin away, but admittedly, sluggish today. Sluggish and grateful. Kyle is back to himself and is happy and peaceful. This makes my heart smile. (Do hearts smile? Kinda feels like they do sometimes).
I was interviewed on KABC (see bottom for the link) bright and early at 6:45 this morning. Darn time difference! Confession: part of my brain was still asleep and I hope the words that flowed out of my mouth in the fast-paced interview made some sense. We will see.
There was a question about how I came across the mantra “loving and living well with autism”. What I forgot to say on the radio was that this came to us (me and Kathy, my coauthor) when we were titling our first book, "It’s All About Attitude". We decided that phrase summed up the message we were sharing with readers.
Personally, I know that I realized if I could love and live well with autism in my life, I would have conquered autism. I didn’t need to “fix” my son, I needed to “fix” my attitude. It took me some time, but after awhile I learned that “fixing” was a process. There was no “there point” to get to, this attitude business was a journey. And I would learn to adjust my attitude in baby steps, sometimes taking one step forward and then two steps back.
The phrase “letting go” keeps coming back to me. In many respects a shift in attitude is about letting go. And then letting go again and again. The more I can let go, the happier I feel.
Lo and behold, when I was doing the morning random card pick from my No Place Like Om (http://www.noplacelikeomyoga.com/) inspirational card deck, here is what I chose:
Pain vs Suffering
There is a Zen story of two monks who were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was falling. Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection. “Come on, girl,”said the first monk. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud. The second monk did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he could no longer restrain himself. “We monks don’t go near females,” he said. “It is dangerous. Why did you do that?”
“I left the girl there,” the first monk said. “Are you still carrying her?”
Sandi (creator of the card deck) goes on to say "Pain (might be) the reality of the situation around us, but suffering is caused by our relationship to that reality, whether we can let go of the past, and by our attitude."
Words to live by this week: Letting Go
Listen to my interview here:
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain/article/231/0/1685937/The.Roundtable/Gayle.Nobel.-.%27Breathe%27
NOTE: Still having trouble with the link feature on my blog so please copy and paste the link to your browser. Gotta love technology! :-)
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