Right Brainers | Martha Atkins

What’s Your Story

June 3, 2011 By Martha Atkins 9 Comments

She’s standing in front of you now.

Spit flying. Pissed Off. Red faced. She berates your every move. Hates your brilliant ideas. Won’t let you forget the times you messed up. Won’t shut up about how you’ll never be as good as anyone else.

What do you do?

Turn and run? Yell back? Give her the finger and punch her in the head? Sink into a black spiral of nasty ass depression? Agree with all of it?

Random human walks up. Looks at you. Looks at her. Tells you she’s not real.

You know she’s real. You’ve stuffed her with food and pills and drama to make her shut the hell up. She has to be real.

Random human says, no really. Look. It’s all a story you made up. In fact a bunch of stories. They kept you safe. Now they’re just annoying.

A story? A stupid story? WTF? I KNOW this is real. It’s my life. It’s real. This is REAL.

Random human asks what could happen, if just for a moment, you allowed yourself to believe a new story? One where you are happy and content. One where meaning and magic and wonder all flow together. One where your life, your everyday existence on the planet, becomes a gift.

What transformation could happen if you dared believe all that?

Random human invites you to share a comment and tell us.

Imagine. The. Possibilities.

Filed Under: Blog, Mind, Transitions

Mysteries of Knowing

April 10, 2010 By Martha Atkins 1 Comment

Horace and my father live at the same retirement center and that’s how I’ve come to know and tell this story.

Horace’s wife, Bea, lived at the nursing home across the sidewalk from the retirement center.

Every day for almost three years, Horace walked over to visit Bea and feed her lunch. And every day was another she didn’t recognize him, even after 50 years of marriage.

Alzheimer’s left Bea without speech or memories. She didn’t acknowledge Horace’s presence, his daily acts of love. The part of her that could do those things had long since gone away.

Horace was summoned to the nursing home a few weeks ago. Her breath slowing, Bea was near death.

Horace talked to her as though she could hear and understand him, just as he always had done. He talked about their life together and said again, as he had every time before they parted company, ”I love you.”

Without fanfare, after not recognizing her husband or speaking to him for years, Bea turned and looked at Horace. The cloudiness in her eyes gone and with a clear voice, she spoke to him. ”I love you.” Then she closed her eyes and was gone.

Horace is still trying to make sense of it all. It was a gift he says. Indeed it was.

There are mysteries of this universe we try to quantify, to make sense of, to solve. Sometimes the best explanation is that there isn’t one, at least not one our human minds can comprehend.

Sometimes the best we can do is give thanks for the gift, for the mystery of the moment we were awake enough to see.

Today I offer my gratitude for holy moments, the ones crossing my path with more frequency. These are the signposts, the arrows beckoning me this way or that way as my journey unfolds.

I’ve learned to follow now, mostly without question. When I do, when I open myself up and trust, when I pay attention, the gifts are all around me.

Horace, I offer my condolences on the loss of your beloved, Bea. I thank you for sharing your story and for pointing me again toward the glorious unknown.

What kinds of holy moments have you encountered? How do you make sense of your journey when mysteries like these arise? I’d love hear your stories.

Filed Under: Right Brainers, Woo Woo

George

April 4, 2010 By Martha Atkins Leave a Comment

I’m leaving my house soon to go and meet a man who is dying. George I’ll call him.

I think George has cancer though I don’t really know and that’s not so important now. I do know he is beginning to open up to a world that most of us cannot see. He is dreaming but not dreaming. He is experiencing some other worldly things that aren’t hallucinations. Hospice people are caring for him with tenderness. His family loves him.

George is grappling with the realities of having an intact mind and failing body. And now, over the last few weeks, his soul work has begun.

When I first heard about George, I knew I would meet him - didn’t know how or when but I knew. Now I know without a doubt he has something to teach me that I’m ultimately supposed to pass along to people around me.

That pass it along part has hung me up for a long time.

George is going to share his experiences with me and I will craft them into a story because I that’s something I love to do. Someone will read the story and ultimately be able to help someone else.

Not everyone who reads the story will get it. That’s ok. Those who need it will and that knowledge sits peacefully in my being. I don’t fight it any longer and now that I’ve stopped that silliness, all kinds of wonderful things are happening. I’m in the flow. George is his flow, too – and what a gift for me to share some time with him.

What you know, those gifts you possess that others do not, are there for a purpose – for a greater good that you may or may not understand. Own them. Use them. Then sit back and watch where you life takes you. You will not be disappointed.