Last week was really rough for me. I hate to admit it, but for the first time in years I was licking the inside rim of the pity pot. Nasty business. Soul Puke. No need to know the gory details. Three huge disappointments, heartbreaks all in a row, and … my resiliency got severely tested. So what did I do? I indulged. Not something I’m proud of but, hey! I’m human. Most times I”m pretty balanced, but last week I lost it. Completely. Utterly. I ate all the sugar I could get my hands on, for a few days, lost it. To hell with meditation! The “old habit” of self-pity got its claws into my Heart, I know it ought not by now, but–hey! I’m human. Two steps forward, a million backwards. We all know the way progress of any sort goes.

I accept my humanness. I’m perfect in my imperfections. We all are.

Sometimes we humans get thrown off our track, our well-meaning Road Less Traveled. For those of us who consider the Stillness of cultivating a spiritual connection to life, meditation one of the highest roads available, even we get raped, pillaged, plundered by life events, every now and then and when that happens—we forget our spiritual tools that keep us sane.

So … when I taught my once-a-week yoga class last Wednesday night I naturally chose as its theme what I needed to focus on. Balance. In a yoga asana pose, and in life.

After my Big Bang Heart Attack, those 3 heartbreaks in a row, I gave myself a few days to feel the pain of my lower self (thank you, feelings) and … thanks to the tools I’ve learned through years of practice … I contemplated what I needed to do to right myself, get myself back on track. To let go of life’s disappointments and once again, take up the armor of being a lieutenant in the Army of Love. I reminded myself to practice what I like to talk about here, on Lord Flea.

To love. Unabashedly. Unconditionally. Universally.

To love myself, number one. To forgive myself, and others, for not being perfect, when I forget it’s okay to just be … human. And when I can do that, I can forgive the entire world situation as well. We’re all stumbling around, aren’t we? looking for how best to live our lives. Everyone does their best. I truly believe this.

I can forgive the people, places and things that hurt my heart. I can forgive everything—by accepting—and remembering that some things are beyond my knowledge, control, and certainly my wishes. I can re-focus my efforts, and decide to remain in my Big Heart, not my conflicted puny mind. I can do this, at least. Once the white sugar blues wears away, and I’ve sweated out all the negatives that scratched and clawed at my Big Heart. Maybe next time I’ll be stronger, and won’t indulge in the drug of sweet. At least I don’t worship the grape, the weed anymore, at least that, thankfully.

Our feelings are “signs from God.” They tell us how to turn, adjust, add to or take away whatever is making our lives feel out of whack. The feeling part is essential. For those of us who used to run from our feelings, numb them with chemicals or denial—these folks aren’t in tune with their real true human nature. That feelings are “signs.” If we listen to them, not run or hide or mask them, we can actually learn to live balanced happy lives.

For me, I needed to refocus on positives. After those three BIG negatives hit me, bam bam bam! I weakened. So big deal, I shed a few tears, whined a few “poor me’s” and my consort Carter once again, got to be my big brother, and hugged me back to loving myself. As I get to do to him, too, when he’s down. Ain’t love great!

Today I’m again shining and in the center of my Big Heart. Glad I made the choice to look at my life, assess my pros and cons, and make some changes. I’m glad I did not do anything more drastic, more permanent than a few extra pieces of cake.

A family member committed suicide this week. A college professor, I just finished reading his 11-page letter (posthumously posted to his blog, damn! what a way to say goodbye, yuk!). If he had reached out and spoken aloud the frustration and disappointment he felt, many of us who cared for him, loved him for who he was, truly unique as we all are, could have comforted him, as big brother Carter did me, last week. But instead, he chose to take his own life, the ultimate selfish act in my opinion.

We all have free will. We can choose to notice when our lives are in balance, or not. The trick is “to know” when we get off kilter. Sometimes we have to get messages from our feelings, or friends, or—BIG rejections, disappointments—feeling our efforts are like pissing in the wind, our fabulous, utterly wonderful work is that which nobody gives a shit about. (Ha! now you know, the reward of knowing, for those who’ve struggled to the end of today’s post. Rejection is always my Achilles heel, my personal arrow of Truth.)

Here I publicly renew my VOW: I choose to consciously live my life, and when I’m out of whack, I’ll re-align myself to something Greater Than Myself. I won’t whack myself. I promise.

Change is the name of the game. That’s the only constant in life … Change is chaos theory, quantum physics, the universal consciousness we are all part of. We Are ONE, that’s the only truth I can ever say I’d bet my life on.

Lovingly yours, truly!

your pal LordFlea, aka teZa