If you are living with a chronic physical or mental illness you understand the word: Trigger. It is important because once you know your triggers you can better protect yourself from episodes or flares. My main triggers are: angry people, fighting voices and being lied to, weather changes, smoke and mildew, nightshade fruits and vegetables, additives, food coloring and certain cooking oils. There are more but those are the biggest…oh the joys of chronic illness!

As I peruse certain social media sites and news broadcasts I think most of society has a few trigger words: Trump, Biden, Inslee and Racism are just a few.

On November 3, 2020 I posted on my personal wall on Facebook:

Trump is president until he is not….

I want to share something with you. I had an emotional break when Trump became president. I disassociated for I don’t know how long. The very sound of his voice or his name would cause me to have an anxiety attack. It wasn’t until the last year that I have been able to call him President Trump. You can judge me or listen to me…that is your choice…your opinion of me is none of my business….

Over the last few years, I have prayed for President Trump. I have watched him grow a little bit. I don’t hate him and I have found a few things to respect about him.

I am writing this for people who don’t know they can refuse to watch tv tonight. I am writing this for people who are so stressed out and on edge about what will happen. I am telling you, it doesn’t matter what is going to happen tonight. I am ready for a full-on fight to the Supreme Court and hoping for a peaceful ending.

No matter, who you are voting for, President Trump is president until he is not. Radical acceptance is a life-saver to me and I want to share it with you. We will not die and our lives will not change that much in the next few months, regardless of who wins.

So if he is not your choice, or even if he is, I want to tell you, you have a right to not turn the tv on. You can read a book, play with your kids, stream from your favorite service or watch DVDs..I am thinking Hulu is where I will be tonight and probably the next few nights because I am a hypersensitive person and I have to protect myself from the chaos of the American people who are acting out.

This post is not about who our president is. It is about choosing how much chaos I want to ingest. Stress kills people too. I think people have forgotten that not everything is about any one person, even if that person is the president or not. I am not advocating for any candidate. I am advocating for good mental health.

God bless you.

I am so surprised by some of the responses from people who did not understand that I was talking about my personal experience and mental health. All they wanted to do was use my wall to share their opinions on the candidates. This made me sad.

Are you Choosing to Stay Angry?

My good friend, Jamie, told me, not too long ago, that emotions are a choice. Now, I had come to understand that Joy and Peace are choices because the bible says so, often, to choose them but I hadn’t considered that all emotions are choices and we don’t have to be run by them. I have been trying to learn this well.

In the homea I was raised in, certain things were not my choice…So many things that I didn’t even realize many other choices were available to me as well. So I am trying to catch up. I have been told I am very immature for my age, by some people and very mature by others. I will be 45 on my next birthday and even though I don’t really mind what others think about me, unless they are working to have a healthy relationship with me, I do want to catch up to what I think a 45-year-old woman should be able to comprehend and process in a healthy manner.

I come from people who enjoy being angry. I am not sure they would agree with that statement but I know how long it has taken me to understand that I can choose to be angry or I can choose to be something else, and I want to celebrate that. Even my therapist was happy with me when I told her how I had chosen to not engage with someone for a fight, but remained calm and waited for them to make that choice too. When people are angry all the time, it is easy to fight. I can’t afford to fight.

When I allow myself to become angry, I am not in control of myself. I am not hearing or listening. I am just angry and sometimes it takes days for me to come back down. The result is to lose time where I could be at peace and productive; it is also a flare. When my emotional health is out of wack, it triggers fibromyalgia, who will engage psoriatic arthritis and lymphedema (who is always kind of a bitch anyway) and then the list of possible painful and potentially embarrassing symptoms fight over who will enter the door first…and they always stay too long. I look at this as a blessing because it forces me to choose peace, which is what my soul really wants.

Can you relate to any of this?

Peace is What Our Souls Crave the Most!

I am still telling myself: Trump is president until he is not…

That statement is not against him or for him, it is just a truth that I can find peace in because it is true. Even though the media is trying to engage us with rumors that Biden may have won the war over who presides in the White House, I am choosing to say: Trump is president until he is not….

I can’t do anything about our government, other than vote…and I did that. Worrying or being angry about the results will not make our government stronger and it sure wont make me stronger.

Our souls crave peace and some of us are so starved of it, we don’t know what it is anymore. Peace is that quiet, calmness that we can slip away to, inside ourselves. I have always enjoyed being alone, however I did not always have peace. In fact without my medication and mindfulness practices there is a screaming that overcomes me in my mind that distracts me and makes it hard for me to focus and make good choices. That screaming is deafening and aggravating and anxiety ridden. I have named her Anna and she is friends with Veda and those two do not make my life even slightly bearable. I named them because it is easier to love them if they have a name. I bet that sounds weird to you.

Love is the only thing that can overcome hate and anger. Acceptance of personal responsibility and rights is part of love that can be shared and given to ourselves.

How do you love yourself?

We Have a Choice

There is a camaraderie found in choosing a political party, not unlike choosing friends. But when our friends encourage us to hurt other people, would we continue to stay in that relationship? I don’t see a lot of wisdom in choosing one side. I value attributes of both sides, but I also abhor some of the behaviors I see on both sides. When I separate my emotions from what I see, it is easy for me to say that I am neither red or blue…I am not purple either…but more like a red, white and blue tie-dyed t-shirt with bursts of colors that dance together.

I am not setting any one person’s political choices on fire. I believe in the strength of the soldiers who have died to allow me the right to make my own choices without persecution. What I would like to do is shine a light on what is true. We have had 58 successful elections in our short life as the United States and only 45 presidents. I have never experienced the level of anger and hatred that I see now. Yes it was there, and it seems to have gotten more noticeable with every election since I can remember but not like now. Why is that?

My wife said something last night that caught my attention. I may be paraphrasing her badly but it was along the lines of this: We shouldn’t just be red or blue but we should be Red, White and Blue, the colors of our flag, because we are Americans before we are a political party. Karen and I don’t agree on everything politics but we do agree on this: We are Americans and we are lucky to be Americans and we should not be fighting each other.

So if you are reading this and you never knew it before: You have a choice. You have lots of choices. Don’t let the media or the masses stop you from hearing the quiet place inside you. If you don’t have a quiet place, please find someone to talk to. We were not made to fight. We were made to be in relationship with each other. We were made for peace.

It’s ok to take your finger off of the trigger.

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

Do you know Jesus? Do want the Holy Spirit to fill you and give you understanding and salvation? Ask Him. Want someone to pray with you? Contact me.

If you would like to know Jesus as your friend, but want to make this amazing commitment by yourself please pray something like this:

Thank you Jesus that You are the Son of God, the God that created heaven and earth. Thank you Jesus that You came to earth in the form of a man so that You would be able to empathize with my humanity. Thank You that You did this in order to fulfill the promises You made at the foundation of the world.

I realize that I am a sinner and do things that hurt myself and keep myself away from you. Thank You that You died for my sins so that You could defeat death and bring me into Your life. Please forgive me.

I ask You to be Lord of my life. I ask you to heal my hurts and show me what my new life, empowered by You looks like. Thank You for Your mercy.

Amen

The Lord is with you always.