Unlimited transformation.. on steroids! - gratitude for 2014 –part **zero**

Happy solstice and happy holidays!
As 2015 is approaching I am taking time to review 2014 and schedule and plan my next year.. Many-many things to be grateful for. 

I was going to write a few blogs about it (..was planning about five :-) )..

It would've been nice to be able to write them down, not only in my head..
 :-) 
But as it happens, Victor was sick these last two weeks, three types of flu in a row..

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First it was bird's flu, one of them at least. Everything was peachy, we were having great fun; then he went to hide on the coach and I asked him two or three times what the matter was.. The next thing I know, he was very-very sick, nose running, fever, weird taste in his mouth, the whole package. 
In 20 minutes tops. 
And as I experienced this one a few years ago in my own body, I could understand the sudden radical change and also his hiding on the coach. I remember I could feel how the flu was taking over my body. It's a really weird sensation and quite unsettling as I felt that there was nothing I could do. I am sure that Victor could not explain. Luckily, I had experienced it myself. 

So we did not sleep a few nights - at least I didn't, holding Victor so he could breathe, attempting to nap while sitting.. 
He got better..
After a few days, the usual flu came :-) you know the one. Another series of almost no sleep nights as he was coughing - and I was coughing :-) (and that is when I wrote what's coming next, which I did not get to publish at the time :-) )

Yesterday he got the stomach flu. Up all night, changing beds three times, pajama's many times, paying attention when a new set of vomit (no fluffy word for that one) would come. He had some green smoothie in the afternoon (after 24 hours of drinking only water) and three spoons of mashed potatoes tonight, he is better now..

Suffice to say: my plans on writing lots of gratitude blogs kinda went down the drain :-) If you get my metaphor.. :-)
(.. but boy, am I grateful for co-sleeping! it made these two weeks enormously easier than they could've been)

Getting back to reviewing and planning, as 2013 was ending and I was planning 2014 the words "unlimited transformation" came to me, as a title for 2014. And wow, was that true! A few great things that happened in 2014, while I was experiencing the ".. on steroids" part:

• my first two solo exhibitions of my original art works- ever!
• I moved to a place where I can finally offer workshops; I love love love our new place, it's big and light and just like I wanted it to be;
• Shining Mama went official: I am the proud owner of a Dutch Chamber of Commerce number! (and hired an accountant: best first step that one can make when starting a business!)
• I got official permission to home-school (and believe me, that was and is a HUGE deal!);
• I finally was "let go" by some undesirable people, phew! 
• I've made a few wonderful friends;
• I have now my own garden which promises wonders;
• I started with the Shine Café, giving workshops and the Shine Shop;
• my first international orders!
• I figured out a way to combine my art with raw food; I thought of a good business model that allows me to express myself totally and do what I love - and to be able to support and inspire those who need to learn from what I am passionate about. Yay!
• I feel more and more inspired every day - and that's even if we have low energy days like these two last weeks.. 
• I wake up every day full of love and inspiration!

So this is what I wrote a few days ago.. 

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Lying awake in bed, coughing. At least it’s 8 o’clock in the morning and not 5 in the morning, like yesterday. (..although, when one goes to bed at 3 o’clock in the night, these are short nights).

Boy this brings up **bright** memories.. 

..NOT, you know what I mean?

Gratitude for coughing because it makes me realize how healthy I am these last four years.

I used to be sick almost all the time. I did not even notice it any more. 

Now that I haven’t been coughing like this in a long time (it’s been years) and being generally very healthy, I remember. 

Until four years ago - ever since my teen years and maybe for half of the time - I used to be coughing, having a serious cold, the flu or sinusitis. 

Do you know how they say that the flu lasts a week if you take medicine and 7 days if you’re not? I used to have an “internal” joke with myself - it just wasn't that funny - that I was sick one time a month and it would last 4 weeks..

The nights were really bad. Often I could not sleep because I would have to cough – for days in a row – and the only position that would help me breathe was sitting straight up. Either in a relationship or having someone sleeping close by (when I was living in a meditation center), I did not want to disturb others from their sleep. Thus many times I would sit on the lid of the toilet – isn’t that the most sound-insulated room in the house? – with a blanket wrapped around me, trying to keep warm and sleep like that between coughs.. But I was ending up always cold and coughing so hard that I would search everything in sight to attempt to stop it. Certainly in every pocket, bag or drawer I had a constant supply of coughing remedies of all sorts – coughing candy, the strongest I could find, all kind of Chinese crèmes, ointments or balsams and many sets of cloth or paper handkerchiefs.. And tea, and a salt supply plus cotton cloth to warm up and put on my chest if I could not breathe any more..

I would never ever go on a trip without all this.  

Or to work, for that matter.

It was quite sad.

I really did not have any idea what to do about it. I mostly also did not want to tell anybody, I thought it was not such a big deal, “we all have our little pains and aches” – and also because I did not want to appear like I was complaining. After all, I was a strong person on the inside.. Or rather, the inside of the inside, when the first inside was so sickly.

I also used to have other stuff that I will not talk about here, for the purpose of not grossing everybody out into unsubscribing. :-)

Right now, the coughing reminded me. I used to be really unhealthy.
Why is this so different now? It comes down to the green drinks and raw food.
I am really grateful for that.
And I am here to tell you: it does not have to be like that.
We all do not have to live with our little or big pains and aches, and we do not have to be sick almost all the time.
So, if I say that I am now so healthy, what’s up with today’s cough?

It was rather stupid of me, I might say :-)

1. Physically not taking care of me: two days ago I was working on my new set of boxes (see blog post) and Victor was with his best friend, out of the house for the day. I was so immersed in my work that I did not remember to put the heat up. It got really cold in the house (it’s winter, duh, it got down to 15C) and only after a few hours did I go and take care of myself, with a hot soup, the heat up, thick socks and an extra sweater. I am so rarely sick nowadays (the last 4 years) that I did not even think that it was a possibility. :-)

2. Also, I must secretly admit, it came also from a scarcity mentality: I did not want to put the heat up. Since Victor was born I made the house warm because I wanted Victor to not experience the cold like I used to when I was little (and that’s another story). So I did the “un-Dutch” thing and kept the heating system on in the winter, also in the night  (for my friends in Romania who might get confused: in the Netherlands one can mostly decide per room if the heating is on and they put it out at night – plus that the general idea is that it’s healthy to sleep with your windows open even if it’s freezing outside). Besides the cultural differences about what temperature would be healthy (in the NL that is decidedly lower than in RO), we enjoyed the warmth. But, as I am more and more “integrating” in the Dutch culture (and to be honest, because the heating bill was quite big), I got to the point where I also turn the heat all the way down to minimum (5C) in the night and I only put it up in the morning or when it’s getting cold (17C or lower). That particular day I did not put it on at all..  Because I thought I might as well spare the cost if Victor was not around..

One does better when knowing better.. :-)

I am thankful for heating. (maybe there’s a good point in being a bit sick, if it ants up the gratitude :-) ) 

To be continued.. :-)

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