My family laid my father to rest five years ago after his VALIANT fight with cancer. One of the greatest decisions I ever made was taking time off from my career to assist in his daily care regimen. What started out as a tumor in his nasal cavity, eventually found its way to his brain. You may hear stories about the effects of this dis-ease, but until you witness a loved one battle it on a daily basis, you simply cannot fathom the all encompassing and oppressive wrath of nature it brings to everyone involved in its wake. NASTY STUFF!
And as a caretaker, each and every day becomes an opportunity to learn the importance of managing your own expectations. Learning to orchestrate and fully ACCEPT what may come in the kaleidoscope of daily chaos is truly the determining factor in withstanding the momentous task at hand. To further cement this point, let's just say projectile vomiting, daily trips to emergency rooms, and fainting spells that block entrances to popular establishments became commonplace. Feel me?!
In fact, there is one particular story during this Journey that still stands as the most MEMORABLE, not to mention most powerful example of the importance of managing your daily expectations and accepting life as it occurs! Because in the long run, you will always be able to "connect the dots" and see how everything that has occurred in your life was a total blessing! Even though it may not feel that way in the moment.
My dad needed to have the entire right side of his face surgically removed in order to access the lemon sized tumor that had invaded his nasal cavity. Bone was taken from his left leg to rebuild his cheek and create relative semblance of his face's pre-surgery form. However, in the process, a new throat path was implemented for breathing and eating purposes. As you can imagine, at his mature age, it took months of daily physical therapy for him to
‘re-learn’ how to swallow properly. Doing so incorrectly would cause remnants of food to enter his lungs and not his stomach. Serious stuff my fellow New Age Nerds!
His medical team put him on a grueling daily schedule that included just about anything and everything you could think a mouth and jaw could withstand; sans my dad's favorite passion of eating. I mean nothing, nada, zilch in the food department for over three months. Of course he was being fed through his IV lines, but let's be truthful; that does NOT a full belly make! So I made him a promise. I told him the moment his doctors cleared him to finally delve back into the world of culinary delight, I would personally bring him whatever his blessed heart desired! I once had to go 39 days without eating during my colectomy surgery, so I knew exactly what he was enduring. A PURELY HELLISH EXPERIENCE.............
Several weeks later, I received a call from the hospital one early morning. It was my Pop, and from the ebullient sound of his voice, I just knew he had finally been cleared for full swallowing! What I hadn't prepared myself for was the exhaustive list of various tasty treats he had his sights set on gobbling down. In fact, here is the full list: Pancakes from the local diner, a Wendy's hamburger and fries, a chocolate shake, a whipped frap AND a regular coffee from Starbucks, jello, and “any kind of pie you can get your paws on Jeff”. OK! A promise is a promise....... Oh Boy!
After the nearly two hour trek to procure all the items on his wish list, I finally made my way to the hospital. Let's just say I now know what that "Spiritual Spinster Santa Claus" must go through. My father's eyes lit up like it was his first Christmas as I slowly removed one piece of food after another from the giant bag I had brought. It took two tables to set up the entire spread, and once I was finished, I looked him straight in the eye.
“Are you sure you are ready for all this, Pop,” I inquired. He was much too busy scouring the "buffet tables" before him to give me any direct eye contact. But he nodded his head in a resounding YES fashion! Whew................... "Here we go!" I thought.
And just then, the Crohn's disease that used to cause me urgent need for a ‘bathroom break’ hit. And HARD! I decided to throw proverbial caution to the windpipe, and ran straight for the toilet. Until......relief!! But I soon heard a most disconcerting sound. I am known to make some interesting "bathroom music," but this was....different. Nervously, I KICKED open the bathroom door, to see my father horribly choking in his chair! His face was already turning blue!! I immediately flung off the sweatpants and underwear that were still down around my ankles and ran back into his room; now completely NAKED from the waist down. Yeah, I'm not kidding! Once raw, emotional human instinct kicks into fifth gear, all bets are off my peeps!
There was a huge bed next to the chair where he had been eating, so I jumped up on it and grabbed my dad by his waist to start giving him the heimlich maneuver. In between each shrug, I yelled for help toward the nurse's office with the room number where this.....ummm...incident was occurring!
One after another, nurses and doctors filled the room (nine in all), and jaws dropped each time at what they were witnessing. Here was a HALF NAKED Mexican on a bed, shaking the hell out of a 65 year old man, bouncing up and down like a tryout for "Cirque de Soleil!" Until.....POOOOOFFFF!! The piece of food lodged in my dad's throat shot out across the room literally sticking to the wall several feet away. I slowly and gently put him down to rest in the bed. The now somewhat emotionally scarred medical professionals in witness to this EVENT, rushed to my father's side as I slowly backed away.
Thank "The Grand Creator," he was just fine! It was ME who then needed help. The emotional charge of what had just happened starting to wear off, I remembered, I was still buck naked in a room full of strangers. Aye Dios Mio!
Thankfully, the entire room started applauding my efforts, as I jaunted back to the bathroom where my PRIDE still resided. Now YOU tell ME?! Could even my wildest expectations have ever conjured up or even prepared me for the experiences that day brought? No way, Jose! And guess what? Although none of them nearly as bizarre as that days, the Journey our entire family fought for over a year, trying to battle this cursed dis-ease, brought dozens of unexpected delays, traumas, and scares. We were initially told my dad's surgery and recovery process would be six weeks. He didn't even WAKE UP from surgery for almost two months. Looking back, I believe our biggest saving grace was learning to accept the "ISNESS" of our daily battles. Through the lens of rear view perspective, the culmination of these experiences, albeit painful, costly and challenging, were also incredibly powerful lessons in how much our expectations play a role in determining how to deal with life. Had we each conjured our own personal expectations for this year long roller coaster of a ride, it would have destroyed our emotional fortitude. Expectations are NO THING more than "premeditated resentments!" Please DO NOT let them be the author of the majority of the pain and suffering in your life. Instead, remember that Katherine Hepburn said, “Love has nothing to do with what you expect to get - only what you are expecting to give.”
SUPERHEROES IN TRAINING TAKEAWAYS
This oh so "Wonderful World" that the collective WE have created is a powerful Matrix of energetic wonder. Constantly weaving its vibrational assistance "through and for us!"
A consistent cacophony of other worldly wonder and delicious delights for all of your "53 senses." (Yes, you actually have 53 senses! Much more than the -FIVE- you often activate in this illusion of time and space. More to come! Promise!)
You are a "Dream Weaver" within this vortex of vibrational vitality! Here to re-create yourSELF anew each and every day. Ever expanding your own consciousness as "The Newest Greatest Version of yourSELF" with each Miracle you perform! For as A Course in Miracles states, "A miracle is a shift in perspective from FEAR to LOVE!" So ponder just how many MIRACLES you perform every day! MIND BLOWN!
Ask and it will be delivered. TRUTH! However, as I have stated before; the majority of your greatest gifts will come wrapped in packaging THAT DOES NOT EXACTLY RESEMBLE WHAT YOU HAD IMAGINED ! Please read that last sentence once again. For the simple re-membrance of that statement will save you from a wealth of pain and suffering. PROMISE! And this is why it is important to understand the use (or mis-use) of your EXPECTATIONS.
As it states in the Conversations with God series several times, it is your EXPECTATIONS that cause the majority of all human pain, suffering, and strife. Thinking YOU know better than SOURCE what is for the "Highest Good of All Concerned." Personally, I don't think its a stretch to sum up the great majority of hurt, pain, and hatred in one word. You got it! EXPECTATIONS! It's like trying to "arm wrestle GOD." You will lose every single time! Don't believe me? Keep on trying it YOUR way! Let me know how THAT goes. LOL
In some ways I know that is an oxymoron. Because YOU and GOD are ONE!! Always and in all ways! Think of life like a giant shaped wondrous tapestry. In this earthly incarnation you agreed to, there are only "pieces" of this woven perfection that YOU are able to witness at any given time. Where from the ONE GOD MIND perspective, all possibilities of any and all potential outcomes are known instantaneously! And so when your Super Heroic Higher Self declares to manifest any thing, have the brute KNOWINGNESS that it will be delivered. However, it may "show up" looking and even feeling different than what you had invisioned in YOUR/THE ONE GOD MIND!
For instance, I have created many "END RESULTS" of what I declared to manifest into my life. And what actually showed up was often much different, BUT ALWAYS MUCH GRANDER than anything I had imagined! "Damn," I often think! I never even "thunk" to manifest that too! Because you see, I AM. I AM the Grand Creator herSELF! And so are you! And your Super Heroic Higher Self will always co-create with IT-SELF to conjure up the greatest version of what IT/WE/SPIRIT knows is in the "Highest Good of ALL Concerned!" And deliver it to your doorstep, straight from your personal "Wisdom Waiter." Ain't life grand or what?!
And it is within this co-creative process that expectations can wreck havoc! Because you may feel that your expectations weren't always met. And this goes for your relationships, career, fiscal abundance, health... the whole kitten caboodle! In fact, I guarantee you that in your previous experiences, you have "passed up" bountiful blessings from your "Wisdom Waiter" all because it didn't come gift wrapped and tied up in a bow the way YOU thought it would!
I'll say it once again. YOUR GREATEST BLESSINGS WILL OFTEN NOT COME IN THE PACKAGING YOU WERE EXPECTING! If you learn No Thing else from my blog posts, please Re-member that!
So my suggestion is to spend your days and nights "KNOWING your heart away!" Just
re-member that what is already on its way even BEFORE you have declared it(Because SPIRIT knows what you desire just a split millisecond before you do) is most likely going to be even ten times more illustrious and extraordinary than you imagined! How frickin' cool is that?! So please STOP EXPECTING and START KNOWING everything that comes your way is for the very Highest Good of ALL Concerned!" Lastly, stop worrying about what other people's expectations are of you in life. For they DO NOT know what is in your Highest Good. Only YOU know that!
BE SUPER HEROIC!!
Nerdmaste,
Jeffrey Louis Martinez
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