A Self-Help Moment – Bells will be ringing

I haven’t talked about this yet… but…

I’ve taken a very deep dive into one of my old self-help books for the last week. I’m going page by page, word by word, moment by moment. I’m turning corners of pages, highlighting, and making notes. Next, my new journal is getting a proper break-in and I will be doing the exercises.

It’s been an eye-opening experience so far and needed to happen.

I’m not sure when I’ll be talking about it but you can be sure I will… when I’m ready.

However, my studies have opened some other windows I wasn’t expecting. There’s my Word of the Year “Mindfulness” along with life, death, memories, guilt, shame, and spirituality. Yeah, it’s been a pretty huge undertaking.

(And don’t think I haven’t considered that my headaches and melancholy could be a direct result of all this – along with the rain and heavy air, that is!)

And being honest, I’ve had a headache for hours. I’m still hurting. I was fine when I took my walk but it was hot and sunny and perhaps I should have remembered to take my hat and some water. Ya think?

But earlier, after I washed my car, I got in her and thought about where I’d like to go to walk. I sometimes feel an invisible thread pulling me places and today was one of those days. I ended up at one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the region.

This one has a Carillon! What is a Carillon? It’s showing on my featured photo and also… here, read this… and thanks in advance, Google:

What is the meaning of Carillon?

Definition of carillon

1a : a set of fixed chromatically tuned bells sounded by hammers controlled from a keyboard. b : an electronic instrument imitating a carillon. Link

So, I’m walking around looking and snapping shots… when… seemingly out of nowhere… music starting playing…

I was stopped in my tracks. I’ve been to that cemetery a bunch of times and had NEVER heard the bells ring! It was mesmerizing…

I looked at my watch. 2pm. Ah, it must ring on the hour?

All I know is that I nearly wept in gratitude. It was a perfect ending to a lovely walk among souls who have gone before…

As I walked and snapped photos, I asked myself, as I have SO MANY TIMES before, what it is about cemeteries that touch me so? Is it Death? Legacy? Yes, and yes, I think, but it’s also about LIFE. Connection… between ALL OF US. It’s spiritual, yes, but also personal.

See, the book I’m devouring now, the one mentioned above, is also about death, legacy, and life. I read it years ago. I highlighted a few things.

This reading, I’m finding something of value on almost every page!

I think I’ve stumbled across something rather important in self-help work. You have to be ***ready*** and open to whatever and wherever the book leads, emotionally speaking, or it’s just another book.

You know me. I always think that there’s something to learn… even in crappy books.

This book was excellent – I said so in my post about it. I shared the salient points… the important stuff you need to know… and yes, some things about myself in relationship to it.

But this time, I knew it was time to go back with an eye to this question: WHAT DO I (Me, Sheryl, personally) NEED TO LEARN?

I am not reading it for you. I’m reading it for ME. It makes all the difference. Does that make sense?

Cuz, see…

Even though I write about myself here – and make no mistake, I know I do A LOT – it’s kinda like…

How do I explain?

When I used to give talks to high school kids about bullying (especially kids with disabilities) I’d bring up my son’s suicide attempt at 8 years old (at school, he tried to hang himself with a necklace from the slide). I would breeze through the story I had told so many times before. People sometimes asked me afterward… how do you not fall apart telling that story? I’d say, I can’t “go there” every time or I’d fall apart.

Same with the stories I tell you here — even the biggies I’ve shared about tough subjects like suicide, infidelity, and abuse.

They’re true stories, yes… but stories. They’ve happened to me… but could just as well have happened to someone else. I just tell them.

It seems the time has come for me to EXPERIENCE some things — AS IF I am in the middle of the moment — even if it was 50 years ago.

We shall see where it all goes.

I suspect that this is true for all of us. There comes a time when it’s no longer just a story you tell…

But something that HAPPENED to you…

And you’ll need to WORK THROUGH IT.

To bring it back to where we began…

Bells will be ringing.

You will know you’ve come out the other side. No longer just a witness to what happened to you… but a participant. This is the beginning of TRUE healing.