Hello Dear Friends,
Wishing you all a happy time over the Easter/Passover holiday break. I hope it is full of fun, peace, relaxation, happiness, contentment and good times with friends and family.
I feel like I have embarked on two separate road trips this year – the first being my bladder diagnosis and treatment, and the second being my draft-to-completed-book road trip.
I am so excited that my book Heartfelt Homebaked Wisdom is finished! I received the first boxes of printed books and we are all set for the book launch on April 30th. I'm so thankful to Cindy Lee and Anna Featherstone for their amazing skills and expertise in making my book-dream a reality. And to you for your enthusiasm regarding the launch.
My 'befriending bladder cancer' road trip is traveling well too. Cindy and I have been meeting at 4W at Cabrini on my chemo days to work on the book. This has been a great project to work on together at this time. Cindy has been a wonderful supportive friend on both my road trips and has done a beautiful job of formatting the book and so much more. I am so thankful to have her in my life.
I am three quarters of the way through, having had my fourth treatment last week, now only two to go! It is a bit of an up and down process, but I have my home pharmacy and the support of family and friends to see me though the first week and then I am on the improve ready for the next go-around – last one on the April 23rd. I'm so thankful for the wonderful medical treatment and support of family and friends.
In May I get time off to regain my strength and hopefully escape to Maggie Island for a few days. Then In early June I have my bladder surgery - with a few months recovery after that, then I'm all set.
I wanted to write about an easy mind shift we can do to change comparing ourselves to others as better or worse—both very unhelpful and stressful habits. When we compare ourselves to others as better, we become prideful, competitive and egotistical —not a happiness inducing state of mind. When we compare ourselves to others as lesser, we erode our self-confidence and peace of mind—also not a happy place to be.
So, instead of a ‘better or worse THAN others’ attitude we can change it to a ‘Better FOR others’ attitude.
This eliminates the comparing and promotes our happiness and peace of mind.
We can take this attitude to anything we do: we can take care of our appearance, practice wise self-care, get fit, do our best at our job, create some helpful new habits, all in order to be better FOR others! A small example I remember is when my mum was in hospital, I would go to extra efforts to spruce up my appearance, not so I could look betterthan others, but so I could look better for her. She always appreciated it.
I was reminded of this just the other day, I had received an email from Cindy to say that the final proof had been approved for printing!! I was so excited and emailed Cindy back to say I was off to put Tina Turner on really loud and have a gentle little dance. The first song that blasted into the room was ‘Simply the Best”. I love this song though I do sing slightly different words: I replace the ‘than’ with a ‘for’.
Tina’s version is ‘Simply the best, better than all the rest, better than anyone’ and mine is ‘simply the best, better for all the rest, better for anyone'.
My lovely neighbour Maree knocked at the door, having heard the loud music—her husband had already heard it from the back of their house. I told her I was celebrating the book and she was quick to invite me in to their house to have a champagne.
The next morning, I received a video from Cindy—she and her lovely mother and sister had been at 'Disco Club' at Festival Hall and ‘Simply the Best’ came on, so the three of them were singing it to me. I watched it so many times it made me so happy. Don’t you love it when things are in magical synch?