LIFE

Back again.
I am sitting in Bandung/Indonesia, my fourth time here. Hearing the prayers from the mosks , enjoying the temperature after rain. I have this day alone, son is in Jakarta. I was browsing through Facebook and found this link.
http://www.lifebuzz.com/start-doing/#!RrpnJ
I started reading, and suddenly I saw my life.
 I am 69 years now, and my life had all the ups and downs that most lives have. I remember many times, when I was ready to give up, it felt like I didn't have the strength to fight another day. Somehow I did, and about 17 years ago I realized that I had to do something, I was becoming a bitter woman with regular depressions and attacks of self pity.
In my work I came across the concept of MINDFULNESS , and suddenly I knew: now or never, give it a try ! At that point I just had moved to Stockholm /Sweden, beginning a new job and a new part of my life. All my children were grown up and had their own families or relationships, I was divorced twice and had a pile of dept. Dept not because of shopping too much, but because of my inability of making money. we will come back to this later.
I was so tired of feeling miserable, so I gave it a try.

Start facing your problems head on. – It isn’t your problems that define you, but how you react to them and recover from them. Problems will not disappear unless you take action. Do what you can, when you can, and acknowledge what you’ve done. It’s all about taking baby steps in the right direction, inch by inch. These inches count, they add up to yards and miles in the long run.

I had to learn that this wasn't so easy as it looked at first. I realized that my problems and me were the same. Something was wrong with me, otherwise I wouldn't have these problems. 
But ok, , I promised myself to give it a try, so I made a list of my problems, and I tell you that was a long list. I suddenly realized that it went back to school and childhood. And when I looked through that list time after time I realized that all these problems were connected, I began to find connections.
And that day I started my work of change.

Start noticing and living in the present. – Right now is a miracle. Right now is the only moment guaranteed to you. Right now is life. So stop thinking about how great things will be in the future. Stop dwelling on what did or didn’t happen in the past. Learn to be in the ‘here and now’ and experience life as it’s happening. Appreciate the world for the beauty that it holds, right now.

This was so hard in the beginning, I realized that I hold on to all hurting and bad things that happened and piled even new "bad" things up here. Letting go of this attitude was hard and took some years, but it was the best I ever did. I remember , I was on the edge of giving up many times, these baby steps were to slow, I wanted things to happen faster, now that I began to understand. But only baby steps give us the possibility to understand, accept and live the new experience. it's the only way.

And today I am sitting here in Indonesia, loving my life, enjoying every day, because I still live, can experience happiness and appreciate this moment. I would like to share this with those who want and maybe want to try themselves. I know now there are no shortcuts, but the baby step march is worth every step.
See you.