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Excerpts from parts of chapters of
PEACE GARDEN BY VICKY DEAN
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THE PEACE GARDEN
BY VICKY DEAN


CHAPTER ONE

FOREWARD

PLANTING THE SEEDS


"I am a gardener in life, gathering my blooms of love and peace
That I have tended so faithfully with my soul
Watching time slide by
Using care to hoe the furrows in my endless search
For light at the end of my path
Alone, with God at last."


Its strange, gardening used to drive me into a frenzy of frustration. I loved the
initial part of the gardening process. Gathering my tools, donning my shade hat, and
putting on my new, unsoiled gloves, and then tramping almost ceremoniously out into
the spring sunshine. A spring ritual. As sure in life, as the birthing process.

I relished in the direct rays of the comforting sun caressing the back of my neck as I bent over my task, hoeing the earth vigorously in my haste to prepare a bed for the seeds I was about to tenderly place in the moist, damp earth.

I always felt as though I was a woman of the earth, a back to nature explorer. A pioneer woman, tucking my riotous damp curls under my bonnet and envisioning my garden in exquisite display, my blooms fat, hardy and bursting with color, vitality and life! Inhaling the acrid smell of the recently defrosted earth, cradled in winter's frosty embrace, and I would kneel down in the dirt, smoothing out the furrows, preparing a little nest for the seeds I had carefully saved from the year before.

That part of the gardening process I literally inhaled with pure, unadulterated joy. It was what came next, as in all portions of our life's segments that drove me up the garden wall! A spade for a spade, an eye for an eye and a bloom for the little girl that befriends humanity.

So where is the little girl who looks after the sheep? A girl who has Fibromyalgia and doesn't feel like cultivating flowers, hoeing a garden, and who has to use every single inch of strength to just face the day?

For this little Bo Beep has lost all her sheep and does not know where to even look to find them. She has, in essence, lost her life and is wandering around in haze of pain and disillusionment, wondering what has happened to her.

And its really makes no sense to leave the sheep alone and let them come home, wagging their tails behind them, because she cannot see them anyway. She is crying too hard and the world is a blur. Her world is a watercolor, a blur of fragments of happiness.

Her peace garden is empty. The soil is wasted, dry, and never nourished. Her flowers, if they bloom at all, and on rare occasions only, grow limp and fade away like a sunset at the end of a hot summer's day. A distinct mirage that plays with the mind.

Where have all the flowers gone? Her flowers have drifted and replanted themselves in another garden. A healthy, spirited, fun loving garden, where they can play, laugh and enjoy life as it was meant to be.

The flowers are there, in fragrant bouquets, blooming along the parameters of your Higher Self. Your Higher Self being your constant companion, ever tending the sweet blooms of your thoughts, desires, hopes and dreams. And there to tend you as well, if you will but listen and heed it's gentle and wise voice. A nurturing Angel.

I am a flower blooming in disarray
Poking my head up through dingy fog
For a fleeting glimpse of sunshine
I need so desperately
To find my garden in life
But I will find it
Alone and yet accompanied by
My Inner Higher Angel
Who scatters the seeds of my thoughts?
And performs miracles
By creating my Magic Garden!


Hoopla! What I have to do is think and plan, listen, take heed and put down on paper, in black and white, what I need to start my Peace Garden. The garden that will allow me to cope with this mysterious disease that is so vagrant, all consuming, and debilitating. What to do about it?

There is a formula. It's a matter of Faith!
A matter of Attitude!
A matter of Determination!
And, a matter of Love!
I lie in my bed at night
Staring through the still dark air
Feeling every nuance of my pain
Every fleeting quiver of my body
And wondering if I shall
Ever, ever
Be myself again!


Fibromyalgia! Even the name suggests some mysterious entity, the very word bringing raised eyebrows and quizzical looks amongst the uninformed. Fibromyalgia! The name of the disease that invades the very core of one's body, torturing it as if it were on the rack, bending and grinding every muscle, and turning it into a frenzy of twisted contortions, lumps and bumps. And then making forcing them to rotate in a macabre dance that heeds the notion of pain and takes it beyond its threshold.

I have a dear friend in Texas who refuses to capitalize the name of this disease for she is well acquainted with the agony it is wont to manifest. I have another friend in Michigan who lives in a fibro fog, a constant state of apathy, when all she ever wanted was to be a wife and mother, in the "normal" sense of the word, instead of wandering in a world nobody can really comprehend. And still another living on peaceful Prince Edward Island, who is a talented artist, a young mother and wife, and who struggles with the most mundane and usual household and family events in an effort to be what her family wishes her to be. In an effort to keep her life from falling into pieces of lost hopes, dreams and aspirations.

Nobody understands the pain I am in. Or if they do, it's only a quarter demystified. I am afraid when rain knocks again. And terrified when I have memorized. The weather patterns across my brain!

Fibromyalgia!


The christening of the disease, once not recognized as such, and still lightly shoved aside as if it were a blemish on the soul, or a flaw in one's character.

All of you readers are presumably familiar with Fibromyalgia, or you would not be reading this book. It is characterized as being the mysterious disease that primarily affects women, starting at the tender ages of thirteen and climbing up the ladder of age, ensnarling it's victim at any given time. And men suffer from it also. Only not in such great numbers.

There are so many theories that encompass this disease. For Fms sufferers, it is simply a name to an affliction that cannot be relieved or wiped out. A reminder of a constant companion of pain, aching, tenderness, headaches, yeast infections, skin problems, irritable bowel and bladder syndrome, headaches, sinus infections, and the list goes on and on. It is also a mind trapping affliction that produces in many, a crippling depression, chronic insomnia, and a confusing fog which clouds cognitive powers and produces anxiety attacks and loss of equilibrium.

On the plus side of the ledger, it seems to afflict the brightest and busiest of all human stars on planet earth. The go-getters, the imaginative, the creators, the studious, the wise, the gentle and the diligent. And, often this affliction is provoked by exposure to trauma, either in a physical, mental or emotional way.

The cause of the effect of trauma often arriving so much later, that the exact moment cannot be recalled.

Fibromyalgia sufferers are dependent upon the weather patterns in life, and in the atmosphere. Exquisitely sensitive to barometric pressure, any change in this factor can bring about severe body aching, pain, and all the gifts that come along with this disease. And staying indoors doesn't matter a hoot.

The FMS victim is an excellent weather forecaster, and often more than twenty-four hours before the actual pattern is spotted on Doppler radar. The sensitivity to environmental factors is built in, like hungry radar, eagerly consuming every nuance or hesitation in the weather pattern of our globe. A fact one cannot hide from, or run away from. The very normalcy and comfort relying on weather or not the high and low fronts are coming in. A mystery! And a painful mystery!

Insomnia is a faithful friend. Many fms sufferers will go days and days with two three hours sleep a night until finally their bodies succumb to their extreme and utter exhaustion, and limply gives in, allowing the body to refresh itself for five or six hours. Relief that often brings a new outlook on life until the cycle repeats itself again.

The chronic fatigue, the wearing of the mind, although steadfast and resilient, breaks the body down and batters the immune system. It is a fatigue that can only be best described as a total wipe out the only solution being to lie down and rest as much as possible at different intervals during the day.

And, the depression that dances in the soul, and refuses to change partners or tunes.

A depression that spreads black clouds through the mind and casts a shadow on life. Many are afflicted with the sad, tired and bleak feeling, while others struggle to fight against it. Some succumb unwillingly, while others tread water, while still others valiantly swim for the comparative safety of the beckoning shore in the dimming sun.

All these factors, combined with a reasonable diagnosis, complete the portrait of Fibromyalgia. At the end of this book, please refer to a list of pharmaceuticals, and homeopathic/herbal aids, which are currently being used by sufferers around the world. I have Fibromyalgia and I am coping.

Coping with the grace of God, the support of family and friends, and with my personal coping mechanisms. The formula I dare not forget or leave behind me.

It is with love that I share my space with all of you and welcome you into My Peace Garden. The Peace Garden is dedicated to Cori, Robin, Maggie, Vicki, Lee, Anne Marie, Huhannah, Bobbi Dale, Jim, Wendy, and all those on the Wellness Train, a new adventure for me. My fellow soldiers in the war against FMS.

My sweet ongoing travelers through the mists of pain.




The Peace Garden

Chapter Two

Cultivating The Soul


As with any garden, we have to prepare the bed for planting.

Our souls are the bed of our being, and therefore it is necessary to make sure that we prepare our bed properly, diligently and with love, in order to plant the seeds of the Peace Garden and encourage them to flower and grow. I can hear some of you saying. "You don't expect me to believe that, do you?" And wondering, fitfully, if you should lay down this book and forget it. If you are questioning this book or me then I say to you that at least it means that you are interested! Preparing the soul to receive the seeds of your own personal Peace Garden is not a simple or uncomplicated task.

It takes perseverance, patience, dedication and the will to succeed. It also takes Love. Love of God. Love of our fellow human beings. Love of Life, and Love of our own selves. But if you are one who suffers from fms, it is all there for you to tap into. A built in perk.

No matter who you are, you can take the time to listen to your Higher Angel.

The Resident Caregiver Angel within who does not want you to suffer, and who is there to guide you through the ten steps to cultivating and maintaining your own Peace Garden.

A survivor's handbook for the fms sufferer. It's a matter of Faith!

Faith cultivates the soul. Faith prepares the bed of life for the seeds to be planted. Faith lies dormant within you and is there for you to tap into when required. And if you have fms, you require it constantly.

Nothing is impossible, if you really want to do it.

The person who cannot develop faith enough to cultivate his or her own garden, is simply the being who does not want to!

Each and every person who tries to understand, and practices the gardening lessons on these pages will be able to improve the quality of life and gain a deeper insight into reality.

And let me remind you, it takes hard, hard work. But well worth it!

Everybody, right this instant, get up and stretch your body, gently and lovingly. Inhale deeply and stretch your limbs, allowing your body to gently reconfigure. You can look at it as though you are defragmenting your hard drive. Putting things back in order. Do this, every twenty minutes of so. People with fms should carry a stopwatch in their minds, and practice deep breathing exercises and gentle stretching every twenty minutes of every single day!

You can also use the steps to your own personal Peace Garden for your own spiritual development. You cannot get what you want in life by wishing for it or reaching out blindly into space for it. The knowledge and coping methods all lie within you and its vibrations flow around you constantly, yours for the taking.

It is vital that you learn to be at peace with your surroundings. If things are not to your liking, you can change them all right, but the fastest route to changing anything is to first accept it.

And with acceptance, you can bring about change more efficiently.

Write down the ten steps in a notebook.

Go ahead, stretch again and get ready to do this simple task. Write each step down individually, allowing two or three pages of space in between.

Then frame it as you wish, with tiny flowers, soaring birds, or the three little bears. It's your plan, for your garden. Take your time. When you make something look beautiful, it is the first step to realizing that the world is perfect and that you are a perfect snowflake in a perfect land. You are a spark of the Almighty and made in that image.

So as you frame your ten steps, think about this and write an affirmation under each and every thoughtfully decorated frame.
"I am a perfect snowflake. My design is exquisite and I am perfect in all ways."

Or use your own words. Just make sure that you write down an affirmation and frame it under step one. The first hesitant step to realizing that your body can be well and whole again.

No, there is nothing ghostly or supernatural about listening to your Resident Angel Caregiver. There is nothing unusual or even shocking about it! The Angel is omnipresent, and all you have to do to listen, it is to understand that it is there, and learn to use it and heed it.

Step One Faith. Believe in your Peace Garden. Believe in God. Believe in Yourself. Frame it in your notebook. Decorate it with your feelings, hopes and dreams. Let go of the beautiful thoughts you are guarding in your mind. Fly free and let this project be a real part of you. Get into it.

Step Two Repose. Let go and let be. Relax and enjoy cultivating your garden. Let your ideas flow like autumn leaves on a windy fall day. Then let them gently land in your mind, taking care to catch them as they fall. Let the process of healing begin. Go with the project. Let it flow.

Step Three Connect. Tune in as you do in prayer or meditation. A piece of cake for those who are well used to these methods of tuning in. For the rest of you, think of it as listening to your mind, body and soul, and then, doing something about it! Concentrate.

Step Four Embrace. You can acquire and welcome the creative process of your own Peace Garden only after you have a bowing acquaintance with the first three steps.

Step Five Understand. Once you understand your role in the formation of your Peace Garden, you will be able to comprehend the difference between a thought or a wish and "understanding" what is going on in your true self.

Step Six Action. Taking action means to follow the guidance of your Resident Angel. Taking action means to take control of your own destiny and create a haven and shelter and your own space. Your own Peace Garden.

Step Seven Procedure. Maintaining a happy and healthier you takes work and it takes practice. It's like learning to play the piano. Starting with the scales and finally discovering the melody. This is where we design, create and decorate our own Bubbles which constitute the essence of our personal Peace Gardens. This is my tranquil space, Cori's refuge, Bobbi's shelter and Maggie's nest.

Step Eight Progress. You cannot stop here. The fatigue may be setting in, but this is where your will to develop and continue on the path comes in. This step is hard work so be forewarned.

Step Nine Preserve. Preserve all that you have learned and retain the knowledge. Retain and then put into action. These steps are not just words. Follow them and use them.

Step Ten Broaden and Expand. Broaden your horizons and amplify your determination. Remind yourself that in this life, there is nothing that is impossible. Learn to use the ten tools daily and soon they will be a force of habit, like showering or brushing your teeth. Maintenance of your garden is the key.

The more you practice your ten steps to finding your own Peace Garden, the more of the world you will find belongs to you, and the less physical pain or stress you will suffer. You will encounter hard stones in the road, and you will stumble and fall. You haven't quite earned your wings yet!

But all in all, if you stay relaxed and calm in your Peace Garden, your life style will improve, your pain coping mechanisms will be finely honed,

and your heart will be filled with serenity and joy!




CHAPTER THREE

A MATTER OF FAITH


Faith simply means what it means. Having faith means that you know that something is going to happen. Without a hesitation, a hiccup, or a doubt.

You can easily develop faith if you close the door firmly to doubt, when it knocks or tries to sneak in. Just don't let a thread of it find a way to enter into your space. There simply is no vacancy in your scheme of things for doubt. Have an inner quiet confidence, that it is so, and will remain so.

Faith requires a belief in you. Believing in yourself is the first key to opening the horizons of all that is available to you through your Resident Angel Caregiver. Faith is having the confidence to march through life flying free, and unencumbered by society, gossip, negativity or anything that disturbs your flight path.

To fly in the jet stream of life is sometimes difficult, but with a little practice you will soon be well on your way to doing your own thing, when and if you want it. Struggling to gain material goods, or striving to keep up with the Jone's syndrome, borrowing other people's ideas or creations simply fastens you down tightly to a path that is a conformist and non individualistic route to your chosen mission in life. Making it almost impossible to decipher and muddying the waters.

Lack of faith in yourself encourages you to walk with heavy weights fastened to your ankles, thereby disallowing you the freedom of life as it was meant to be.

You are your own best friend, and if you have to lean on other people to make your ideas, conceptions or dreams fly, then you are still plodding through the dense forest of creating every facet of your life with blinders on. Cement positive thoughts into the foundation of your Peace Garden.

Negativity does not travel well when using the highways of the body, mind or soul.

Acquiring faith takes practice and a knowing and genuine loving of YOU!

Meaning, that you love yourself in the way that you are a spark of a Higher Being, placed in this particular life to evolve and perform a particular mission. The mission may well be ever hard, painful and filled hurts, indignities, worries and anxiety, but in order to walk on higher ground, you must learn to clear away the debris in your way.

Kick it aside and spread your wings and fly into the unknown. Scary at first, but the most wondrous of experiences soon to be taken almost for granted and certainly providing a new outlook and lease on life.

Flying alone and flying free develops your resilience, your creativity, your sense of self worth, and a quiet confidence that enables you to enjoy and luxuriate in the glow of freedom here on earth.
Faith has to be developed. You don't just have "faith". You must believe to have faith. Believe in yourself. If you have ever read Lewis Carrol's story about the flip side of the mirror, you know that he used the Queen to demonstrate a remarkable feat of belief with Alice.

When Alice told her that "she could not quite believe that," the Queen answered, "Can't you? You haven't had much practice!"

And so it is with faith. One has to practice to believe.

The next time you are in a situation when the knots form in your stomach, relax a moment and really look at what you are tied up in a knot about. You are opening the door to doubt, and it is ready to spring in and grab you, if you give it a glimmer of hope.

And once you cultivate belief in yourself, you can then fly free, and push aside all the bonds that have been stopping your from progressing.

Flying free, especially when under the stress of the pain of FMS, is especially important. Being able to talk about your pain, explain your pain, your fears, and your doubts about how you feel, is the first step to gaining acceptance that you have this disease. Having faith in yourself reaffirms to you, and nobody else, that you have what it takes to get through this, and that at the end of the tunnel, there is light, freedom from pain. For faith is the quickest route to maintaining a happy lifestyle, with a healthy body as a companion through your journey in life.

Developing and maintaining your Peace Garden will not take away all of the disease, but it will take away your bondage to the disease, and help you to give it the finger, and make it find a host elsewhere. Your Peace Garden can and will take you only as high and far away from the pain of FMS, as you want it to. You are the gardener.

You are in control and it is up to you to tend it faithfully and believe in it!

No wonder the flowers cannot grow
Where the sun of opportunity won't shine
And the rain decides not to fall
Gently on their heads
To nurture and love them
And give them the force they need
To survive in Life
As a Winner!
A Giver!
And a Believer!


I have a friend who believes in the problem of FMS, rather than the solution. She spends many hours in bed, truly suffering. She cannot cope, or begin to explore the possibility of helping herself, or the art of developing faith so that she can find a peaceful space to rejuvenate her body and soul. And therefore, the problem is compounded, day after day, with more and more complications, until she feels like closing her eyes and giving in, and giving up. And always, the pain worsens.

How I tend my garden
Is purely up to me
And me alone
For I am you and you are me
Shades of one another
With the same objective
The same goals
The same final
Resting place
FOR OUR SOULS


You can make a mountain out of fear, and build a bridge to pain. Unless you have faith in yourself, you are going to think that you are the weak one. You are not. You are a tower of strength. Just remember that. How could it be otherwise? You walk hand in hand with pain, in its invincible grip, and you survive, and carry on with your life. You are truly a tower of strength.

Now you have to learn how to use that strength to overcome and distance yourself from the pain. And, once you believe in yourself, and the fact that nothing is impossible, you are well on your way.

And you can do all of this flying free, and soaring solo. This does not mean that you negate all the relationships in your life by a long shot. However, when dealing with FMS, you are forced into a cramped black box, and in order to scramble out with everything in tact, you need to develop enough faith in yourself to fly free and as high as you can go!

Past the star on the right, and straight on till morning! And beyond!

When you get over the idea that you don't need anybody to hold your hand, whether it be a mate, a child, or a favorite friend, then you will lose the fear of stepping out of the blackness into the sunshine, your pain exposed and brutal. Then by facing it and refusing to give in, spurning conversation with it, and giving it the finger, albeit rude, but effective, you will enforce your own belief that you can change things, and discover a new channel in life. A channel that helps you to manage and control the pain, instead of being under its grimy thumb. The weeds are choking your garden at this point and its time to cut them down. And be ruthless.

Learning to have faith and fly free is the first basic step. You will stumble and fall as you falter along, but so does a baby when he or she first begins to walk. It is a learning process, and with diligent study and application, you will soon be spreading your less than hesitant wings and heading for the jet stream which will lead you in to your own Peace Garden. Your refuge from the pain. A recovery room for fms sufferers.

When you get all tied up in knots, in any given life situation, take the time to think about what is doing it. Learn to backtrack, and unwind the yarn in your tapestry. And start over again. Living in the past, and hovering around indignities, hurts and betrayals only compounds the trauma you have experienced which is what put you into this ball of pain in the first place.

If you have hurts, pains, or indignities, or suffer from anxiety, grief, despair, bitterness, take a good look at which situation in your life caused this feeling. Then run one particular incident through your mind like a movie, over and over and over again. Yes, rewind and run it over and over again!

Until one day, instead of the hurt and bitterness, you will feel a vague sense of monotony. Rewind and play it again Sam! And, again! Finally, when you discover to your absolute astonishment that you are bored stiff, release that memory and let it go. Pick another negative memory, and another. I promise you that you will not buy, beg or borrow the same movie again. It will simply evaporate, like rain water on hot cement.

And then run the next movie, and the next, and the next. And finally understand that you will be released and able to spread your aching wings slowly at first hesitating a little but in time it will come just like skating one never really forgets how to fly! All it takes is practice.

I have another friend who takes four giant steps backward for her, and then out of the blue, takes three giant steps foreword for mankind. She vacillates between profound wisdom and understanding of life's complexities, to abject misery and bitterness about the past. She is like a butterfly, encased in the bondage of FMS, and caught in a spider's web.

Unable to free herself but for tiny moments in time, only to be ensnarled again. I love her dearly, as I do all my friends who suffer from FMS, because each and every one of them have given me insight into love, determination, sharing, pain, freedom, tears, and laughter more than I have ever known. Our relationships run deep, not dependent upon one another, but in a never ending circle of giving and taking, loving and learning, and applying ourselves to the art of belief and faith in oneself.

Your ability to fly free develops in exact ratio to your faith in yourself. It is the beginning of a New World for you, and a trail of light to follow.

When you learn to accept the Resident Angel's voice within you, and to listen carefully, the faster you will develop belief. And in applying it to FMS, the more you believe that you are going to overcome this and be well, the sooner it will happen!

All things are possible for people who believe and have faith!

Think about some beliefs that you just take for granted. That the sun rises in the morning, that when you turn on the television a picture comes to light, when you turn on the ignition in a car, the motor starts, (well most of the time). You go on a trip and have every expectation that you will arrive safely.

You believe and have faith in many things during the course of one single day. Why not apply that belief to yourself? With belief and acceptance of the faith in yourself, comes a natural progression to the next stop in the construction of your Peace Garden.

The Peace Garden is there, in tact, waiting for you to put the components together. You can sigh, with disbelief or lack of faith, and put this book aside, but if you don't try it, how will you ever believe that it doesn't work?

The most basic simple exercise in developing faith in oneself, which in turn automatically channels in faith to all other facets of the universe, is to test yourself. When you get out of sorts and crumpled into a ball, instead of calling upon family or friends to bail you out, or fighting or chewing with somebody, or giving up on the whole thing and refusing to acknowledge it, listen to your Resident Angel Caregiver, and take action.

With a little practice, you will get it right and will soon be relying entirely on your Resident Angel. That is why you have one.

It seems silly not to take money out of the bank when you desperately need it, and sillier still not to listen to that built in Caregiver from the heavens who is there to guide you so "faith" fully.




CHAPTER FOUR

PUTTING YOUR SPIRIT INTO REPOSE MODE


Setting your spirit in repose mode simply means relaxing your body, mind and spirit, and learning to let your Angel Caregiver take over for awhile.

Sit back and let your Angel chauffeur you through your life and calm down, relax and let her do all the work for you!

The biggest struggle is learning to let go.

Its like taking a bubble bath and sinking into the soft, scented water and letting your body go with the flow of water lazily sneaking around the edges of your body. You sigh, and relax.


If I could sit back and close my eyes

Relaxing my body and knowing

Knowing deeply inside

That I will no longer have to

Fight against the monster of pain

Who is threatening to engulf

And overwhelm me more

With each passing day

I would do it

Gladly!

And then,

Get on with my Life!

end of excerpts copyright Vicky Dean












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