Rev. Victor M. Parachin M. D.

OCTOBER,2011

Dear
Friends,

A
man, after receiving a diagnosis of cancer, returned home in shock and in
fear. Along with traditional treatment
for cancer, he also began to meditate and found himself saying to the Universe: "I want to live. I want to live. I want to live."

Then
he 'heard' a voice answer him saying:
"You are alive!" And in
that moment, the death grip of fear was released from him and he began to live
more hopefully, optimistically and confidently.

From
time to time, it can be useful for us to remind ourselves: "I am alive!"

That
means, no matter what challenges and discouragements we face, we can make
decisions, we can make changes, we can adapt and adjust, all the time moving
our lives into desirable directions.

Reminding
ourselves: "I am alive!" can
break the stranglehold which fear has on our life. Ralph Waldo Emerson advised: "The wise man in the storm prays to God, not
for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear. It is the storm within that endangers him,
not the storm without." Add to that,
Franklin Roosevelt's wisdom: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

KITCHEN TIPS FOR

RECENT WIDOWERS

Men
who are widowed sometimes find it challenging to deal with daily meal
preparations. Here is the way one man
describe it: "After my wife died my
friends and neighbors have been bringing food to my house. I know this will soon stop and I am dreading
the day. What do I do?"

The
Men's Bereavement Network provides these tips for men facing this issue:

You
are not alone. Many widowers are
strangers to the kitchen. My wife knew
my food preferences so well that when we dined at restaurants she would tell me
what foods I would like and not like on the menu.

The
good news is that there are many solutions to this problem. Here are just a few of them for the main meal
of the day.

• Try eating out with friends. If you are dining alone and feel
uncomfortable eating at a table by yourself try eating at the bar. It can help avoid the thought that people are
looking at you when you are sitting at a table alone.

•
Use a food service to deliver pre-cooked frozen foods which can be popped into
the microwave.

• Have your local super-market prepare the food
for you. Many chain super-markets will
prepare foods for you at no extra cost.

• Don't forget your charcoal grilling skills;
it wasn't your wife who did the outdoor cooking: steaks, chops, chicken, fish,
with a salad (which can be purchased at your market), potato and vegetable and
you have created a mouth watering dinner.

• Remember, if you can read a recipe, you can
cook!

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO

MOVE THROUGH GRIEF?

This
is a question frequently asked by those whose grief is new and raw. Moving through usually involves these four
transitions:

1. Accepting the loss.

2.
Dealing with the loss - managing and tolerating the emotional/physical
discomforts.

3. Adjusting to life without the person who has
died.

4. Moving on with life (Note: this last phase
does not mean forgetting the one who has died, only the rebuilding of life
without him or her).

SIMPLE SUGGESTIONS FOR

MANAGING GRIEF

•
Talk about the loss but only
with people who will listen compassionately.

• Read informative books and magazine articles
about dealing with loss.

• Read inspirational material: poetry,

spiritual texts, motivational books.

• Exercise.

• Eat healthy foods maintaining a balanced

diet.

• Tap into spirituality in ways which work for you.

•
Join a support group.

• Practice self-care: listen to music, soak
in a tub, take long walks in nature,
and enjoy a movie.

• Be patient with yourself. You will heal but it will take time.

THINK ENCOURAGING

NOT DISCOURAGING

THOUGHTS

"Like attracts like. Whatever the conscious minds thinks and
believes, the subconscious identically creates."

-Brian Adams

"By choosing your thoughts,
and by selecting which emotional currents you will release and which you will
reinforce, you will determine the quality of your life."

-Gary Zukov

"All that we are is the
result of what we have thought. The mind
is everything. What we think, we
become."

-Buddha

Those three quotes eloquently
describe the power of our thoughts. The
truth is that we can either be mastered by our mind or we can learn to become
masters of our mind.

When facing any challenge,
whether it is the loss of a loved one or the loss of health or the loss of
employment, our mental outlook will determine our outcome.

Rather than engage in
self-talk and self-thought which is discouraging, make the shift to self-talk
and self-thoughts which are encouraging.

This was something which
Karen, a 33 year-old single mother learned to do. After a break-up with her longtime partner,
she moved with her son, from one coast to the other. Shortly after the move, she was hit with the
news of her beloved father's sudden death.
"Within a few months I was hit with 3 of life's hardest blows: a
break-up, a move and then the death of my dad," she recalls.

During that time she found
herself thinking in negatives: "I just
can't get a break." "Nothing good ever
comes my way." "I'm a loser." "My life is in shambles." "I hate my life." After a while she realized what was happening
in her mind. "Even though I knew I had
received more than my fair share of troubles in a short period of time, I began
to realize all that negative thinking wasn't doing me any good. It was just sucking whatever life I had right
out of me."

So, she began to eliminate
the doom and gloom thinking and talking by cleaning her thoughts and
words. Karen says, "I removed gloomy
words such as depressed, tragic,
disastrous, angry, and fearful consciously, replacing them with more
hopeful and optimistic words such as confident,
strong, courageous, and determined. I
realized my thoughts and words carried tremendous weight on my actions:
negative ones made me feel worse, positive ones made me feel better. It was just that simple and that
therapeutic!"