Prince Update ~ 2 February 2014: “Accept support and comfort”

My Prince’s Gift: “Accept support and comfort.”

This is an interesting one for me to write about. Most of my life I’ve been the one who has been offering support and/or comfort to others, starting with when I was a child.

It’s fascinating to me as ultimately we all live in “animal bodies” which means at our core, we are pack animals. Yet, over time and through “socialization” or perhaps it’s “anti-socialization”, it seems as a whole we all have become uncomfortable at truly connecting. Perhaps this is our animal natures influencing us. As a rule, if animals showed vulnerabilities, it made them more open to destruction.

I still remember a number of years ago when Blaze and Tuna were fighting a lot. They had always been fine with when I had “sick days”. For those who are new to this Page, I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease in 1990 (www.SolveCFS.org). I’ve been fortunate that I’ve had very few big flares in 24 years; however I did just come out of a year-long one. Nonetheless, the one I’m writing about here was probably 8-10 years ago.

It was perplexing me until I realized I was sick enough that apparently Blaze and Tuna were fighting over the alpha role, as I was alpha. More interesting is that in a wolf pack, those fighting for that role would often rip out the throat of the elderly or ill alpha.

~grins~ I sure am glad they didn’t try that; yet I did get bit a few times from stopping a number of fights. They perceived I was weakening, and fought to take my place. Maybe it’s not so unusual that as humans we mostly resist asking for assistance and/or allowing support and comfort.

That said, in my first year of being ill, I found that sometimes the greatest gift you can offer others is to allow them to help you. They get to feel valuable and see how they contribute to another. Prince is needing help, more and more. Although, as I’ve written about before, it seems the most common request he has is just to sit with him, petting him, or laying my hand on him.

In many ways, this is a high form of support and/or comfort .. the one of “presence”, just being with. Being present to Prince as well as to myself, in terms of what is coming up for me. In the coming days, I may be reaching out and asking for more support and comfort. Yet that is not in this moment.

I woke up early today for a few hours. Eventually after feeding the kids, we returned to sleep for the better part of the afternoon; then took our family r-i-d-e. Prince has been snuggling against me, and is making himself even cuter, silently requesting that I wrap up my computer work, and snuggle with him.

That I will willingly do, as I believe I get as much comfort as I am giving. Snuggles to all <3 <3