#Reverb 14, Day 10

1. Generosity is free of obligations; it opens the heart, and creates warmth and connection between the giver and receiver. When I cultivate generosity the holidays become something I look forward to sharing with my loved ones.

Look back at the last year and consider: how did generosity open your heart? How can you cultivate generosity in the coming year?

2. Leap of faith: What decision did you make this year that was a leap of faith?  Did it work out?  Or not?

 1. I was especially blessed this year with friends who said prayers and/or sent me reiki energy for my cardiac ablation at the end of August, and a group of local women who spent time with me in reiki sessions to boost my energy and calm my fears before the procedure. The result was miraculous: I was not afraid at all to go into this procedure, and indeed felt as though I was literally cushioned with love and prayers both before and after it. That generosity has continued and has had great results too, as I have been afib-free, at least as far as I can feel it, ever since -- nearly four months now. 

Because of that kindness and loving energy, I have been available when others have needed help or prayers for themselves or their loved ones, and have been lucky enough to participate in several hands-on sessions to help people who are frightened or worried, in addition to including them in my own daily prayers.

There are some wonderfully generous people in our community who inspire and challenge me to be more generous as well with my time, my gifts, and through prayers and actions. I am so grateful to those who have shown me such generosity, and their actions make me want to reciprocate, to pay it forward and also repay it. 

2. I feel a bit like a broken record when I talk so much about the ablation, but it truly was not only a huge step for me in overcoming long-standing fear and anxiety, but also required a huge leap of faith. Ablation does not always work: often the heart can heal the burns a little too well and the afib or flutter comes back, requiring a second procedure, and sometimes even a third. Some people have had multiple procedures without relief. 

While it can take the heart up to a year to truly heal, I have passed the first nearly four months without recurrence of either afib or flutter, at least as far as I can tell. As part of the three-month evaluation I wore a monitor for two weeks which is still being evaluated, and I expect to hear from my cardiologist/electrophysiologist soon about the findings -- but I feel positive about it. And I'd do it again if I needed to. 

Talk about needing to trust! A skilled team threads a tiny catheter up your femoral artery to your heart, pokes a hole in the heart to get to the left ventricle, and proceeds to burn tiny wounds around the pulmonary veins and other areas where they find afib, which interrupt the wonky electrical circuit that causes these problems. 

So far, so good. I am so grateful!