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Gratefulness
I am working on becoming more grateful and mindful.
To a dear friend who I just found out has Alzheimer’s. She has been a key part of my life since I was 12 (I’m now 53). Since I found out that she had been diagnosed two years ago, I haven’t gotten the courage to call and see how she is faring for fear that it will be obvious that she is losing her memory. I went through this with my grandma and it’s such a devastating disease.
Just like in my literal garden, I try to get rid of ALL the weeds, which is really an impossibility but my perfectionistic tendencies make me try. I need to focus on maybe getting rid of the most toxic, noxious ones and let the rest go.
Since finding out on the 1st that a dear friend whom I’ve known since I was 12 and I started babysitting for her now has Alzheimers, LOTS of memories have been sustaining me even as she will be losing hers.
By focusing on the current moment.
When I left my last job, my boss had all of my coworkers write down on three slips of paper one word that describes me. She then put them on a piece of our letterhead in random orders and framed it and presented it to me. There were a couple of words that were repeated and one in particular, resilience. She put one of those “resilience”s dead center. Whenever times are tough like when I was looking for a new position or when teaching has gotten particularly tough, I look back at t...
When I left my last job, my boss had all of my coworkers write down on three slips of paper one word that describes me. She then put them on a piece of our letterhead in random orders and framed it and presented it to me. There were a couple of words that were repeated and one in particular, resilience. She put one of those “resilience”s dead center. Whenever times are tough like when I was looking for a new position or when teaching has gotten particularly tough, I look back at that framed piece to remind myself that I AM resilient because certainly my coworkers thought this. It helps when I don’t feel this way. Compassion and faithfulness were other words that got repeated, too.
Cold and very windy here in CO. I feel that I bounce from project to project, idea to idea, and thought to thought, just like the wind right now.
Many musicians and artists whose songs I have sung and played. They have often said things through their lyrics and music that have been just what I needed at a specific time of my life.
Clearly resilience marked by the fact that when I left my last job, my coworkers make this cool picture that had three words that each person had written about me that were glued on a piece of paper that had our logo at the top and was put in a frame. The word that the person that put it together put in the center was “resilient” (and there were actually at least one or two more copies of that word that others had written, too. I didn’t (still sometimes don’t) see myse...
Clearly resilience marked by the fact that when I left my last job, my coworkers make this cool picture that had three words that each person had written about me that were glued on a piece of paper that had our logo at the top and was put in a frame. The word that the person that put it together put in the center was “resilient” (and there were actually at least one or two more copies of that word that others had written, too. I didn’t (still sometimes don’t) see myself as resilient in hard times but if others are seeing me that way, maybe it’s time to tell myself that I AM resilient. It has helped me in recent months to remember this.
Like Kevin said down below….everything can change. The hard part comes in finding the “pause” in between our automatic reaction to triggers. THAT is the hard part. Listened to a psychotherapist talk at the beginning of this current health crisis and she talked about taking deep breaths and other things to hook into the vagus nerve that will calm the parasympathetic nervous system down. Maybe I should get the word “breathe” tattooed on my inner wrist?! :o)
Kevin, I’m certainly trying to make peace with them. My perfection gets in the way trying to get rid of ALL of them.
Excellent post, Patti. I’m so trying to learn the acceptance part. The perfection part of me, though, wants ALL the weeds gone, which is an impossibility. As I’m typing this, I’m realizing the depth of my statement and what that is saying about me. As I literally garden this spring, I will focus on not trying to get ALL the weeds out of the garden but just the most destructive, deep ones.
Very deep! It’s so hard, though, to accept those parts and integrate, especially when they are parts that you just wish weren’t there in the first place.
I really like the “let them do their thing in the meadow…where they hold the soil together”. Sometimes in the literal weeding of my garden, I want ALL the weeds gone but forget that in some of the areas that I don’t have plans for, the weeds hold the soil together.
Yes to vaccine! Yes to new leadership!
Thanks for holding my friend in your prayers. I’ve known her about 40 years now…ever since I started babysitting for her when I was about 12 or so.
I’m with you, Kevin. I don’t see January 1st as some magical thing and yet, it does have a slight feeling, this year particularly, of “newness” to it – we’re seeming to “turn a corner” to getting back some sense of normalcy now that there is a vaccine. And yet, then I got a message from a dear friend’s son that his mom has early on-set Alzheimers and I’m feeling heartbroken.
Golden….right in the foothills where the wind is the WORST! We get hurricane blasts of wind at my house.
I’m glad it makes you smile. That was the reaction I had the first time I saw it and just HAD to figure out what it was. They are called axolotl (pronounced ox-o-LOT-ul). My husband, the biologist, calls them salamanders with dreadlocks! Have a blessed day!
Kevin, you always write so eloquently and deep when you answer these. In fact, when I’m on this site, I always seek out your response because it usually resonates with me. Have a blessed day!
Yes!
Katrina, thanks for your honesty. I was born in the late 60s but because of my mom’s mental health challenges (out-of-control emotions, probably an undiagnosed personality disorder), I, too, learned to just avoid conflict. Now that I learned to be o.k. with feeling my feelings, I’m struggling with the same thing you are….the Pandora’s box. Learning about and practicing the pause is key and what I’m trying to do now.
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