Tag: gratitude

Sounds of Silence

As we get older, our lives often get quieter. Perhaps at times, even silent. What do we believe about the silence that can surround us during this season?

“Hello darkness my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.” Hauntingly captivating or painfully paralyzing.

When we are younger, silence is often a welcome respite. I remember, raising five children, the times that I found myself alone in my home. I wouldn’t turn on music or do anything that might disturb that glorious sound of nothing.

But today, silence is often a reminder that retreating is no longer necessary. We may even be tempted to run from it, turning on music or picking up our phones. Perhaps we need to look at the quiet and get brave enough to sit with it. The question I try to answer these days is: What is silence holding in her hands? At this season in life, silence still offers us gifts.

1. One of the most important gifts that silence offers us is the space to craft a different narrative, one that will reorient our perspective and point our minds in a more purposeful and hopeful direction. We get influenced all day long by social media, news, family, drama of all types. We can get a sense of heaviness, not realizing how we even go there. It’s good to stop, identify our thoughts, and refocus where necessary.

2. Silence also offers us space to listen to our own heart beat, a heart that we can hear be full of gratitude for another day to lead our bodies in life. We allow (and sometimes force) gratitude to have the loudest voice.

3. Finally, and possibly most important, is the space to connect with God, or Love, or whatever it is that’s bigger than us. Because if we’re the measure of all that there is, our story will consume us. It was never meant to be our yardstick for measuring joy or happiness or contentment. So we stop to breathe deeply, meditate on all that is beautiful, pray. We change perspective.

Silence allows us to hear the deep longing of our own hearts. It’s centering, painful, and hopeful all at once.

I am learning to not only accept the hauntingly captivating beauty of silence; I am learning to embrace her hallowed space. Noise often cobbles together a storyline that’s less than encouraging. Silence allows us to identify the lies we hold about ourselves, especially relative to aging, and craft a story that’s more hopeful. We need that story and so do the people we touch everyday.

“Hello darkness my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.” There’s a lot she has to share with us.

Stories of Connection

“Sending memes, links and videos to others isn’t trivial.
It suggests that you’re thinking of them.
It’s known as pebbling, based on penguins
gifting pebbles to potential partners.
Pebbling is an act of care. Every pebble is a bid for connection.”
~Adam Grant

I LOVE this. Connecting with someone sends a message: “You are not alone.”

Talking about his mental health struggles, Michael Phelps said that he and a few friends check in on each other all the time. “I will be going through some kind of spell, spill, spiral — whatever you want to call it — and bing, my phone lights up, a text comes through. I’m able to relax because you don’t feel alone in that moment.”

I love the physical connections with friends. There are friends that I walk with, and while the exercise is great, being with them is the best part. Then there’s the, “Let’s grab coffee,” or “You free for a glass?” Each connection happens on a different level and they are all my favorite. 

But sometimes a connection is just the expression of a thought. I read a story about two older women who share a heart emoji when they wake up just to let the other know they’re being thought of. And that they’re each still there!

Every morning I play Wordle and Quortle. A friend does the same and we share our scores with each other. While we cheer each other on for the rare great score, it’s about connection. We check in with each other, and usually can tell when the other might be having a moment.

This morning, after sharing her scores, she texted, “How are you doing? I’m around all day if you want to chat.” I am not alone this morning. Pebbling.

There is a crow that comes to my yard frequently. I make sure our little fountain has clean water. I always acknowledge him and I believe he senses my care for him. We connect and I believe he “pebbles” me too. It’s important to remember that we connect to so much around us, especially when we’re feeling alone.

So let’s not trivialize the small gestures of connection. We never know if someone is going through some kind of “spell, spill or spiral.” If I happen to send a heart emoji, here is everything that little red icon means: “I’m thinking about you. I care about how you’re doing. And I love you. I’m here if you need to chat.”

Maybe they could add a little pebble to the emoji list♥️ 

It Came to Pass

If we could peek behind the air we breathe, we could see a kind of trickery taking place. It is luring us into believing that life will always be just as it is today.

We often see the daily routineness of our day as “it came to stay.” When we’re parenting young children, when we’re in school, when we’re in a challenging season, even when all is well, we think we’ll always be doing the things we’re doing today.

But as we get older, we look back on those times and know that, truly, they never meant to stay. When did they grow up, where did all those classes go, how did I reach retirement age?

It doesn’t change simply because we get older. Even though we know better, we can still see our routines as something that will always be. We still need to be reminded to look behind the scene and spot the deception.

This past weekend was challenging in a very common way. It was cold, windy, and rainy. The forecast was more of the same for the next 10 days. I was struggling. Then I thought, 10 years from now, I would probably give anything to live this cold rainy day again at the age I am today. So I remind myself to enjoy this present life, the common everyday rainy life I have today.

May we remember that this day—with all the routine and challenge it may hold—comes to pass us by. I want to breathe it in, consume all the air my lungs can hold, and live everything in front of me. Ten years is a blip.

The screenshot of today’s speeding-past-us image may be a little blurry, but let’s get a glimpse of the beauty it holds. Even if we have to squint to see it. As Seals and Croft reminded us in the 70s, “We will never pass this way again.”

Despite all that may be going on, there is something we can appreciate. Even if it’s just with one small smile.

The Final Bloom: Or Is It?

So I bought my Christmas amaryllis early November. You heard the story. It didn’t bloom by that holiday, but it had a message for me. Bloom whenever the hell you want. No timetables, baby.

I had written that there is usually activity beneath the surface, but the eye just isn’t picking up on it. Suddenly the thing blooms and we are taken by surprise. It eventually dies back and we are grateful for the beautiful flower it brought forth.

But then, when we expect nothing at all, it blooms again. Well, I didn’t think you had another bloom in you, little guy. And there you go, showing us all that blooms happen even when we think there’s nothing left. This is the third time I’ve been surprised by him.

How many life lessons did that little bulb teach me? 

  1. We need to be patient and trust the process. Time is not our enemy.
  2. Just because the eye doesn’t pick up on activity doesn’t mean that none is taking place.
  3. There is a time for every purpose under heavens but usually we don’t get to choose that time;  that time chooses us.
  4. Maybe the one bloom isn’t the end of the story. Maybe it’s a series of blooms that pop over time when they’re ready. Just because we bloomed once doesn’t mean we’re done.

What we need is the hope that everything resting inside of us will pop when the time is right. We were designed in love to hold so much beauty deep within. I thought that little flower was done, but then I noticed  a little green sprout at the base. I kept it in the light to see if it had anything left. Once again, the amaryllis bloomed.  

I feel a connection with this little flower. We talk and laugh and tell each other we are awesome. I got a lot of bloom left in me. Maybe we’ll both be a little beautiful, loud, and out of place. A perfect, if not at all predictable, time for every purpose under heaven.

Thankful Still

Thanksgiving is a radically defiant day. In the middle of a season defined by short days and long nights, we set aside a day to give thanks—for what we have and who we have.

This year, thankfulness might have to be more grounded in intention. In recent years the challenge was whether or not we would leave our seated positions on Thursday to shop for Black Friday. Who knew that one year, those seated positions might not even be possible.

All of us have likely seen pain, loss, and disappointment over these past months. But Thanksgiving is a symbolic day of declaration: grateful regardless of circumstances.

Whether we are locked down, locked in, or locked out, our hearts are never bound by the same rules. Regardless of any laws being imposed from the outside, our hearts are still free.

*We can sit still and breathe in the abundance of life around us. 
*We can affirm that no matter what we see, beauty is also in our midst.
*We can listen to our beating hearts and remember that love keeps them beating. 
*We can remind others that they are valuable, whether they are sitting with us or not.
*We can decide we want to do better at living a generous and grateful life.

So let’s be quietly defiant today and cultivate gratitude for the abundant grace and mercy available to us all. What we cultivate in the quiet can then be lived out in the noisy, the messy, and the hard. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t benefit from a little grace and mercy today so let’s be generous in our thanks “giving.”

“Wear gratitude like a cloak, and it will feed every corner of your life.”— Rumi

Thanksgiving or Thanksgetting?

“Happy Thanksgetting.”

Those are the sentiments in the latest Verizon commercial. Initially, it made me mad. Until I realized that they were simply stating what all the other ads were implying. They are actually the sentiments in every single commercial aimed at the holiday consumer. Don’t focus on giving thanks people; focus on getting stuff.

During this season, I am continually challenging myself on my thoughts. Am I focused on giving, on gratitude? Or am I focused on getting, on lack? Oh to be grateful for the simple things we have. The sound of a loved one walking through the door, the sight of a pantry filled with food, the smell of a frosty fall morning. Gratitude sees our mundane and calls it beautiful. It covers our ordinary with wonder.
“When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity.” Elie Wiesel
Let our lives demonstrate gratitude this season. There is a big difference between Thanksgiving and Thanksgetting. Let’s be those who celebrate Thanksgiving with hearts that see the wonder in our beautifully ordinary lives. And cause others to celebrate theirs as well.
thanks

Thankfulness matters.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Radical Decision to Tidy Up

When I first read about the book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I knew it was ultimately about my life, and I wasn’t emotionally prepared to do that at the time. So when that book made its way into my cart at Costco, I knew I was as ready as I was going to be. This book is about letting go of things we own. That process can be challenging.

I had a hard time at first with the book. She advocates the practice of thanking the things we own. I easily give thanks FOR things that I have. But never TO them. And, quite frankly, I chuckled a bit as I read about thanking these things, out loud. But I kept reading. I was definitely ready for this letting go.

tidying up
She tells you to put every article of clothing you own in one place–forcing you to look at all that’s there. Then she states the only guideline for keeping anything: Does it bring you joy? Okay. So, what if it doesn’t bring you joy–but you spent a ton of money on it? Costly things are hard to let go. I justified those purchases by allowing them space in my closet. I pulled a couple of expensive items out of the pile, things that had hung for a long time. I thanked them—yes, out loud– for serving their purpose that season (even if it was just in the act of buying them).

It is hard to let go of things that cost us. So we will often just keep them to avoid thinking that we overspent or made a bad decision. But what if really did cost that much to satisfy a need we had at the time? Lying to myself about possibly wearing it one day isn’t justifying the cost. Coming to terms with why I bought it in the first place does. Once I had the perspective that it wasn’t about the number of times I wore the thing, but instead about the purpose it served at the time, I was able to release it.

So finally, I came face to face with the life application. I had invested many years in some things that had recently come crashing down. I held on to all the emotions attached because, after all, it had cost me plenty. I let so many emotions “hang in the back of the closet” for a while. Letting go of them seemed wasteful. Until I came to terms with the lack of joy those emotions brought. Sorry, it is time to thank you and let you go.

Letting go helps us in so many ways:

1.     It unclutters our lives.
Cluttered lives are stressful. We have a hard time focusing and a hard time resting because there is always something vying for attention. In a yelling at us kind of way.
2.     It makes our lives bigger.
I used to think the more I had going on, the bigger my life. Wrong. During that season, I couldn’t say yes to anything new. I was cramped and had little space to breathe. My space now seems expansive and I honestly feel like I can see so much farther. And feel so much more joy.
3.     It allows more room for other things.
There are things we can invest in now, maybe with more wisdom and gratitude for what that all means. We are more comfortable with who we are, with who we are becoming, in our own skin. It’s not about comparison and performance measurements. It’s about being brave and authentic and honest with ourselves.

It’s true. I am now thanking inanimate objects. But I have also been able to thank those life experiences that produced a sense of sadness, loss, and regret. “You served a purpose in my life, and I am grateful for the way you shaped me, the way you changed me. I am grateful TO and I am grateful FOR everything that has helped me grow.

After letting go, there is letting grow. That’s the point of going through all this. That’s the magic in tidying up. It’s time to move forward; there is so much room to grow.

“Sometimes the greatest thing to come out of all your hard work isn’t what you get for it, but what you become for it. Shake things up today! Be You…Be Free…”
Steve Maraboli, Life, Truth, and Being Free