Lessons in Gratitude Day 661

Posted on May 5, 2013 by mtchamblee

This has been an amazing weekend. I love it when something is good for no particular reason. This weekend, today, has been like that. Who’d have thunk it? And now it’s early–7 p.m. here in the greater DC Metro area–and I am sitting on the sofa in the living room watching the birds at the feeder and writing this blog. This is all very good, especially because I would have predicted the opposite at the beginning of the weekend. After being up extremely late Thursday evening and working an almost regular day on Friday, I figured I’d come home and collapse from exhaustion and do very little over the course of the weekend, and actually would spend most of it fighting the blues.

Not so, and I am grateful. A lot of favorable conditions existed for me to have an awesome weekend. At large part of it involved my own inner desire to have this be a good weekend. When I awoke this morning I wrote in my journal that I could feel a tinge of the blues coming on and spent my writing time opening up about what I was feeling. I am learning to acknowledge and embrace the feelings that come up rather than suppress or run away from them. They don’t go away, so what’s the point of pretending they’re not real and present? So rather than sit and stew in it, I wrote it out. Then I got up, took a cool shower and got on with my day. By the time I was up and out with the dog I had already turned the corner in my mood; in fact, it had turned almost as soon as I put down my journal and got up. So often for me these days, expressing the intention and the desire to chase the blues away is all I need to do to dispel them in reality. While it isn’t always that easy, increasingly it is easier.

The other key to my awesome weekend? Family. Plain and simple, I love being around my family. From dinner with my sister Ruth and her family yesterday, spending time with my sister Sandy and her husband Al this afternoon, and wrapping up by watching Ruth’s son play soccer this afternoon, I had a healthy dose of family and sunshine. The weather was beautiful and perfect for the soccer match. Justin played well and Ruth and I spent a pleasant afternoon cheering and clapping and enjoying the time together. As I reflect on the doors that opened to bring me out from California across the country to be reunited with my sisters, I can’t help but be grateful. I haven’t always had the easiest time as I’ve adjusted to life out here; but deciding to live close to my sisters remains among the best decisions I’ve made in a long while. Not a week goes by but that I see one or more of them (usually on the weekends) and that generally makes my week. One of these weekends I hope to score a trifecta and see all three of them in one weekend. Now that would be a record worth aiming for.

I have a lot to be grateful for. My life in general is blessed, in spite of the occasional bumps in the road and the stretches of time when things seem hard. The bumps are getting smoother and the difficult stretches are getting shorter. Through it all I remain grateful for the “good” moments even as I accept the ones that aren’t quite so good. I am learning not to clutch too desperately to one and not to run away from the other. Or, to put it more affirmatively (as I prefer to do) I am learning to hold lightly to the good and to stand strong in the midst of the less good. I am learning, as best I can, to live in the moment and be with whatever the moment brings. I haven’t arrived by any means, but I’m definitely on my way and grateful for my journey thus far. Looking forward to an awesome week ahead.

Posted in Family, Gratitude, Health and Wellbeing, Living in the Moment | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 660

Posted on May 4, 2013 by mtchamblee

I talked with a colleague of mine this week who had just returned from his homeland after spending two weeks visiting his critically ill father and attending to all the business that an eldest child must take care of when their lone remaining parent is dying or already departed. “I was able to spend a lot of time with my father,” my friend told me, talking of all the little intimacies of grooming–smoothing his hair, massaging his hands and feet, whispering endearments to him–that he engaged his father with each day. His father could barely speak, but was able to acknowledge his presence and even offered a “thank you” to him after one visit. “I came back here leaving nothing behind, no regrets,” my friend confided, and I nodded. I understood what he had described: I too sat vigil for my father for a few nights as he lay dying. Though I could not say, as my friend did, that I had no regrets. I had plenty.

Over the past several days I’ve begun to re-immerse myself in family history stuff. I have at times fancied myself the family genealogist, and though I am by no means the only one, I would say I’ve been the most active and persistent over the years. One of the significant regrets I have as I think about those last days with my own father is that he was the last of his generation–one girl and three boys–children of my Dad’s dad. There is now one one to whom I can apply myself to get answers about family history. Things that could have been so easily answered by my father or his younger brother there is now no one living who knows the easy answer. My next option will be to talk to my own older siblings to see if they remember things Dad used to talk with them about.

I have so many questions, ones I didn’t even know I had until I started listening within the past week to the audiobook version of, “The Warmth of Other Suns,” by Isabel Wilkerson. It recounts the “great migration” of African Americans from the South to the North and West between 1915 and the 1970s. My grandfather was a part of the great migration, moving from Atlanta, Georgia to Little Rock Arkansas to Indianapolis Indiana before finally settling in Chicago. He migrated and I can even speculate why he did so; but I won’t know it from his lips and not from any of his children. My last known Uncle–a half brother to my father–died within the last month. I had never met this uncle and now I never will. So I have my share of regrets. The largest of which is that I never really did the research to write the book I’ve always wanted to write about my grandfather and our family’s history. And while I still can write it, the research will be that much more difficult for having lost the patriarchs of our family line.

What has any of this to do with gratitude? I am grateful for the technology and access to information I didn’t have a few years ago. Little by little I expect to be able to piece together pieces of my family history. I am grateful for the notion of family; I am connected to loving siblings and dear cousins and plan to meet up and connect with relations I haven’t met and hadn’t even realized they existed. Technology helped me find them and will help us stay in touch with them. It will allow me to do some of the digging I need to do to answer the questions and tell the stories of the various members of our family tree. I am excited by the prospect, if a little daunted, but look forward to creating time and working up the energy to give the project the attention it deserves.

I am grateful for my family, past and present. When I think about all that my ancestors and relatives had to endure simply to build a life for themselves and their families it makes me that much more determined to tell their story.  I recognize the same determination in myself as I see in them, and I imagine that to be a byproduct of being a member of this family. The more I learn about them, the more I understand who I am, where I came from and why I am the way that I am. I look forward to the unfolding that’s to come.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 659

Posted on May 3, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am grateful for each of my children; they are both unique in their personalities, the gifts they bring into the world, and their attitudes and approaches to life. They also share similarities: their incredible creativity in music, writing and self expression, and their capacities for deep thinking and reflection on a wide variety of topics. They are both increasingly self aware and have already experienced a great many things in their young lives.

Yesterday I knew I was in for a really long day–I had an event at work that was going to last from 7:00 to 11:00 p.m. I was so busy working with my colleague to get things ready and set up that I forgot that I had intended to write my blog between 5:30 and 6:30. It wasn’t until I was talking to my daughter at around 7:30 that I realized I wasn’t going to have a chance to even start writing until after 11 p.m. “How would you like to write my blog for me tonight? I’ve been wanting to invite guest bloggers from time to time. You can be the first.” She agreed and wrote and posted last night’s blog. When I got home at 12:30 a.m. and walked the dog (who’d been stuck in the house since I’d left her at around noon ), I finally had the chance to sit down and read what she had written.

Michal’s blog last night spoke with poignant candor to some of the challenges she’s been experiencing lately and her determination to find the good that’s generally present even in the most difficult circumstances. She knows that I am a firm believer in the power of gratitude, of seeking what’s good and beautiful even in the midst of the struggle, and that writing can be extremely therapeutic and helpful in clarifying thoughts and feelings. Michal herself is a blogger and journaler, using them both as a means of self expression and of making sense of the world around her. Like me she is also a singer-songwriter, having used her playing and singing as a salve to her soul when painful circumstances arose that she could express in no other way than through her music.

I am proud of Michal’s ability to express herself and was so pleased that she was so willing and totally capable in filling in for me on yesterday’s blog. I had been wanting to invite her to write for some time now and have also extended an invitation to one of my brothers. In the weeks and months ahead, look for a guest blog from my son, from one of my sisters, and other folks if I can convince them to write.

I am grateful that I have the opportunity to watch my kids grow and mature into the young adults they are, and though I still shake my head sometimes at the things they come up with and their occasionally wacky behavior, mostly I am impressed by how they’re emerging into really cool people. As a parent, one can’t really ask for too much more than that.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 658

Posted on May 3, 2013 by mtchamblee

Greetings everyone,

This is Michal Jones! I am  honored to be blogging for my mother tonight.

————————————————————-

Today, I chose vulnerability.

It has been a week for me. There’s nothing external that has been particularly challenging or different about this week as opposed to the previous weeks – just that I am exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally. Life as a graduate student and housing paraprofessional is taxing!

Coming from the semester system directly to the quarter system has been a rougher adjustment than I initially anticipated. As many of my friends share about how they are completing their first years in graduate school, I still have (what feels like) an exhausting six weeks to go. There has been something else, too – the return of what my dad called my “old acquaintances, depression and anxiety”. So, as I said, it has been a week. But I am getting through it.

At the end of this day, I am grateful for my relationship with the divine – one I am still in exploration of, but that keeps me going during difficult times. This morning, as I struggled with nausea and a deep resistance to starting my day, I took a deep breath and asked “God” for guidance and clarity. The gentle voice back said, “You are going to be just fine, my child.” And I believe that.

At the end of this day, I am extremely grateful for the amazing and supportive conversations that I have with those around me: My girlfriend has delicately held me and my issues in her hand without judgment and with gentleness that I admire. I began my day with a breakfast date (turned counseling session!) with a friend who I don’t get to see very often. I found her presence and advice extremely comforting. I later talked to (cried to) both of my parents on the phone, sharing how much I missed and needed them and loved them. I was reminded that, though they are not physically with me, their lessons hold so much truth and importance to my continuing adulthood. My supervisor and colleagues have been affirming sources of support as well.

The most important piece for me to take away from today is that not one of the individuals I was vulnerable with cast judgment about where I am, how I have been feeling, and how it has been apparent in many of my multiple roles. I often have so much hesitation around sharing with others how I feel (because of the stigmas around mental health and wellness) that I am consumed by my own thoughts. But today, when I chose vulnerability, I was re-awakened to the fact that I am everything but alone. And, as echoed in me this morning and that I know to be true, “I am going to be just fine.”

Posted in Depression, Family, Friends, God, Gratitude, Health and Wellbeing, Overcoming Challenges, Perseverance | 1 Comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 657

Posted on May 1, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am amazingly tired and looking ahead to a very long day tomorrow. I have already fallen asleep twice at the computer keyboard and am likely to do so again given how I’m feeling. I am aware of the feeling of fatigue, of having burned my candle at both ends (and the middle, for that matter). I’ve spun the random number wheel several times and while I landed on several good entries, none of them have spoken to me.  I have hit a wall and my muse isn’t in the vicinity to bail me out.

Thus, in one of the shorter blogs I’ve written in a long while, I only have the energy to offer a few simple expressions of gratitude.

I am grateful to work with and around good people and grateful that being around them helps me be a better person. Through the conversations I have with them, I recognize some of the gifts and talents that I bring to the world. “To find out what one is fitted to do and to secure the opportunity to do it is the key to happiness,” said the educator John Dewey. I am not entirely sure that I’ve found exactly what I am fitted to do, but in my interactions with the people around me, on the job and outside of work, I have a natural knack of working with people and I enjoy it.

I am grateful as always for my family–both my immediate kin and my extended family, including those cousins and connections I am only now discovering. There’s a bit of a historian and genealogist inside of me, not to mention a very amateur sleuth, on the trail of discovering who “my people” were–from my ex-slave great, great grandparents and their children and the succeeding generations down to me and my children, family and ancestry is fascinating to me. I am grateful for the technology that is giving me access to records and documents that are helping me unlock some of the questions that will allow me to tell stories of family who are no longer alive to speak for themselves. It continues to fire my imagination and rekindle my desire to write about them. We shall see where that leads.

Finally, I am grateful for the ability to find joy in small things. Tonight as I sat here half-dozing and half writing, I could hear the evening song of a robin singing in her clear and unmistakable call. The familiarity of these sounds is comforting in the evening as I am winding down the day as well as in the early morning as I am starting my day with my morning journal. These are simple things that bring a measure of beauty and joy into my life. I am grateful for the full range of physical senses and abilities that allow me to enjoy the beauty around me; I try never to take for granted being able bodied.

I am now off to take my rest and get ready for the day tomorrow. I am grateful to have a reason each day to be here writing about gratitude and the many blessings around me. You are largely why I write: I am grateful for you.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 656

Posted on April 30, 2013 by mtchamblee

I am grateful this evening for the treasure trove that is this gratitude blog. Recently, when writer’s block has hit, I’ve taken to returning to earlier blogs to either repost them in their entirety or take pieces from them and expand upon the theme, adding fresh content to the original post. Some evenings I find just the right  blog to repost on the first spin of the random number generator, and other nights, like this one, I spin it three or four times searching for the right post to draw from. It is in the re-reading of posts I’ve written over a year ago that I realize how much I’ve been through, overcome, gotten through in the past couple of years. While it perhaps can’t be described as miraculous, it nonetheless is notable that I came through a really trying period of my life and retained my sanity and basic belief in the goodness of people; and even though it was largely people who failed and mistreated me during that time, there was also people who held me, healed me, and stood by me until I could stand on my own.

It is gratifying to read back through some of my challenges and triumphs, and because I was able to make it through whatever difficulties presented themselves. When I am challenged in some way in my current life, I need only look back and remember that because I was able to successfully navigate my way through some really hard days and come through on the other side relatively in one piece. That’s another upside to doing the bookend writing that I do every day–morning journal and this blog in the evening. Between the two I have a pretty faithful narrative of what my life has looked like over the past two years. If someone ever wants to write a biography of me or I someday decide to write my own memoir, I have hundreds of pages of material.

I am grateful for the ability to write. It’s such an important means not only of self expression, but self discovery. When I first started writing my morning journal nearly two years ago I wrote in the front of that first journal “Writing my way to clarity.” I have written my way through nine journals of various shapes and sizes, having started book 10 about a month ago. I’ve written my morning journal the old fashioned way–long hand in ink using a variety of lined journals and notebooks. I write every morning–whether I feel like it or not–for 30 minutes to an hour always while I’m still in my jammies. My journal, unlike this blog, is not themed–I write about whatever is on my mind at the time–and it is uncensored. Periodically I write out some bitter and angry sentiments. I rarely spend an entire journal time ranting about something; even though no one reads it but me, I am guided by some inner compass that keeps me pointed–for the most part–in a positive direction. I challenge myself inasmuch as it’s possible, to write from a positive aspect even if the subject I’m writing is negative. Part of the process of writing my way to clarity is about trying to both be honest with myself about what is while at the same time trying to write about what I want to see unfold in my life. It’s a tricky balance, but it works for me and I find that the more I write in the mornings and evenings the more I really am writing my way to clarity.

Not everyone will find writing at their means of self expression and discovery. My hope is that you find a medium that works for you, that helps you think through the issues of your day, that provides a means for you to discover answers to your important questions, that offers the opportunity for creativity and beauty to emerge. I have recently decided that I’m going to start writing and mailing letters to people like we did in the olden days before emails, text messages and Twitter. Last week for my birthday my daughter hand wrote and mailed me a letter. “I know how much you appreciate physical mail,” she wrote in the first paragraph of her two-page missive, “so I figured taking some time to write to you wouldn’t be too much trouble.” I remembered how much I used to enjoy corresponding with my uncle for many years. We each wrote in long hand, though once he typed a letter or two on a typewriter but made so many mistakes and typos that he eventually went back to hand writing them. Uncle Al had a neat hand, beautiful and flowing, mine, not so much. I’m not sure folks will be able to decipher my handwriting, but I believe I’ll do my best to write legibly (the D+ I received in penmanship in 4th grade notwithstanding.)

I’m grateful to have found a medium that I love: I’ve been writing–poems, short stories, songs, novels, letters, and all manner of documents since I could first hold a pencil. Find whatever works for you and go for it!

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 655

Posted on April 29, 2013 by mtchamblee
She takes the time out to dance,
spinning ’round til she collapses on the floor
Breathless and laughing she takes a quick rest
and then she starts dancing some more.
She sings the truth that she sees,
and doesn’t silence her spirit.
It gives  her strength to say things
In ways that people can hear it.
Uncensored and joyful and free.
I watch her and say to myself, “That could’ve been me.”

Back in 2003 I wrote a song titled, “That Could’ve Been Me.” It’s about how sometimes we compare our lives with others’ (or even with the life we had imagined for ourselves) and feel as though we somehow don’t measure up. We watch what other people are doing and say, “That could’ve been me if only I’d done this or not done that…” Or, from the famous line in the film, On the Waterfront, we say, “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody…” We coulda, woulda, shoulda been better, done something, taken this path, made that decision…and because we didn’t we’re somehow not living the life we feel we should be living.

Tonight I am grateful for learning to live without regret. I say learning because I definitely haven’t arrived at a place where I have let go of all my coulda-woulda-shouldas and fully live the life that is in front of me. It remains true that tomorrow isn’t promised to us; that all we really have is today, this moment. It is a waste of precious time to regret what didn’t turn out the way we’d thought/hoped/planned or to fret about our thoughts/hopes/plans for the future. One is over, the other hasn’t gotten here yet, and still I live too much of my life in one or the other and not nearly enough in the here and now.

The other day I sat watching a procession of university faculty wearing academic regalia and walking in stately ceremony as part of a formal institutional celebration. As I watched I remembered marching in procession and wearing academic regalia and sitting on stage as a member of the university administration. I remember wishing I had made different decisions about the trajectory of my academic career. “If only I had done x, y, and z I would be a tenured professor now instead of an university administrator. How my life would have been different if I had taken this step instead of that one.” I had a moment of intense regret until I shook it off with the realization that I am where I am now and all the coulda-woulda-shouldas are completely irrelevant. It is incumbent upon me to be where I am now and be the best me I can be while I’m here.

Oh children listen to me as you stand at this crossroad,
Deciding what you will carry along and those things you can offload.
I hope you follow your heart, and listen hard to your own voice.
In choosing where you will start as best that you can make it your own choice.
You’ll be glad that you did it your way,
You won’t want to wake up and say, “That could’ve been me.”
So you say, “That could’ve been me instead I heeded my own voice.
Walking the path of my true choice and living life the way I dreamed it could be.
So now I lift up my hands and give thanks to the Creator of all things,
Who put a song in my heart, gave me a new start and let me be me.

I am grateful for the reminder that I am where I am supposed to be for this time of my life. I may not always understand why I am where I am, but I take comfort from the line in the poem The Desiderata that says, “whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” I am part of that great unfolding. I am looking forward to continuing to live into what that means.

(That Could’ve Been Me, words and music © Marquita T. Chamblee, 2003)

Posted in Gratitude, Living in the Moment | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 654

Posted on April 28, 2013 by mtchamblee

Every Sunday for the past several months I have enjoyed dinner with my sister Ruth and her family. I have a standing invitation and have rarely missed a Sunday dinner since January. I almost didn’t go today; I had already spent time with Ruth watching her son play his afternoon soccer match and then went home to continue the chores I’d started this morning. It had been a very productive, chore-completion kind of day: I’d started early by changing the linens on my bed, doing two loads of laundry, setting up the dishwasher to wash the dishes, sweeping several rooms in the house, and doing my grocery shopping all before 1:00 p.m. I headed to the soccer match and on my return at 3:30 p.m., set about the task of ironing nearly two-dozen shirts while watching the most recent episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” on my computer as I worked. When I called Ruth at 5:30 to check on the progress of dinner, she informed me that she was just about to start cooking.

I am sort of a homebody. Once I get home and sit down, it takes a very powerful inducement to get me to come back out. Particularly on a day when I’ve worked a lot, the later it gets the less likely I am to to want to get up and head out. So I told Ruth I was going to cook chili for my own dinner and was not going to come out to her house. She told me to go ahead and cook my chili for tomorrow and then come over and have dinner with them. I told her she was nuts and that I wasn’t going to come out again. She told me to cook my chili and check back in with her in a little while and I could come over and have dinner with them. Ruth is not usually so insistent, but shaking my head, I cooked my chili, finishing just as the phone rang.

“Okay, so we’re having Chinese take out for dinner,” Ruth announced and I chuckled. Apparently her oven was on the fritz.
“Enjoy,” I answered.
“Did you cook your chili?”
“Yes, it was good.”
“You didn’t eat your chili, did you?” She demanded, and I laughed again.
“No I didn’t eat it.”
“Good, put it away and you can come over for dinner.”

After another moment’s hesitation, I told her I’d be right over. I don’t want to act like it is such a huge undertaking to go to her house–she lives a 15-minute beltway ride away from me. Of course, given how much time I spend on the beltway during the week, the idea of spending time on it during the weekend is not always pleasant. Nonetheless, I went. It was unusual for Ruth to persist in the invitation, so I decided to get over myself and go. It was the usual entertaining evening: my sister, brother-in-law and their two children are thoroughly enjoyable to watch and engage with. As I was finishing my dinner, suddenly the room went dark and for a moment I thought the power was out. Into the kitchen Ruth came (I hadn’t seen her leave) carrying a pie with lit candles on it and they all began singing happy birthday to me. (My birthday had passed a few days earlier.) Now I understood why Ruth had pressed me to come over this evening–I was pleased to be included in their family birthday ritual.

I am grateful for my sister Ruth. Regular readers of this blog will know that I’ve written specifically about her twice (http://walkinyourpower.com/blog/?p=369 and http://walkinyourpower.com/blog/?p=1168) and alluded to her on many occasions. She helped make my transition out here in the DC area smooth and uneventful, helping me find and doing all the legwork to secure a place to live. She helped me get settled here in the area,  and now my standing invitation to Sunday dinner is a highlight of my week. These are simple but profound blessings–the love and care of family strengthens and keeps me standing strong no matter what circumstances I face. When I made the decision about where I would live when I moved here, I intentionally chose to live close to my sisters and that has made all the difference.

Tonight as I made my way home from Ruth’s house with my doggie-bag in hand (she never sends me home without leftovers I can have for lunch or dinner the next day) I smiled, grateful that I’d allowed myself to be talked into coming out for another Sunday dinner. Now as I prepare to take my rest for the night, I will offer prayers of thanksgiving and blessings for Ruth and her family. May they each prosper and be in good health and overall wellbeing. So be it!

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 653

Posted on April 27, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am grateful for having made it through difficult times and come out on the other side of them. When I was in the midst of the situations while most of the time I had no idea how I was going to get through them, mostly I believed that I would get through them. I had times when I prayed and cried and my chest burned with anxiety about how I was going to make it. I woke in a panic, wracked my brain during the daytime, I lay awake at night over the course of nearly 18 months. It was among the most difficult times of my life. But I stood strong, I persevered, I kept moving when I wanted to sit down and give up. I found ways to calm my heart, remain positive, and stay sane, and I relied on the love and kindness of my family to help me through.

I’ve turned a corner here and there since then and while I continue to face my share of challenges, they are not nearly of the magnitude of what I dealt with back then. I am grateful for having the resilience to bounce back from various setbacks. When I have moments of being discouraged by the occasional roadblocks I encounter I remind myself that this too will pass, that I have worked my way through a variety of difficulties and will do so again. In thinking about tonight’s blog I decided to spin the wheel and see what came up. After a few spins, we landed on  the entry from Day 75 (September 12, 2011) that seems to resonate with the  theme of resilience:

I am grateful this evening for rebounding. Last weekend I struggled a bit emotionally–my blogs from Friday and Saturday chronicled my difficulties. Sunday was a bit better, and by today I was feeling alright again. I could do an analysis of why I felt bad during the first part of the weekend and why I feel better today; but that’s not necessary. What I am coming to understand,and I have known this for a long time, is that there is a well of resilience that resides in each of us that bubbles up and revives us when we have hit a wall. At least I know it’s true for me. And sometimes for no reason or with no apparent cause, it bubbles up and I feel better.

Now in terms of my recovery from the blues of this past weekend, there were some reasons and apparent causes for the shift. I took some actions, made some steps in the direction of helping me feel better. After two days of isolation in my house, on Sunday I took myself into community with people by going to church. The service from start to finish could have been written for me and how I’d been feeling. From the music (including an old gospel standard, “I Feel Like Going On”) through the sermon (“Sometimes you have to move on”), to the fellowship with folks before and afterward, it all served to remind me that reaching out and being in community helps beat the blues. Sadness and depression fester in isolation;so if I want to counteract those feelings,I need to get out of my house and into the company of people.

One other thing that was different today from Friday and Saturday–I got out of the house, first to have breakfast with my friend Mary and then later this afternoon to trek around Chavez Park. Note to self: when the sadness wells up here are some potential steps to take:

  1. know that it’s alright to be sad,don’t push it away,but allow yourself to feel it;
  2. feel it,but don’t live there;
  3. get out of your house and connect with living people and/or
  4. get outdoors nature and soak up sun and natural beauty.

There are other steps and actions to take, but these are among the more obvious to me. I would remind myself, as always,to  be kind and patient with myself as these waves roll through my life. It is the nature of things to ebb and flow and right now while things are as uncertain as they are for me there’s a whole lot of ebbing and flowing happening. In his book, Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn quoted a swami as saying, “You can’t stop the waves,but you can learn to surf.” I’ve adopted that idea for now. I can’t do anything about what has already happened and have little to no control over what else might occur. What I can do is prepare to ride the waves as best I can and when possible enjoy myself in the process. It’s not always easy, but I can sure try.

There is no one thing that’s going to get help me surf the waves of life when they come rolling in; it’s the combination of things great and small working together that’s making the difference in my life. I’m grateful for them all, especially the wonderful people in my life who support, encourage, and love me no matter what’s going on. I also appreciate being able to draw from my own inner resources. Those too have not failed me; they might not always kick in immediately,but they are there when I reach for them. And I believe they will continue to be. For that I am exceedingly grateful.

It was a long week for me this week just past, I was worn out and a bit cranky. It is helpful for me to remind myself that I come from good stock: my ancestors were some strong, resilient, persevering folks. How can I not be so? I am grateful for the wellspring of resilience that lives inside me. I think I’ll drink a little from it tonight before I take my rest and will look to awaken refreshed in the morning. May it be so!

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 652

Posted on April 26, 2013 by mtchamblee

TGIF. This is one of those Fridays when I sank to the sofa to eat an early dinner then came back to my room, sat on my bed to write my blog and woke up 30 minutes later. I am now in my jammies, determined to write of simple blessings and gratitude before turning out the light and going to sleep. We shall see if I accomplish my goal of 9:30 p.m. I am exhausted and grateful for the impending weekend. Last Saturday I worked all day and got little rest the entire weekend, so I feel that much more tired today. I generally set my alarm for 7:30 a.m. on weekends, but I just might turn it off tomorrow. We shall see how I feel.

Tonight I am grateful simply to be here relaxing. It was a beautiful day here and while I was at work, outside walking from one building to another, I heard a birdsong (uh oh) that I had heard many times but previously not identified. I happened to be walking with two other people at the time, but was able to glance up just as the bird whistled again. Lo and behold it was a bird I’d already recognized from the feeder: the tufted titmouse. I had seen the perky little bird at the feeder many times, but had never known its call, and had heard the call many times but never associated it with the titmouse. These little mysteries and their subsequent resolutions give me great pleasure and satisfaction, and as a bird nerd, I am pleased to make yet another connection–that’s two in one week. There’s another mystery bird whose song penetrates the fog of my early morning journal writing. I haven’t seen it yet: it seems only to sing in the early morning. By the time I’m outside walking the dog, it has long since quieted or moved on to sing elsewhere in the neighborhood. I’ll look forward to finding out more about that one too.

TT at my feeder, March 2013

This blog is not titled, “Lessons in Bird Identification,” so I suppose I should offer a few words about gratitude. I am grateful for the solace that I find in nature and the sweet distraction of discovering new information about a subject I have come to love. No matter what kind of mood I’m in, I nevertheless can get caught in keen, attentive listening to an unfamiliar bird call and be carried into a different space. Yesterday as I neared my house after nearly two hours of frustrating commute I saw the neighborhood Canada geese that hang out around a pond on the grounds of a rehabilitation hospital. Yesterday, I noticed for the first time the presence of yellow, fuzzy, goslings–little baby geese. “Awwwwwwww,” I exclaimed aloud and nearly stopped at the side of the road to take a picture. While not as amusing as the wild turkeys who entertained me so frequently back in California, the baby geese will be worth watching. Between the antics of the squirrels inside the tree nest and the appearance of several of the neighborhood rabbits, I’ve been completely amused and entertained by the local fauna.

I am grateful to be at rest. Finally. I am looking forward to a relaxing, relatively quiet weekend. May it be so!


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