HOLD ON TO YOUR WONDER
djmilestones
Saturday, March 16, 2024
HOLD ON TO YOUR WONDER
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
OUR OWN UNIQUE GIFTS
OUR OWN UNIQUE GIFTS
Imagine for a moment that we spread our own wings to help spread our own unique gifts with the world. I have that picture in my mind when I think of self-care. Self-care is all about taking care of ourselves so that we are able to help care for others who need a bit of help from others.
I like to imagine that if I continue to spread my wings and fly that the unique gifts that I may have can reach others by sharing. Let's face it. Being human is hard. That is just that way life is. There is no sense in digging a hole and hiding our heads in the sand just to pretend that issues are not all around us to handle.
Instead of looking at it as "handling" the issues, I like to look at it as thriving. A good motto could be, "Thrive and not just Survive."
Thriving for me is the ability to handle challenges with less struggle by being aligned with my own unique gifts and sharing these gifts in ways that feel joyful.
There is no good reason that I can think of for anyone to hold their breath and wait until things get calmer or easier. Life happens. For me, I can say there are ups and downs and the word on the street is to just go with the flow.
Being able to thrive and go with the flow actually fills me with positive energy and gives me a magical feeling of being alive and on this earth for a purpose. Life is just too short to dread our day or just to 'get through them.' LIVE THEM WITH GUSTO. I can agree that some days are livelier than others. I may lean more to the positive way of looking at life but I also am realistic. We are all human and I have my moments. The smart thing is to give myself these moments and pick myself up and start again.
Instead of worrying about stuff that I could not control, I discovered that by focusing more on how I could share some of my gifts with others. Just the very fact of sharing another way to look at a problem or issue that we all go through in life. This helps to shift worry into creative actions.
Taking care of ourselves is not being selfish. In order to help others, we first must help ourselves to be stronger. Love ourselves. This in turn can be shared with others to witness how it works. It is a continuous circle of caring.
We all deserve happiness. This must become a self-belief. You really can't help make everyone else feel happy and feel good if we ourselves are not happy. This means to not put ourselves on the back burner. This will make us feel drained and less able to handle stress.
Practicing self-love and self-respect, as well as self-compassion is what will guide us to be able to help others and share our own uniqueness. Remembering that self-love isn't conditional. It is not earned. We are all a being - not a doing. We are deserving as human beings.
Doing things that make us feel good and fuels us is basically what life is all about. It is not ever the time to just put it off for later. Never stop dreaming. There really is more beyond out there for all of us. I never want to coast through life. It really is more fun to be a little bolder and to be daring. Find what brings you most joy, go for it and share it.
Sunday, February 11, 2024
LIFE IS TOUGH
LIFE IS TOUGH
It is so true that the hardest part of healing after losing someone you love is to recover the "you" that went away with them. So many times I have to remind myself that yes indeed, life is tough. But dang it...so am I. I can actually hear Steve saying the words above to me personally. Sometimes it is not always easy to give myself accolades so I use my collection of mantras to read and write about; such as I am amazing. I have made it work thanks to a wonderful family and great friends. And I will not leave out my willingness to ride the wave of life.
It is so very important to just keep right on growing.
It is so true, that I would rather be growing with Steve. Believe it or not, I am still slowly taking care of some of his treasures in his drawers and boxes. It is a way of feeling closer to him. There are so many times that I do not feel alone and I can feel him around me. However crazy you may think that sounds, it is true for me. And for me? I plan of doing more of what I love.
- ~When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure. ~
- "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." Dr. Seuss
- "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." Winnie the Pooh
- "What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes part of us." Helen Keller
- ~ Those we love don't go away, they walk beside us every day...unseen, unheard, but always near, still loved, still missed, and very dear. ~
Friday, February 2, 2024
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO: HMMMMM!
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO: HMMMMM
There are some things swirling around in my brain that for whatever reason, I just think about asking myself if I should even be doing these things. Most of the time, for me, the answer is a great big loud, "NO!" That does not mean that it is not right for another person. We all have our own certain characteristics. What fits one does not always fit another. Some of these things still make me go: hmmmmmm.
Monday, January 29, 2024
QUESTIONS FOR THE NEW YEAR
THE QUESTIONS FOR THE NEW YEAR
The New Year is a fresh start and a new chapter waiting to be written. We write our own book.
In reflecting on the past year I have to imagine what excited me the most? What made me the happiest?
I believe that we all glow when we are at our happiest so it only seemed fit to think back on what happened to actually get me excited last year. I used my journal from 2023 to read my own words about the people, my habits, and choices that I made that helped to bring me joy. From that point, it was easy to continue and expand on those ideas.
One of the best decisions that I made was to take a healthy journey and learn great nutritional habits that will be with me for my lifetime. It was amazing as the weight started melting off. Even more impressive was how much better that I felt within myself. I had so much more energy, my joints did not ache, my closet and drawers were cleaned out slowly but surely of clothes that were WAY too big for me.
Which in turn, I did have some older clothes that I loved and did hang on to hanging in the back of my closet and drawers. Guess what? Now they fit! As time goes on, some of these are even too big and I am now buying a few new things along the way. Being a clothes horse, it really makes me happy that I now enjoy getting new clothes in regular sizes. This picture is in a new and fun sweatshirt about my feelings of Winter. I am 83 pounds down when this one was taken.😃To say this makes me happy is definitely an understatement.
The next question that is important to reflect upon is to think about what it was that drained me. Things or people that brought me down. Events and situations can happen that may be totally out of my control. Some of what seemed to drain me, if I allowed it to, would be situations when out driving, or coming face to face or on the phone with a rude customer service representative (that is an oxymoron). Luckily, that did not happen often but when it happened, my ticket out of being sucked down the drain with them was to just think of one reason to remain joyful. Something that I am grateful for. OK - to be totally honest with you, there are times that I must think of more than just one reason to remain joyful. Imagine? It is not that hard to think about what I feel grateful for in my life. Those reasons are all around me and always swirling about in my head.
The third and fourth questions for 2024 go together. What do I want more of and what do I need less of for this upcoming year? I definitely want more of the good way that I am living my life. To continue to stay on my healthy journey, definitely to continue to shop for new clothes (without going overboard - which kind of fits in what I need less of, such as shoes, handbags and just general clutter). One question that I now stop and ask myself before purchasing something is if I already have something similar, where am I going to put this new item and is it really necessary?
Spending more time in the kitchen being creative makes me very happy. I miss spending my time cooking with Steve so very much. Many times, I can feel him with me as I add a little of this and a little of that to my recipes. Or even as I search for new recipes.
After reading a book called, The Gifts They Left Behind by April Rohde really opened my eyes and allowed me to feel what I was truly feeling. It validated my thoughts about Steve being all around me. He seems to come to me in the form of a cardinal. I got busy getting the bird feeder ready outside my window after the snow and rain left our area and every day the same cardinal comes to get the special seed that I put in it. My daughter gave me a cardinal snow globe that lights up and one of my granddaughters saw a page of cardinal stickers when she was out shopping for other things and she thought of me and cardinals/Steve (or as he is known to all of the granddaughters - Smiley). I have a picture of the cardinal outside of my study window through the shutters. So it is not exactly perfectly clear. The windows need a good cleaning when Spring Time comes but I am sure that you get the idea.