Friday Truth and Inspiration

“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”
― Anne Frank

Time Marches On….

Today is my oldest daughters 15th birthday. Holy &%#, where did the time go?

It feels like yesterday I brought her home and she started her journey of life. I remember the stuffies, the books, the getting into everything, the handprints on the wall, the alphabet written across my cabinets in little tyke penmanship…

I remember when she was scaring me to death being a daredevil on the playground, and now she scares me to death by telling me things like, “Mom, I decided I want to have a motorcycle.” EEK!!

Time moves in a constant across our lives. Cherish the time you have with your loved ones, especially the children. I used to bemoan having to clean up after the kids all the time, now I can see that soon I will be staring at a perpetually clean, but empty house.

I have loved every minute I have had with my kids, and I will continue to make cherish-able memories with them as I get to behold the unfolding of my greatest master piece, them as adults. Our children are our Opus’, they are the embodiment of our immortality.

Emmalynn 12 months old- Love you

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Innocent People?

As the Boston Marathon Bombing story unfolds, I come back to the same frustrating question about the unfairness in the world.

I have been seeking an answer on this one for a long time, and the best I have is this; the choices of every person go out into the universe like ripples on a pond.

Those choices bump into another person’s choices and another’s and so on infinitum. This causes impacts in life upon life upon life.

The truth of the matter is this is not paradise. There is too much free will being bantered about by people who will hurt other people. We cannot take away free will, we can only learn to cope with the situations as they arise, and we can all teach each other to choose goodness.

Choose those actions which supply what many people call “luck”. You see I think that there are many times when a choice I make impacts someone positively and I just don’t know it.

Have you ever gotten into a line at the grocery store and the person in front leaves to get something else and then you feel lucky because you were in a hurry?

That was not luck, that was a choice made by you, choosing that specific line, and a choice made by them, going to get something they forgot, which resulted in a positive end for you.

Let’s combat the terror in the world with gentleness. One act of kindness at a time.

 

What Makes Life Meaningful?

Have you  lost something lately? That could be a job, a friend, a family member, or a marriage. Loss leads to a cycle of grief that can overwhelm people.

The answer to responding to grief is this; after the loss, and after the healing, what makes your life meaningful today?

I think it is interesting how this changes over a person’s lifetime. I know for certain that my answer to this question even 5 years ago was different slightly then it is today.

The answer I give to this question can actually help me gauge how I am doing with the losses in my life.

There may be no “right” answer for each person, but there is this, if your answer is positive somehow, and engages in life it is probably healthy. If your answer is shadowed with negative emotional states then help is needed. Life should have some kind of meaning. It doesn’t have to be complicated but it should be more than just breathing in and breathing out.

Reach out to help, it is there.

Grief is Natural

This post originally appeared on www.donanobispacemcoaching.com

Grief is natural. We all go through it in some way or another. Grief is the silent agony that lives in the aftermath of change. Change can be a death of a loved one, a loss of a job, or the realization that you don’t know where you are or where you are going. Grief wages its war on people everyday, through all walks of life, NO ONE IS IMMUNE. The big question is why don’t more people seek therapists when they are battling grief? I think I have the answer, are you ready?

Therapists represent authorities and imply that we need them when we are maladaptive. Most people I think, myself included, don’t seek therapy for grief because we don’t necessary feel “sick”. Am I right? And that is because grief is the ADAPTIVE response to change! In fact, if someone does not grieve change in some way I would think that response is maladaptive. The Million Dollar question is then, what do you do when you are grieving but not interested in therapy? Find a coach!

Let me take this moment to say that therapy is a wonderful thing, I am trained in psychology after all, and when we are depressed, in danger of serious mental harm, or just not able to understand a biological mental problem, then therapy is where we need to go. The thing is, I think we can grieve or move through the cycles of grief and need a different kind of help. A Coach.