Yesterday I was missing something very dear to me. Something my mother gave me. I was upset but shortly after realizing that it was gone I went on Reader and was given the word peace to think on. It was just what I needed. I was drawn to the phrase from Mark “Peace, be still! It made me stop my obsessing and turn to meditation to calm myself. It turned me around completely. I was able to adjust my thinking and my day went much better than it could have.
I learned a valuable lesson about approaching a problem with a different attitude. One I have known all along but didn’t use. My day could have dissolved into anxiety (which was where I was headed) but the day moved in a totally different direction. Lesson learned.
It is so important keep on track and it is so hard at first. Old habits want to return. I learned as a piano student that practice is the only thing that works. Note to self: the coping skills only work when practiced routinely.
Thanksgiving will soon be here and today is the day I shop for the food. My wonderful daughter-in-law will make a lot. I am assigned turkey with stuffing and dessert. I have no choice in this matter as my family loves and demands the two desserts I will be making….real New York cheesecake and pumpkin chiffon pie. They love these and beg for them each year.
No matter what holidays there are always interactions among family members. Some are fun and some are not so fun. In my family in have found that setting down ground rules before hand can make the day fun and pleasant. Any disagreements get left at the door. I have sent a text to the two combatants requesting peace.
Science is a wonderful thing but it must be monitored to keep it within moral limits. If we are not careful we will find ourselves with no say in the matter.
When we look around us we see so many people suffering. I recently saw a map marked with all the mass shootings in the US in 2018 (so far). There were red dots showing up everywhere. The disturbing part for me is that we don’t hear about this sort of violence elsewhere. It may be there but I don’t remember hearing about it.
I am only one person but I am one. I can only do so much but I can do something. If each “one” would chose to live a life of love and compassion we could change things one person at a time.
It is very difficult to let go and stop the stress from elevating into anxiety and then depression. We being to obsess about outcomes that have no place in reality. We cross multiple bridges and convince ourselves that we are just preparing for what happens.
It is possible to learn coping skills to reduce the obsessing before it overwhelms us. Those skills must be kept up. We can’t expect to use them if they don’t become habits. Trying to meditate for calm will only work if it is a routine already established. As we learn these coping mechanisms we need to work on them constantly so that they are ready when we need them. That is the hard part. We have to be consistent to make something a habit. It is so easy to let it go. “I can just do that tomorrow” doesn’t work.
I have never considered myself a feminist. At least not in the sense of Gloria Steinham (sp?) and others of that era. My father always told me that I could do anything if I worked at it. When I was younger it never occurred to me that there were people who felt that women should not leave the roles of the past. I spent 20 years as an Army Wife and never encountered that kind of prejudice there. I suppose I was out of the ordinary world. It was a shock to me when we left that world to discover (sorry, but especially men) who saw me out of my place… people who tried to fit me into the box they envisioned. Someone once asked my husband if he couldn’t keep his wife in her place. He replied he had spent all his time encouraging me. This was in the 1970’s.
The whole era was a shake up of culture and a difficult time for both sexes. I can see some of that leveling out. There are still problems but being able to look at things from my viewpoint I can see positive changes. We will continue to struggle with changing mindsets and coming to terms with injustices but things are better. Some of that will disappear as generations change. Let’s hope we keep moving toward the good things and people are free to choose their roles without bias.
As the disease progresses management at home can become impossible. Frequently the patient has something called “sundowners.” This means that they are alert when everyone else needs to sleep. A friend of mine’s mother climbed out a window in the middle of the night to “go home.” How can the average family cope with someone who could leave the stove on starting a fire or turns on the bathtub faucet flooding the house? Caregivers are stressed and exhausted.
worry-less-journey 