Category: kindness

We were born communal

by worrylessjourney, posted in answers, belief, connections, coping, empathy, friends, hope, kindness, listen, needs, share, understanding

We all need someone to talk to. We all need someone who actually hears us. It may not be the people we love but we need someone. We were not created to go through life alone.

We are communal people. The earliest humans survived because they lived together. We are no different. One of the worst tortures that a human can go through is to be confined alone in a room for a long period. Most people would lose their minds.

We-re-communal-animals-If-we-re-by-ourselves

It is sometimes difficult to find that person who will really hear us when we share our lives. Too often people are thinking of themselves and not really listening. Often we are sharing with someone who truly cares but wants to fix everything. Most of the time we don’t expect or even want ideas for fixes. All we really want is to be heard. The trouble is most people don’t understand that.

This is the reason that so many people need to talk with a psychologist or psychiatrist. They should be the ones who really listen. (at least if they are any good) If we don’t have someone to share with then they are certainly a help. At least they shouldn’t be judgmental or share confidences.

In the last year I have also found that this community on Word Press is a good place to share and be heard. We are understood the best when someone else has had similar experiences. In this community there is understanding and affirmation. Sometimes it is hard to find that kind of understanding elsewhere.

you are not alone

 

Wherever you find it seek someone who will listen and hear you. Even if they can only seek to share your feeling it is a help. If you don’t have anyone to talk with face to face you can find understanding here.

Understanding

by worrylessjourney, posted in answers, compassion, connections, kindness, listen, perspective, understanding

I don’t know how much I will post in the next few days. I may be wrapped up in stuff at the Mayo Clinic. However, I may need to write to vent. I’ll just see how it goes. To add to the aggravation I am coming down with what seems to be a cold. Ah well, life goes on.

understanding a lot

Since I am tired I will offer another poem.

scan0001

Dig deep

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, answers, choices, connections, empathy, grace, kindness, misunderstanding, perspective, truth, understanding, viewpoint

life clears“Until you dig deep you only know a small part of the human heart.” Another quote from “Tea Time for the Traditionally Built” By Alexander McCall Smith. His books about Botswana have much wisdom in them.

We can’t know everyone really well. It’s not possible. In most cases we don’t even try to. We only see the outside…the piece that people show to us. Too often we all are wearing masks and don’t want to let anyone in. It is difficult to get beyond the mask. Sometimes we can’t.

Sometimes there are people who drive us crazy…people who get on our last nerve. We can hardly bear to be around them. Then someone tells us that they spend all their time caring for a mother with Alzheimer’s. And lo! we realize that the person who seemed so awful to us was too stressed, anxious and tired to be nice.

look_into_my_heart_by_campanittaWe had to dig deep to find out what it is like where the heart lives. We have to be willing to be the caring person. We have to open ourselves to the idea that there may be something in their life to explain how they act.

I have met a lot of people in my life. Some of them I never wanted to see again. I may have been right about some but I also may have been wrong. I didn’t take the time to find out. I hope someone else did.

The chicken was cold

by worrylessjourney, posted in celebrate, connections, family, fun!, kindness, Laughter, memories

Recently my daughter prompted me to write some of the stories about my father. He was a brilliant man who never had an opportunity for education past high school He read everything he put his hands on and never stopped learning. This story is one I love. I think it was about the 1930’s.

pat clark standing on stump
My father Pat Clark A man who always shared happiness

 

My grandmother raised chickens. When one was wanted for dinner a chicken was killed by her, cleaned and prepared for dinner. My parents and grandparents lived in the same house. For some reason my mother and grandmother were very busy and asked my father to kill a chicken for dinner. They asked the man who hated to swat a fly.

My father went out the back door. He was gone for a long time. The two cooks started to wonder what was taking him so long.

Eventually my father returned with the requested chicken. It was dead, had its feathers, but it was cold.

My father, unable to kill a chicken, had gone to the grocery and bought one. In that era they sold chickens freshly killed but not cleaned. My mother and grandmother refrained for commenting and went on to prepare the chicken for dinner.

Days have attacked!

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, anxiety, choices, commitment, compassion, empathy, friends, kindness
one day at a time
Jane Seabrook

This sums up what my last two week have been like. With one friend’s husband dying and helping with funeral plans etc and the other having to re-admit her husband to the hospital it has been a zoo. Yesterday I had a good day planned with early yard work, shower and if lucky a massage. Needless to say that went away quickly when after my shower I had to get back in the car and head to the hospital as surgery was planned. I got home at 7:30. They are wonderful loving friends and I will be there for them but I am feeling attacked.

I have learned in my life that there is nothing in the world that can replace good friends. Right now I am the one helping but at some time it will be the other way around and they will be there.

I grew up in an era when favors were paid back to the person you “owed.” If you couldn’t do something for them you felt guilty. This is not how life works. I have lived in many different places and helped others or they helped me. I couldn’t return the favor to them but payed it forward to someone else. This is how it should be. We should be ready to share ourselves when someone is in need. Moving forward someone else may do the sharing for us.

Life is too short to worry about who has helped who. (should that all be whom??) Whom cares!

Friendships are formed when we are willing to share… not only help but also ourselves. It is openness that people respond to. Value the friendships that you have. Good friends are a gift.

There is wisdom out there

by worrylessjourney, posted in aging, answers, choices, community, compassion, connections, coping, intelligence, kindness, share, understanding, wisdom

I am at the age where so many milestones are behind me…..the events that make up our dreams and ideas when we are young. I have been to college (two different degrees). married at a wonderful wedding, given birth to three children, have 6 grandchildren and 1 great grand child. I have worked at several jobs…some fulfilling and great and some not. So, I ask myself what is the next milestone? It could be a depressing thought if you felt that there was nothing left to aim for. We all need something for a focus.

old age 2

I really hadn’t thought about it but I realize that I am not depressed by the thought. In many ways it is satisfying to see so much positive behind me. I also do not feel that I am finished. This is the time of life when I have the time and, thanks be to God, the energy to look at these years as the time to give back. Our culture spends little time thinking about the wisdom gained through experience. I have written about this before but I think it is important enough to mention again.

We are here…those of us who have lived through many battles. We have the scars to prove it and the knowledge to teach others. We can show you how to fight and make it through so many trials. Why struggle when you can tap the resources in the wisdom of your elders? Maybe technology is something that some of us are less savvy about but the ups and downs of life change very little no matter the changes in how it comes about.

Many of us continue to learn ourselves and advance our own knowledge. Not all of us sit in a recliner and watch TV. We are out in the world sharing where we can. Take advantage of the wisdom available to you. We are not dead yet!

Elegant funny quotes about old age and wisdom Quotes About Age

I am here if my experiences can be helpful. Believe me I have just about heard it all. I am a nurse, patient advocate, compassionate, loving person with a heart for listening. There are others like me who will understand and listen. Use us.

Be kind to yourself- you deserve it

by worrylessjourney, posted in answers, anxiety, balance, community, compassion, connections, coping, health, kindness, share, understanding

a communityBefore I write for the day I always read what shows up for me to read. Quite often it inspires me to write about a particular topic. Today it reminded me of my writing yesterday when I talked about how wonderful other’s blogs are to read. I felt the same way today.

So many days I can start out feeling down and the blogs lift me up. Some are funny, some give me ideas to try and some I feel that I can say something that may help. This really is a community of comrades.

rest

Today has been so calming. I found that more company were not coming and was able to relax. Little got done but that is ok. The vines in my yard are going apace and will continue to do so since I have no plan to tackle them at the moment.

Sometime we have to give ourselves permission to take some down time. The world will not end if my yard is not perfect or my house spotless. We frequently push ourselves too hard and forget that everyone needs rest and think time. We cannot be healthy or creative if we don’t take this time off. Be kind to yourself.

 

Emotions: the good, the bad and the ugly

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, anger, anxiety, compassion, depression, emotions, fear, forgiveness, frustration, grief, guilt, hatred, impatience, kindness, Laughter, Loneliness, medical, peace, sadness, safety, worry

be awareLately I have been thinking about good and bad emotions. Good emotions run the gamut from a simple flash of a decent day to full blown joy.  It is easy to see the negative ones. Fear, anger, sadness, anxiety, depression, sorrow….I could go on. To counter these we can use the positive things we don’t often see as emotions: safety, relaxation, strength, gratitude, pleasure, satisfaction, friendship, kindness, and assertiveness. (From the article How to Tap into Your Light by Kalia Kelmenson in Spirituality and Health)

Most of these we don’t equate with emotion and so we don’t key into them. We don’t see them as positive emotions. We don’t focus on them. That is a major part of the problem.

I don’t know about you, but I am more likely to come home and relate a story about how uncomfortable I felt doing a mediation than that I did a good job. I let the good feeling be lost in the negative emotion. We tend to hang onto the bad feelings and nurse them. We are unwilling to let them go. Think of how often you have been angry about something and just kept bringing it up in conversation or dwelling on it. For some reason we must enjoy holding on to them.

When we don’t let go we experience physical changes. Negative emotions can cause an increase in heart rate and rise in blood pressure. They can decrease our resistance to disease and lower the ability of our immune system to function. They allow our bodies to attack us with autoimmune diseases such as lupus, asthma, ulceration colitis, migraines and irritable bowel. Oh, what we do to ourselves.

positiveWe have to learn to focus on the positive emotions and use them to overcome the negative ones. To do that we need to remember what they are and see them when they come. The list above can be added to I’m sure. It’s easy to see how we think when I realized that I had to find that list and couldn’t just come up with one from my head but the negative emotions were right on the tip of my tongue.

I think the most important piece is to be aware of what you are feeling. We can’t change it if we can’t recognize it.

As the song writer Johnny Mercer said “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative!”

 

Stupid words

by worrylessjourney, posted in Christian, community, compassion, connections, coping, death, friends, grief, kindness, mistakes, misunderstanding, understanding

words can hurtPeople can say stupid things. It is amazing to me that they don’t really think about what they are saying. When I ran a grief support group I heard some goodies.

 

 

You can have another baby (to someone who just had a miscarriage)

God needed another angel in heaven ( to someone who lost a child)

 Your husband wouldn’t want you to be sad (to a new widow)

I’m sure things are better now (to someone whose wife died a few months ago)

God never gives us more than we can handle (to someone who lost two teenagers in an accident)

Everything will be alright (to someone diagnosed with a fatal illness)

Sometimes when we don’t know what to say we can fall into the trap of saying something stupid or offensive. We may not mean it that way but that is how it comes out. When people are going through tough times they don’t need to hear these kind of answers. They need to hear

Can I bring dinner by tomorrow?

I’m going to a movie tomorrow can I pick you up?

I am so sorry

I will call you soon (only if you really will)

Give a hug

Cry with them

Solid concrete help is what is needed. Only say what you mean. If you can help try to do something specific. Don’t just say “how can I help?” Instead ask if you can pick up children, run an errand, offer a day out. Each individual needs different things. You have to gauge what will help.

compassion-is-a-verbMost importantly offer compassion and love. Nothing is more needed. If you have suffered a similar loss you may understand better what they are going through but don’t assume it will be exactly the same. Just being there is critical. Don’t just say something…..do something!

 

Do we get it?

by worrylessjourney, posted in compassion, connections, habits, Jesus, kindness, love, medical, needs, pain, perspective, share, try, understanding

painI have talked here about my friend whose husband is in excruciating pain. Pain medicines only give momentary relief. The pain is unremitting. Diagnosis has been difficult and we now know it is from a back fracture and a pinched nerve in the back. The question becomes what to do?

As we grow older the answers to medical issues becomes more complex. Can the person withstand the surgery? Will it solve the problem? If not what now? We tend to forget that not everything can be fixed to our satisfaction.

Life’s problems cannot always be solved the way we want. This is a hard thing to learn. My husband has always said “every problem has a solution but it may not be the one we know or want”. I am sure that we all know people who live with chronic health problems or who are disabled. Sometimes we don’t even see it. How often do we disregard the person who seems “less than” for whatever reason. We walk by and think “Oh too bad” and just keep going.

The same thing can be said about the treatment of those of us with emotional issues. Most people don’t understand and either don’t want to do the work to get it or just keep going.

Admittedly, it is easier to understand something that we have experienced ourselves. That’s why support groups with fellow travelers help. But all of us have been at fault. I can get the emotional issues but do not understand the breadth of some physical problems even with my medical training. I have a friend who has cared for her son with cerebral palsy since his birth some 50 odd years ago. She has ignored her own wants to support him and enrich his life. He has a brilliant mind but has to use a computer to communicate. Do any of us really understand the life of either her or her son? I don’t think so.

love peopleWe need to strive for the kind of compassion and love that is shown in the life of Christ. We need to take time to listen and do our best to be a companion on the way not just a voyeur.  If everyone could do this so many lives would be enriched.

Strive to live with compassion and love!