A Lesson in Joy

I was at The Salvation Army recently to pick up something for a client. As I was walking in the doors, there was a young man walking out with his grocery box. in his small box of groceries, they had placed a single, small bottle of soda in the box(which I've never seen before). 

This man, who appeared to have intellectual disabilities, was as happy as anyone that I've ever seen in my life. He showed me his bottle of soda and delightedly told me that he hadn't had a soda in years and that he was going to drink this one today. He was grinning ear-to-ear, his glee contagious to all around him. 

After a moment, he paused in his giddy dance of joy and noticed my empty hands. He asked, somewhat somberly, if I was getting a box of food, as well. I explained to this sweet young man that I was a nurse getting a car seat for a client and was not picking up food for myself. 

He looked confused and asked me if that meant I wouldn't get a bottle of soda. I replied that no, I wouldn't. His face, moments before filled with absolute joy, fell and he began waving back on forth on his feet as if in absolute misery. I tried to explain to him that I didn't need any soda and was not upset in the least. 

His face then lit up again with an idea. He asked me with excitement if I wanted to share his Coke. He told me that we could sit in the sun and share his soda and was so excited at the prospect that he was shaking with joy. 

I didn't, of course, share this young man's soda. He deserved to enjoy every bit himself. His soda didn't fill my stomach but his kindness fed my soul.

That afternoon, on a day in which I'd been incredibly stressed before, I sat on park bench in the sunshine and had shared some conversation with a kind, young man. This complete stranger sipped on his small bottle of soda and grinned as we talked. He was drawing every ounce of happiness out of that simple moment that he could.

After he drank the last drop of the carmel colored soda, we parted ways. I have never again had the privilege of meeting that young man again but this memory will forever be a reminder to me: that gratitude and joy are both choices that we make on a moment-to-moment basis. 

I will never be the same. 

Burn

I'm sitting around a campfire tonight, reading and listening to the birds in the trees and the frogs in the creek. 

Earlier this summer we had a veritable swarm of lightning bugs at night, more than I'd ever seen in my lifetime. 

Tonight there is just one solitary lightning bug, swimming in circles in the air around me, punctuating the night with the tiniest beam of light. 

We often think that more is best. Sometimes it is. I was awestruck months ago by show in my backyard by hundreds of lightning bugs. It was magical.

However, tonight this single bug concentrated it's glowing majesty around me in such a way that I couldn't help but feel honored by the universe in way that I never had before.

More isn't always better. One single being can light up the darkest of nights and shine the way out of the deepest, darkest of times.

Be a goddamned light. Especially in times of darkness. Your light is not unnoticed.

Burn, baby, burn.

We Cannot Always Choose Happy

I’m one of those people that always have positive quotes posted around me. I struggle with anxiety and depression and having inspiration posted around me helps me to keep my mind straight. My cubicle at work, my car, my home, my coffee mugs-- they are all covered in positive quotes, memes and photos. Yes—I’m THAT person.

Recently, however, I have been struggling with a bout of sadness. I have found myself raw with feeling as I navigate working through the mourning of being a victim of a violent crime twenty years ago and finally working through the mess of my feelings that comes with that. I’ve found myself struck with tears at the most inopportune of times and suffering through the nervousness and jumpiness that comes with having my fight or flight system ‘on’ twenty-four hours per day. I am a bundle of uncomfortable emotions, just barely held together enough to continue with my day-to-day life.

I’ve found that in this raw state that I cannot tolerate the false cheerfulness of quotes pasted over a bright sunshine or motivational talks to let go of my sadness and smile. It just doesn’t ring true to me where I am right now, in this place of darkness. I am exhausted by false cheer. There are some days that I must sink into the melancholy of life. 

I have a friend on social media that is always posting the words ‘Choose happy’. She is a lovely person that lives her life trying to help others. However, I had to temporarily hide her posts. I believe that there are times that we can, indeed, choose happy. There are also times that we must feel the shitty emotions-- the pain, the sadness, the grieving-- and not doing so is detrimental to our souls. I cannot at this time in my life deny these emotions that I have denied for twenty years.

This time has been a great lesson to me. In my personal life and in my work as a nurse I have spent many hours cheering people up. I hope to continue to do so. However, I must also allow those suffering to truly feel their emotions and not encourage them to paste a false smile over their raw emotions-- doing so is a toxic mistake.

We have become a society that has forgotten the value of our ‘negative’ emotions. We hide behind pretty selfies and cheerful social media posts when inside we are reeling. We have forgotten how to allow ourselves permission to have bad days and to experience the heavy emotions that can come with life.

I will choose happy another day. However, for today I will feel the crushing sadness, the grief and the anger. I will ignore the cheerful quotes and pretty pictures and instead immerse myself inside the pain. I will allow myself to burn inside the fire that been kindling in my heart for twenty years and has been denied the chance to flame. I will emerge from the fire stronger than ever before. I will be lighter without this burden and instead of pasting on a false smile over my pain; my smile on the other side of this will be true and real.

There is nothing wrong with honoring all of your emotions. I get to choose. You get to choose. There is no shame in not choosing happy for today. Happiness will still be waiting for you tomorrow. True happiness is not the smile pasted over your tears, it is the happiness that shines through after you’ve worked through all of the shit that weighs your heart down. It’s often not an easy journey—I hope you choose to take it anyway.

You Are Perfect Just as You Are

I've never been society's idea of beautiful. I've always had a propensity to be a bit chubby and have strong facial features. 

When I was a child everyone would see my sister, blonde and lithe, and them me, chubby and awkward, standing at her side and would compliment her on how pretty she was. Then, as an afterthought, would compliment me on my intelligence.

I wanted so badly to be pretty. I spent years dieting, dyeing my hair and trying different makeup techniques to make my nose appear smaller. However, I could never change the image in the mirror much.

It wasn't long before I stopped focusing my energy on my outsides and began trying to refine my insides. I've spent much of my life focusing all of my time reading, learning, working and volunteering to make myself, and hopefully the world, better.

My intelligence and kindness have opened many doors for me. As an introvert, I spend many hours inside my head and quietly reading and those hours of thoughts make me continually into a more mindful person. My goals of weight-loss and outer perfection have been replaced with a single boas-- to be a better person with each and every year that passes. 

I still struggle with self-worth and avoid looking at myself in the mirror at times.  But, I'm pretty confident about the person that I am inside-- kind, compassionate, well-read, always learning. I hope that I continue to grow-- I know that I still have much inner work to do. 

So, I guess what I'm saying is that I'm grateful for not being born physically beautiful. It has made me a better person. I need to remind myself of this when I scoff at my image in the mirror.

You were born perfectly and exactly the way the you were meant to be, Loves. I'm so glad that I was made the way I am and that you were made the way that you are. 

Shine your light, the world only has one you. 

Inside the fish bowl: Life in Iowa during Caucus season

I’m proud to live in a state that has such an important role in the presidential election. It is a rather wonderful experience to go to the caucus every four years and help to choose a presidential candidate and I look forward to that each time caucus season comes around again.

It is also quite overwhelming to live in Iowa during this time, especially for a sensitive soul and a mother with children. For months and months leading up to the caucus, our phones ring off the hook with political surveys and recorded diatribes, the television and radio ads are full of snarky, smarmy commentary about just how horrendous the “other” candidates are and our mailboxes are full of graphic mail full of unkind pictures of candidates with cruel commentary of all the mistakes that they have made in their lives.

There was a time when caucus season was not so overwhelming. We’ve always been deluged with advertisements, mail and phone calls- however, there was a time when the candidates used their voices to tell us about their own platform. That time has long past. We now spend precious minutes of our day listening to vitriolic attacks of one candidate on the others. It is emotional exhausting and depressing.

It is especially trying to experience these days as a mother. My younger children become filled with anxiety, wondering aloud if our country will ever be okay if any of these men or women become president because if one were to listen to everything that we hear, they each are the spawn of Satan himself. We are one of the archaic households that still has a home phone line and it has now been unplugged from the wall. We watch only programs off of the DVR so that we can fast-forward through the hateful commercials. We listen to MP3s instead of the radio. It has become imperative to shield our children from the hate even as we raise them to know the importance of the Democratic system and doing their civic duty and voting in every election.

I do not do my vetting of candidates from advertisements or even from the debates, which seem to no longer be a venue for the candidate to share his or her ideas for this great country but instead have snowballed into a place to throw barbs at one another much like inviting a group of playground bullies upon a stage.

I will educate myself about each candidate and make a decision, proud to use my voice in the caucus. I am grateful for that opportunity and am grateful for opportunity for the world to see how wonderful my humble, Midwestern state is.

However, at this point in the circus  that is Iowa during the caucus season- I will mostly be grateful for the process to be over. On Tuesday morning I will plug my phone back in, turn on my radio and watch television without worry of spewed hate swirling its way into the sanctity of my home. I will wish for a day in which our election season is returned to a day in which I hear about the candidates themselves without sickening malevolence towards each other. But, for now will be simply grateful to reclaim my loving home without the daily intrusion of venomous politicians and their campaigns.

A Lesson in Giving

I work in low-income areas and am surrounded by poverty during my workday. It is humbling, to say the least.

 Today a disheveled and dirty man approached my car and asked me if I had money to give him for the bus. He held up a single bag of food and explained that he'd come to the food pantry to get food for his family and did not have enough money take the bus home. I reached for my purse and realized that the only cash inside was the money that I had been given for my birthday. I'm ashamed to say that I paused for a moment because, as a mother, I rarely buy myself frivolous things and had plans for that $25. However, I could see this man, shivering in the cold next to me as a sat in my heated car, and I decided to give him all of it. This man, a grown man that has seen the troubles of this world firsthand and had possibly the saddest and most tired eyes that I have ever seen, saw the amount of money that I had placed in this hands and he cried. He cried breathless tears while simultaneously grinning a gap-toothed smile and thanked me a dozen times. I cried along with him as a accepted his thanks and watched him literally skip away in joy. Happiness was swimming around us as fervently and true as if happiness was a person itself. Joy was rising. I could almost hear the heavens open up and sing, so joyful was my heart. 

Then I watched him walk past the bus stop that was just a block from where I sat. And, my joy came crashing back to Earth. I wondered if his story about needing a bus token had ever been true. I felt duped. I felt as though the gift that I had wanted to buy myself had just been stolen out of my hands. I felt shame at being taken advantage of. It was not my finest moment. 

As I watched him continue to walk, I saw the joy in his steps and felt my own happiness return. I had just had a moment of absolute beauty, a moment of purity in a cruel world. I would not allow my mind to imagine ways out of the joy. 

The truth is that the joy in that moment of connection was beyond worthy of giving up what was a small amount of cash for me and likely a large amount to him to receive. In that moment of joy rising, we experienced a minute of divine human connection that transcended the dirty, urban street that surrounded us. Here's the other truth- once I had given the gift, what that man did with the money was none of my business. That's right- none. My karma, my joy, my role was as the giver and as such I do not get to quantify what the recipient does with the gift. To do so is like giving your child a Christmas present and demanding that they play with it how and when you tell them to. There would be no joy in that gift. It really isn't a gift at all of we choose how the recipient enjoys the gift. Now, I believe that this man likely did take a bus from another stop or was so thrilled with the money that he bought more food before getting on the bus...but no matter, it's none of my business.  It's not my karma what that man did with the money. 

I'm sitting here tonight allowing myself to replay, over and over again, the joy of that moment of humanity- the pure joy of being able to give something that was desperately needed by another human being. It was a sublime moment. I am grateful to have experienced it, no matter how the gift was spent. 

Social Media and Our Collective Voice

This modern world can be tough to navigate. The internet has given us many blessings. However, It has also made our lives feel as though we are often living under a microscope.

It is easy to look at the social media posts of others and feel as though our lives are small in comparison. Facebook and Pinterest feeds of perfectly decorated and tidy homes, Instagram photos of lovely beach vacations and international travel and Twitter feeds full of witty quips, all of which often leave us feeling as though our lives aren’t quite living up to the lives of those around us. It is ever so easy to forget that these perfectly curated moments on social media never show the full and true picture of someone’s life.

The ever-present false perfection of social media tends to cause me to spiral into an unhealthy and unable to be won comparison game. My inner critic feeds off of this game and can always find more and more ways in which I lose- I’m not as thin as everyone else in their perfectly styled photos, my house doesn’t seem to be as clean as the photos of everyone else’s stylish and tidy abodes, my children’s birthday parties could be much more fanciful and full of handmade decorations and homemade gourmet food…It is never ending.

However, even beyond the comparison game, social media has a way of leaving me with a sadness hangover. There are so many that use their social media feeds as a way of venting all of their problems, worries and hate of the world. It is hard to scroll through Facebook or Twitter without a sickening feeling that the world is full of deep sadness and hate. I have taken to unfollowing those with a persistent doom and gloom but, if I know the person personally, end up feeling a bit sad about doing so.

I know that taking breaks from social media, attempting to control my feeds so that they are full of positivity, kindness and a willingness to make a change in the world and reminding myself constantly that no social media account shows a person’s life in it’s entirety is helpful to me.

Beyond the unhealthy comparisons that social media can encourage, as an introvert I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have a voice in this world even as my voice in person may fail me. I am grateful for the like-minded friends that I have met, whom I never would have known without social media. I am grateful for the opportunity to be a voice of kindness and encouragement, even when the collective voices on social media seem to be dreadfully discouraging.

If you add up the number of friends and followers on your social media accounts, how many people do you have collectively following you- Hundreds? Thousands?

Can you imagine standing on a platform with all of those people standing in front of you waiting for you to speak into a microphone- listening to the words you speak, the pictures you will share?

In this modern world, we each have a voice. How are you choosing to use yours?

If each of us was to vow to use our voices less for complaining and spreading hate and chose, instead, to be the collective voice of compassion and honesty, can you imagine the change in humanity? The human condition is one of contagion. It is not only illness that can spread-hate, love, shame, kindness…everything is contagious. As much as we like to stand in our individuality, the truth is that we are each connected. Social media has connected us as never before, without boundaries of location, time and space. The way that we use this massive connection, this massive opportunity to bring humanity together is completely up to us. I empower you think before you share.

“You are what you share.”

― Charles W. Leadbeater, We Think: The Power Of Mass Creativity

Technology, Connection and Modern Day Prisons

The above picture showed up in my Facebook feed this morning. It is an older Twitter post by the artist Banksy(click photo to be taken to his original post). It is an iPhone depicted as a prison.

I was frozen by this image.

At the moment that I came upon the picture, I was sitting in my bed with my two girls while they watched a Disney movie- waking from their slumber slowly and cuddled around me. I wasn't present in the moment as I should have been. These moments of my children's childhood are fleeting and I have been painfully aware of how quickly they are growing lately. Yet, instead of basking in the warmth of their cuddles and laughing at the cartoon along with them I was... on my iPhone.

My morning tradition has become browsing through my social media feeds while my first cup of coffee swims into my veins. Usually, I do so before my children wake up. However, it's not unusual on weekend morning for me to do this with a sleepy child on my lap.

Has my smartphone become a prison for me?

The thought swam through my head with fervor after seeing the Banksy image. I believe that it has. Social media has allowed me to connect with many people, both personally and professionally. It has been a blessing in many ways. But there is another side, isn't there?

I wonder if I am losing the ability to be present in my life, to experience joy without sharing it with my myriad of friends and followers. I no longer appreciate the beauty around me without pulling out my phone to snap a picture, edit it and post it to Instagram. If I have a thought which seems to me to be profound, I share it on Twitter. If my children have a program or a ballgame or a dance recitals, the photos are loaded onto Facebook for all to see.

I find myself wondering...

When is the last time I stood in front of a sight of great beauty and kept the image only in my heart and mind, trusting memory to hold it for me?

When is the last time that my children had a great accomplishment and I  did not share it publicly but instead trusted that my fervent praise and pride would be enough for my children, without sharing it with the entire world for their praise to be added?

When was the last time I stayed off social media for an entire day and trusted that anything that I missed did not matter at all? After all, important news always found its way to me before Facebook and Twitter, didn't it?

I am losing myself and many precious moments in the time spent in front of my phone, mired in the harsh light streaming from my iPhone and missing the life that is happening beyond the screen in the moments of now. 

The photo that I posted on Instagram of a summer's day cannot replace the memory. My memory is complete with the feeling of the blades of green beneath my bare feet, of the smell of summer- hot sun and sunscreen, of my heart singing with the magic of the day. And, I cannot have that memory if I stand at the corner of the world and hide behind a camera screen.

The status that I posted on Facebook of my child's latest accomplishment will never light up my child's heart. The moment spent writing that status would likely be better spent hugging my child and telling them how much I love them, accomplishments or not.

Browsing trending Twitter hashtags will not help me to better understand the world. If I want to have a better understanding of the world and the people in it, I must be present.

Here's to a life of breaking out of our many prisons, Dear Ones. Life is too short to be trapped inside anything that does not serve you. A life trapped in the hypnotic trace of social media is little life at all. I demand of myself to be more present and less a slave of modern, shallow connections. I want deep connections, moments of wonder and a life lived to the fullest.

 Let us all live every moment of today. 

Tips from the Zen RN: May Cause Miracles

I am starting a new series of resources that have been really helpful to me in search of the zen life. This book is at the top of my list.

I have had a really negative inner-voice for all that I can remember of my life. A REALLY negative inner-voice. If I were to be truly frank, I would say that the voice in my head is a raging bitch. She tends to criticize me in every way that she can.

*sigh*

A few years ago, I happened upon some podcasts of Gabby Bernstein's and fell instantly into adoration for her candor, kindness and optimism.

In the spring of 2013, I found myself deep in a depression and anxiety filled darkness. When I saw this book on the shelf at my library, I snapped it up and began the work the very same day. My life was completely changed in that forty days- no exaggeration.

The daily work(taking only a few minutes per day, preferably in the morning) truly transformed my inner critic into a more loving voice(hey, it's not complete magic- the bitch still rears her head but now I know how to turn my fear around). It took my anxiety from a 10 to a 2. Those changes alone were true miracles for me and I have now purchased the book for a multitude of friends, who reported similar dramatic change.

This book is now in my toolbox of tricks to make changes when life overwhelms me and I have read it three times now. Highly recommended if the voice of fear has taken over your mind on a daily basis.



                                                   

What books have you read that have changed your life? I would love to hear from you!