The Little Things

Hi!

What are you doing right now?

Are you doing 100-million things to try to get through the day?  Slamming coffee while navigation through traffic and finding a good radio station to read this blog to?  

Are you sitting in your recliner with a cup of tea while looking out the window at the beauty of Mother Nature and taking a few deep breaths before you have your favorite part of the week -- reading this blog? 

Wink.

Neither one is right or wrong (however, the former is dangerous while driving, and I don't recommend it.).  They are different, and  they are results of choices we have made.

We are where we are in life, and that's where we are.  It's not good or bad.  It just is.

How we choose to look at it is the only part we can control.

When I first gave birth to Braeden, my life instantly went from a peaceful, "easy" pregnancy to a sudden chaotic state of emergency: an infant failing to thrive, constant research about the unknown, troubleshooting daily life, real-life lessons about learning how to be assertive to authority and organizing a constantly-changing schedule of events.  

All while enduring sleep deprivation.

(If you are interested in learning the specifics about all that, I invite you to read Digging for Light ~ A Memoir to Inspire Humanity.)

That was the hardest thing I ever did in my life.  But we did it.  We made it through.  Thank you to everyone who helped.  I could not have done it without you.

Do you know how I mentally got through it?

I focused on the fact that it would all be over someday.  I just knew it had to be over some day because Brady P. would grow up.  His heart would get fixed.  He would have to gain weight at some point.  We'd have to figure out the cause of his emergency fevers too.

I visualized him as a happy, healthy, strong one-year-old. 

Daily.

Each moment I realized he was still alive, I was grateful.  

I tried to focus on my gratitude. 

Even when I would call my mother, the nurse, in a panic because his temperature spiked to 103.2 again, she would say, "Amanda, if his heart is beating and he's breathing, then it's not that big of an emergency."

It seems like a dramatic way to endure life with a newborn, but she was right.  If he was breathing and his heart was beating, then chances were, he wasn't going to die at that moment.  I had time to figure things out.

So I would try to be grateful with that time.  And be panicked while trying to get him comfortable and stable.  You know, mom stuff.

How do we even reach the point that we can feel gratitude in times of adversity?  How can we find it in our busy everyday life?  

We have to slow the heck down.

And say thank you.

For instance, I am grateful for the following things, so I say:

I am grateful for all that I am, all that I have and all that I can be.  I am grateful to live in this beautiful, peaceful town.  I am grateful for my health and abilities to do the things I need to do each day... and more.  I am grateful for my son who has taught me a whole new level of gratitude and love.  I am grateful I have good food to eat.  I am grateful I am pursuing my writing, a talent and gift that I can share to help me with my purpose of raising the consciousness of humanity.

That's basically the gist of mine.

What's yours?

Do you already have a spiel?  Is this something new for you?

Well, either way, give it a try!

Everyday.

And see how your life improves.

Cuz really, it's just the little things that help us get through the day.

So I leave you with a picture of Brady P. seizing the moment and enjoying a frolic through the leaves.  If it was a video, you would see that he turns around and goes the other way once he gets to the end.  Haha.  Little man.

Knee deep in the leaves