WHEW.....!
What a week! I finished up the Jog-a-thon, and I am completely wiped out, but it was worth it. I had fun getting to know more of the kids at my son's school. I'm actually considering teaching or school counseling as an application of my yet-to-be-earned Psych. degree. I seem to have the ability to hold structure for the kids and connect with them at the same time...Hmmm...
Every day I am so grateful for the life I get to live, for my beautiful son and my incredible husband, for the brain that I didn't manage to kill when I was a teenager, for the capacity to feel love and care for other people. I know my gratitude is sooooo hokey and I'm guilty of playing it down sometimes, because I feel a little nuts to be so moved by the smallest things. There are times, like the other day, when I feel incredible sadness for the people that I've lost. But that loss only reminds me of how precious *right now* is and that almost every second of true unhappiness in my life was caused by either living in the future or living in the past. I think it's easy to confuse sadness with unhappiness. Sadness is actually rather neutral and if we allow it to come and go without torturing ourselves about how it manifests itself, we actually shorten it's duration. If I internally scold myself for feeling sad, by telling myself I should be 'over' it, I'm adding self-loathing to sadness which inevitably sloooows down the sadness storm because now I have to negotiate my internal debate. Besides, if I'm feeling sad then *duh*, I'm not 'over' it and no amount of trying to think, -or distract- my way out of it is going to help. It is so hilarious to argue with a natural process, it's like arguing with the ocean. Acceptance is the key to survival.
jchl
Every day I am so grateful for the life I get to live, for my beautiful son and my incredible husband, for the brain that I didn't manage to kill when I was a teenager, for the capacity to feel love and care for other people. I know my gratitude is sooooo hokey and I'm guilty of playing it down sometimes, because I feel a little nuts to be so moved by the smallest things. There are times, like the other day, when I feel incredible sadness for the people that I've lost. But that loss only reminds me of how precious *right now* is and that almost every second of true unhappiness in my life was caused by either living in the future or living in the past. I think it's easy to confuse sadness with unhappiness. Sadness is actually rather neutral and if we allow it to come and go without torturing ourselves about how it manifests itself, we actually shorten it's duration. If I internally scold myself for feeling sad, by telling myself I should be 'over' it, I'm adding self-loathing to sadness which inevitably sloooows down the sadness storm because now I have to negotiate my internal debate. Besides, if I'm feeling sad then *duh*, I'm not 'over' it and no amount of trying to think, -or distract- my way out of it is going to help. It is so hilarious to argue with a natural process, it's like arguing with the ocean. Acceptance is the key to survival.
jchl