Good morning! A beautiful cup of coffee is next to me in my favorite yellow mug - I'm ready to take on this day! There is a little book that I've kept by my bed for the last 12 years called Creating a Charmed Life by Victoria Moran. I was reading last night - a practical book of strategies that seem so easy upon reading, but important to keep in mind on a day-to-day dealing with our busy lives. I would like to just write for you an entry entitled Coexist Gracefully with the Unresolved, for I believe that you will all find some wisdom in her advice.
"...The ability to coexist with the unresolved has immense practical value. Without it, we can function at our best only when everything is perfect (in other words, never). Most of the unresolved irritations we have to live with are simply that: irritations. Occasionally we have to coexist with something serious. A suspicious mammogram, for instance, means waiting for a biopsy, then waiting for the results. It can be agonizing to live in the limbo of not knowing about our own health or safety or that of someone we love. We build courage to get through the substantial trials by learning to cohabit serenely with the trivial. To help do this, remember:
1. There will always be something to work on, something that could be better.
If you wake up one morning and there is nothing to deal with, you will probably not be here!
2. You are not "in denial" when you recognize a problem and behave normally in spite of it.
That's the difference between having a problem in your life and making a problem of your life.
3. Dilemmas need fences to prevent them from migrating.
Fencing in an obstacle means keeping it contained so it doesn't affect the rest of your life. An example might mean keeping a job problem at the office instead of bringing it to dinner & bed.
When you have well-tended fences, one or two or a dozen things going wrong won't negate the 147 that are going right.
When you're met with a situation that can't be solved - talk with someone you trust, write in your journal, "This isn't fair!", give yourself 10 minutes or half an hour to be actively angry, frightened, or both.
** Then take whatever action toward resolution you reasonably can, and give each action session a definitive ending, the way dessert ends a meal or a period ends a sentence. This can be as simple as telling another person, "I've done all I can do on this for now." Then stop. Read. Take a walk. Take a shower. It's no small thing to attend to your life in general when everything in you wants to obsess over a problem. But as Rudolph Nureyev once said of ballet, "It never becomes easy. It does become possible."
What I especially liked that she wrote was You are not "in denial" when you recognize a problem and behave normally in spite of it. Throughout my life I have had many say they think I fake it. That's always bothered me. I work daily on realizing how much I do have, not just concentrating on what I do not have. That does not mean that we do not ache, hurt, want to cry, want to scream, want to hit (and cry in the shower!)! But I do believe maturity (or privacy?!?) is a better word that faking it for those of us that try and try and try and try to still LIVE regardless of what is not in our control, but part of our life. This is a daily commitment - to take on the day. To LIVE. To not let our entire lives and minds be controlled with what is not in our control. If you are really upset by some serious unresolved issues in your life, please do not think I am making light of your situation, I am just trying to pass the advice of what I underlined above. Stop. Continue living. Take a barefoot walk. Go buy an oreo blizzard. Give yourself five minutes of something that gives you feeling. That helps you to breathe. That helps you find YOU. We are all so blessed. We all hurt. We all have many things out of our control. But we DO have a God that hears us on our knees. We do have a fantastic sky to lay on our backs and behold in the evening when we can't sleep. We do have time - time to help others when we can not help our own situations or help those we deeply love go through theirs.
So with that - let's go & take on our days! Do what we can with what we have coming our way, and not let what we can not control affect all we come in contact with. May we hear the birds singing - they love us!! Thank you so much for your notes, your business, and your ideas for the store. The construction is about to begin on our sidewalks (I'd better read the above paragraph again and not panic - out of my control if you will all still come & shop here!!!) Breathe, Susan, breathe!!! (smile!) See - I have to work on the above advice all the time!! Enjoy your spring! God's gift to you! Susan
Work Cited:
Moran, Victoria. Creating a Charmed Life : Sensible, Spiritual Secrets Every Busy Woman Should Know. New York: Harper San Francisco, 1999.
