The Power of Freedom

Today is Memorial Day. A day that we remember and honor our veterans and those who went before us. Today we pause in rememberance. We take a moment out of our busy lives to consider the sacrifice that others have made for our freedom.

Freedom is one of the five basic needs that all people have. The freedoms we have in the United States were granted us by the sacrifices of others. We can freely worship, express ourselves, and be creative. These gifts cannot be taken lightly.

As I write these words today, I think about friends and family who have served as well as the many men and women whose names and faces I will never know. Thank you for your gift of sacrifice so that I might have the gift of freedom.

The Power of Attitude: Jessica's "Daily Affirmation"

Many of you may have already seen this adorable video clip circulating on UTube and Facebook. Yes, she is adorable. Yes, she is precocious. Yes, little Jessica has an amazing amount of energy, but more importantly she has a positive attitude about her own life.


How do we as adults recapture that youthful exuberance, that infectious joy and zest for life?

Happiness is a choice. Each day, just as you put on your socks and shoes before leaving the house, you also choose what attitude you will be wearing that day. Choosing a positive attitude can be difficult at times, especially when life is not going as smoothly as planned. Creating an attitude of happiness takes some work. Here are three easy ways to begin your own attitude adjustment:

1.  Surround yourself with happy people.  Attitude is contagious. If you are surrounding yourself with negativity, it will be difficult to maintain a positive attitude.

2.  Spend some time every day doing something that feeds your spirit.  When you fill your life with things that uplift your spirit happiness is sure to follow. Take time to pray, to paint, to read, to walk, to dance, to sing, to relax in a bubble bath, to garden. It doesn't matter what the activity is, so long as it is enjoyable for you.

3. Learn to say "No". There is always so much that needs to be done. There are so many good causes in the world that need help. But, when you fill your schedule to overflowing life becomes stressful. Practice say no to offers to help when you don't have the time.  Look over your current schedule and see if there is anything that you can eliminate or delegate from your schedule. Free up some time for you to be able to breathe.

Begin cultivating your attitude of happiness and like Jessica soon you will be able to look in the mirror and say "I love my life".

The Power of Now

Path In The Forest by Petr Kratochvil

While reading my horoscope this morning, or I affectionately call it, my "horror-scope" I came to the last line:

Concentrate on the power of now.

What a wonderful reminder about the importance of living in the present moment. Right now. Being present and being mindful of where I am. It's so easy to get caught up in the swirling rush of the to-do list. Or, in my case, the to-do LISTS. 

I have things to do around the house, at work, in the community, for my neighbors, in the yard, and so on and so on. If I put everything from washing the dishes to getting the oil changed in the car to attending a committee meeting down on paper, there would probably be over one hundred items on the list. 

It's just too overwhelming to think about.

And when it becomes too overwhelming, I go back to my life's motto:  "Life is an amazing journey and I will live it to the fullest".  Part of living life to the fullest is living in the moment. 

Life is not about the destination. Living life is about the journey and the sights and scenery along the way.

When I am focused on everything that went wrong yesterday or the mountain of tasks I need to complete tomorrow, I have lost sight of today. I have lost sight of now. I have lost sight of the very things that bring my joy: the sun shining through my window in the morning, the flowers blooming in my garden, the beautiful vegetables piled high at the farmer's market, the comfort of a warm quilt while I'm curled up on the couch, the love and laughter of friends and family.

Tonight, I pause on my life's journey. I take a deep breath and slowly release it as I take in the beauty of now.

The Power of Being Busy

Have you ever noticed how there is a fine line between being too busy and not busy enough?  That's my life.  If I'm too busy I feel stressed and run around like the proverbial "chicken with it's head cut off" and don't quite get everything done, which leads to more stress. 

And then there are days like today. I only had two meetings scheduled. One would think that that would be wonderful.  An entire workday with lots of open time to make phone calls, to return emails, to complete the mountain of paperwork that has been slowly moving across my desk like a massive Hawaiian lava flow.

But, no. Today I managed to sort through some of the accumulated papers and resort them into tidy stacks lined up across my desk like soldiers waiting for their marching orders.

Several months ago I read Crazy Busy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! by Edward M. Hallowell, M.D. who likened the busyness of people today to ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). We fill our time with television, cell phones, texting, emailing, surfing the net and continually attempt to multi-task nearly making ourselves crazy in the process. Then when we have the opportunity to slow down and take care of business in an orderly fashion, we crash and burn. 

Like me, today.  I had so much time on my hands, so few interruptions that I didn't know what to do.  I had nothing propelling me forward, nothing keeping me moving. It was like falling into a pit of mud.

So, where is the happy medium?

I propose that the happy medium is....  wait, I've got this.... somewhere in the middle!  Somewhere between completely overloaded and nothing. That spot where we are just busy enough to keep moving on our journey, but not too busy to enjoy the scenery.

So, my challenge for you and for myself is to figure out how to find that magical place, that utopia that lies there waiting for us.

The Power of Creativity

I always wished that I wasn't a product of the dysfunction that I grew up with. I looked at the other girls at school and longed to be them. You know the ones. They had beautifully styled hair, smoothed back in sleek ponytails, perfectly pressed dresses and the latest shoes. I'd stand near them in line at lunch or sit at the table next to them in the library and listen to them talk about the best brand of jeans to have, where their family was going on vacation, and where they went shopping over the weekend.

In my family, the closest thing we ever had to a vacation was packing up all our belongings that would fit into a U-Haul truck and driving cross country to the next military base. Shopping trips happened only three or four times a year and except for underwear, socks, and shoes which were bought at K-mart, shopping happened at thrift stores like New to You, Goodwill, or St. Vincent de Paul.

I longed to fit in, to have the same stylish clothing that my classmates had. So, as I eavesdropped on their conversations I would memorize the names of the brands and the stores that they shopped at. I would pour through the pages of magazines like Seventeen and Young Miss at the local library imprinting my brain with images of details and flourishes on the latest and hottest fashions for teens.

At the age of twelve, a determined thriftstore shopper was born. I would scour the stores for labels that matched those of my classmates. I would search for details that mimicked the details I saw in magazines. I would dig through the 69-cent bin for items that I could make over to reflect what I saw in the fashion magazines. I would take my treasures home, thankful that my grandmother had taught me to sew and I would hem, change buttons, add ribbons, whatever it took to recreate the images I saw in my classes and in the pages of fashion magazines. Creativity had become my salvation.