Tag: Attitude

Today I’m Looking Forward To…

(Title image: FranticShanti)

Here’s a slightly different type of gratitude practice. It’s a nice little way to bring more joy into your life.

Instead of looking for things to be grateful for, try simply thinking of things that you might be looking forward to.

They don’t have to be big productions like an expensive vacation or some sort of exclusive party. This works just as well, perhaps even better, with something small.

Grab a pen and a sticky note and start looking forward to the little things.
(Photo by Ravi Palwe on Unsplash)

How small? How about receiving a new calendar you ordered that has pictures you find particularly soothing? Or maybe going to a museum that you haven’t visited in a while. Or visiting a local garden shop just to browse and take in the glorious colors.

Clean out your coffee maker and look forward to having tomorrow’s coffee brew in a clean machine.

Or look forward to getting into bed in the evening and stretching out comfortably.

Consider the things you could potentially look forward to…get granular about it…and try to see what the smallest thing might be that you could look forward to enjoying.

There’s a lot of good stuff in between those pickets.
(Photo by Brad Switzer on Unsplash)

The “grandness” of the thing doesn’t matter—what matters is how you feel about it. And perhaps, at first thought, you consider it insignificant, but when you lean into it, you realize that it truly is something that brings you joy.

The more of these little things we can find, the more we realize that little bits of joy are scattered throughout our lives. And once we become aware of one, we might start noticing them everywhere.

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Speaking from personal experience, I find it very easy to become overwhelmed with the negatives in my life. There are times when it seems like all the difficulties come crashing down at once, at the worst possible moment.

However, it is worth shifting our focus and noticing the things that aren’t going wrong. It’s as if you are looking at a picket fence. The fence itself might be the negatives and they’re hard to miss—after all, they’re right in front of you.

But if you look through the posts of the fence, into the space between, that’s where you see everything “not wrong”. And you might find that, in fact, there is more “not wrong” space than there is picket fence.

So I encourage you to take some time when things get difficult to look through the fence and find your little joys to look forward to. Focus on them, write them on a sticky note and put the note somewhere where you’ll see it in the morning.

And then smile.

I have my note ready…

Reflections on 2023; or “Focusing on What Doesn’t Suck”

(Title image: Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash)

Warmest wishes to everyone for a joyous start to 2024! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season with your loved ones and are ready to launch into the new year!

I…learned a few things about myself in 2023.

My family and I had our share of misfortunes, bumps and hiccups and stumbles that started piling on. An apartment flood, two sizable rent increases, physical pains, emotional turmoils, family illnesses.

It’s easy to focus on the negatives (and *ahem* trust me, I did many times). But there were also some significant positives this year, not the least of which is that my cancer has not returned and I am still alive. Those are two biggies.

But I also found myself somehow managing, even in the midst of the worst stressors. I didn’t respond the way I had in the past, which would have been with a bought of nausea, racing thoughts and tortured nights.

So I know that something has changed: there is actual space between me and the things that suck. Now, there’s not always a lot of space–occasionally it’s a teeny gap that you could only slide a credit card through. And at those times, I might not even remember to take three deep breaths. But when I come to my senses I can breathe more space into that gap.

You need to stop and reflect on how far you’ve come to understand the benefits of what you’ve been doing.
(Photo by Alexander Milo on Unsplash)

That, my friends, is called progress.

And as frustrating as it is that anxiety sometimes gets the best of me, my reaction is still so much better than it used to be and that provides motivation to stay consistent with a meditation practice.

So, if I learned anything, it’s that you don’t know how far you’ve come until you look back at the road you’ve been on and reflect on where you started.

But I also learned something else this year: sometimes you need to back off in order to go forward. I dealt with body pains that affected both my strength and conditioning exercise and yoga practice. I fought against taking it easy because I was so afraid of “falling behind”.

Well, nothing good comes of that. If anything, it prolongs recovery.

I was pushing myself to train harder and not respecting my changing limits. At the same time, I was juggling several online classes because I was also afraid of falling behind career-wise, on top of which I was concerned about finding a new apartment.

This was a classic case of spreading myself thin.

Constant striving made it impossible to my body to heal and rest and for my mind to assimilate information and construct useful goals and plans.

It was not until late December that I was forced to prioritize my well being because it hurt too much not to. Stressful events that came in the last quarter of the year gave me no choice. But in doing so, pain in my hip improved significantly and in backing off my expectations, I opted to focus on a single class, while at the same time continuing to sort through our belongings and get rid of things that we no longer need.

I slowed down and made more progress than if I had continued beating myself silly.

Look at all the beautiful positives that show themselves when you focus on the good stuff.
(Photo by Kim Stewart on Unsplash)

All in all, as frightening as 2023 was at times, I can see all the good that took place, and that’s the third thing that was a major revelation for me. I’d describe my view of the world as being like a picket fence. Sure, if I only look at the pickets I see the negatives that have taken place. But adjusting my focus on the the world that is visible between the pickets, it becomes clear that there’s so much more that hasn’t gone wrong.

Even when it seems that you’ve suffered so many setbacks–and it felt like I really stumbled during the second half of the year–when you review what DID work out, the sense of gratitude and relief is uplifting.

So even in the midst of everything that stressed me out, 2023 doesn’t seem so bad afterall. And that little burst of positivity is what I’m taking into 2024 with me.

Happy New Year!

You know, I used to be funnier…

This is not the post I was originally going to write.

I was going to relate the feelings of loss that I’ve experienced. And if I feel them, cancer sufferers who are in worse situations are hit with a tenfold intensity.

However, I decided against that. As I noted earlier, attitude influences our perceptions of a situation. That’s certainly not earthshaking news, but the extent to which that happens constantly smacks me upside the head.

There are bright spots in cancer. My Nurse Navigator, herself a triple-negative breast cancer survivor, would say, “You’re gonna either laugh or cry,” and as patients we do find things to laugh about. It’s just that we want to be the ones to point those things out. Calling yourself Yoda because you have a few long hairs on your head can be done in a light-hearted way. Having your neighbor laugh at your bald pate after a strong gust of wind rips your head scarf off, not so cool.

Sitting down and plunking out a humorous piece used to be really easy. There were so many things in life to laugh about, and it was no sweat to find the funny in everything. But it’s a harder squeeze now with cancer in my rear view mirror.

Alright, who’s up for a Nerf gun battle?

Not that I want to hide behind doors in Groucho glasses ready to nail people with seltzer water. But being able to generate a little bit of lightness would be appreciated. And when you throw financial stressors, cancer, work pressures and gradually dissipating self-esteem into that environment, pulling out a sincerely funny post seems almost impossible.

This is not how I want to go out, as the grumpy old lady who sits by the window all day, watching the kids in the neighborhood and ratting them out for the smallest infraction. No, I’d rather be the fun old lady who brings out popsicles and water balloons and gets in trouble along with those kids.

Same old lady. Different attitude. Yeah, I can swing that.

Gratitude, Every Night

One of the most intense emotions that I felt after being diagnosed with cancer was anger. I felt betrayed by my body and the medical community. I’d done everything that I had been told I was supposed to do to bring my breast cancer risk down to as close to zero as I could, and still cancer found me.

In reality, until we discover what causes cancer, we can never eliminate our risk of the disease. Of course, I wasn’t thinking like that. I had been completely blindsighted (as, I’ve learned, so many are) and was furious about it.

So when I read a suggestion about finding things to be grateful for, I scoffed at it. Until I actually thought about what I could potentially be grateful for.

The result was overwhelming. In the midst of what had gone wrong, there was so much that had gone right! So many things that could have been worse, so many lucky coincidences that improved my situation. So much to be grateful for! Where my way had been obstructed by brambles and thorns, now lay a welcoming path.

I sat slack-jawed, humbled by my many blessings, as if they had been planned out to benefit me. If I had to develop invasive breast cancer, then so many things were working together to make my journey easier.

I kept a gratitude list and continually added to it. Invariably when I sat down to write my mood would gently soften. Even so, I struggled. There was a perpetual tug of war between hot emotions and the soothing breeze of gratitude. Many times the heat would overtake me.

Gratitude returns the beauty that anger steals away.

Time has passed and distance offers perspective, and while I am not perfect in making space for all the frustration associated with repercussions of my treatment, I understand the importance of working on it.

Every night, therefore, right before bed, I make a list of five things that I am grateful for. They don’t need to be big and they don’t even need to have taken place that day (although often they have). If they’ve evoked gratitude, they qualify.

I can always find at least five things and that is a heartening thought.

Settling into bed, thoughts of wonderful things fill my head and put a smile on my face, shepherding me to sleep. There is no better way to end the day.