Make Each Day Meaningful

Resilience is a quality we all have within us.  We can take that resilience and make it work for us and strengthen ourselves if we choose.

 

Resilience is a tenacity of spirit; a determination to deal with adversity in our lives.  I know it doesn't feel like it at the time we are trying to handle one of life's stressful or sad times, but the courage and patience that we find inside ourselves as we process hardships can help us come out on the other side of it a better person.

 

A better person, you ask?  How can that be? 

 

Adversity can sometimes make us better people in terms of gaining new insight about life and about yourself.  A better person in terms of coping and reordering our priorities.  And a better person in terms of appreciating and loving life even more than we did before because we know how it can change up in a snap.

 

The good times sparkle even brighter after those challenging times, don't they?

 

Of course, I am not wishing adversity on anyone.  I don't have to because life hands it to us all on its' own.  I know this from my own experiences and those of my family and my dear friends.

 

Accepting and even anticipating change helps us maintain flexibility about life and all that come rolling our way.

 

Remain calm.  Remain peaceful.  Remain hopeful.

 

 

So You Know You Can Dance!

Everyone can dance.  And they should!

For dancing gets you moving and helps you get rid of the stress and tension you are storing all over your body.  Dancing also helps you heal your soul. 

 

While listening to music, my mind momentarily stops thinking about hurt and pain and frustration as I allow my body to take over and lose itself in the rhythms and sounds of whatever is playing.

 

Dancing is definitely therapeutic!!  And today, in Washington, DC, you can go to The Kennedy Center and dance pretty much all day to your heart's desires.  Or you can do what I intend to do which is dance wherever you are and go with it.

It's National Dance Day, an official and recognized event started in 2010 by Nigel Lythgoe, the co-creator and judge of the television show "So You Think You Can Dance."  His purpose in founding this day was simply to get people dancing and inspire others to get on their feet and move and discover the wonders of dancing as a healthy lifestyle.

 

Lythgoe will be in Los Angeles today for that city's celebration of dance.  Besides DC and LA, there will be performance, tutorials, and flash mobs in Austin, TX, Vail, CO, Montgomery, AL and Rockford, IL, among other locations.

 

The DC event at the Kennedy Center is free and today will feature hip-hop, salsa, modern, Bollywood, flamenco, African, tap and ballet from 1 pm to 11:30 pm.

 

"The whole concept is to have fun, to bring people to dance, to start knocking down the barriers we  build," Lythgoe said.  "You know, you put any piece of music on and a baby starts dancing, just quite naturally.  And somehow we lose that as we get older.  We start to feel embarrassed about ourselves and embarrassed about our bodies."

 

So get up and strut your stuff and boogie all the time for it's great for your body and your sweet, sweet soul!  Here's an oldie from one of my favorite groups, Earth Wind & Fire, singing a hot song, "Boogie Wonderland."  If this doesn't make you move, I don't know what will:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jLGa4X5H2c

 

 

 

Exiting The Control Lane

It is Friday and I am one big burnt piece of toast!

It has been a week of going to the hospital (hopefully my Dad will be discharged today), car maintenance (way too expensive) and early starts at work (hate the alarm).  But I am truly looking forward to the end of today because that is when my well-deserved vacation begins!!!!!!

As hard as I try to maneuver around the built-in stress of the above situations, I am just a human being like anyone else and I do get sucked into worrying about all of these things instead of having faith that they will eventually get solved or will eventually be handled.

This where managing my expectations comes in.  For some reason, after all these years, I still think that if I treat a person nicely that they will treat me nicely.  NOT!  I really have to work on cutting loose my expectations of a situation and just let the situation happen.  Not to say that I should just lay down and let life roll over me but I need to tell myself that there is a difference between trying to control a situation and going into a situation with an open mind.

Photo Courtesy of Associated Press

The Elite Daily has come up with a list of the 20 things we need to let go of in order to be happy and I think it's a good solid list for all of us to consider.  I would say that #20 is an area I need to definitely focus on a lot; like every day; like all the time.  I do unfairly disappoint myself because I set my expectations higher than I should and then come away wondering why something happened the way it did. 

Instead, I should learn to sit back and let things develop.

Check out the list for yourself and see what you think.  If there is an area that you think you need to focus on in your life, please share below.  So without further discussion, away we go!

Here's the list from the Elite Daily:

http://elitedaily.com/life/20s-things-you-need-to-let-go-to-live-happy-life/

Sonia Sotomayor

I am a big believer in the idea that when someone offers you a helping hand that you should turn around and offer your hand to help someone else.

It's the right thing to do and haven't you also found that you always get more out of life when you become actively involved and emotionally invest in it?  I know I do!

I'm guessing that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor practices this same philosophy because she recently went back to her childhood roots in the Bronx, NY and spent the day with young children from the Dream Big program at Environment Day held at Fordham University.  Dream Big is a four to six week summer arts enrichment program for elementary school aged children program at local schools and community based organizations.

US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor reads
to the children at the Dream Big program

Sotomayor had a rough childhood.  She was born in a public housing project, her father was an alcoholic and she was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes when she was eight years old.  After her father died when she was nine, her mother worked as nurse and raised Sonia and her brother, Juan.  The power of education was something their mother emphasized over and over to them and it was Sonia's ticket out of the Bronx.

 

She was inspired by Nancy Drew books (my favorite too!) and those books plus watching Perry Mason on television lead to her wanting to become a lawyer and ultimately the first Hispanic to become a member of the Supreme Court.

"My dream is that each of you finds your dream and that it comes true," Sotomayor told the children.  "And I hope that when you reach your dream, you'll write me a letter and you'll tell me."

Despite her very busy schedule on the Supreme Court, Sotomayor frequently returns to the Bronx, which she calls her "beloved world," to stay involved with her dynamic community, to give back what she has learned so far in her life journey and to help inspire children to achieve goals that may take them beyond their neighborhoods.

"Don't give up chasing your dreams," Sotomayor said.

 

Giving to others can offer us a view of ourselves as strong and valued and needed.  Whether you come from the Bronx or you are in a place where you are trying to rebuild your life, I hope Sonia Sotomayor's tenacity inspires you to stay on your path and continue to follow your passions wherever they may take you and don't forget to help another person along the way.

The Kindness of Nurses

Have you ever been in an emergency room at 2 am?

Unfortunately, my son and I found ourselves there Sunday night because we needed to take my Dad to the hospital for medical attention to various issues that by themselves were not a big deal, but taken collectively, for a man in his 80's, they added up to a serious situation.

The doctors agreed about the seriousness of my Dad's symptoms but didn't decide to check him in until after midnight and then he was finally assigned a room around 2 am.  By the time we got home, it was 3 am.

 

 

Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep.  After putting in a full day's work on Monday, I was looking forward to going to bed early but before I pulled the blankets entirely over my head, I wanted to say add a few words about nurses and their kindness.

Nurses are incredible.  Their jobs are physically and emotionally demanding yet they continually show unbelievable amounts of compassion to people who are in various and varying stages of sickness.

Mixed in with all the beeping medical equipment that never seems to quiet down, nurses provide the essential human touch that people really need, especially in the middle of the night when things always seem worse.  Sometimes it's a hug or a pat on the hand or a quick joke, but nurses seem to always be dispensing good will and just all around emotional support to those who feel sick or those who are scared and nervous about being in a hospital.

I'm not taking anything away from doctors and the obvious importance of their roles in anyone's medical care.  But it's the nurses who end up rolling up their sleeves and doing the down and sometimes dirty support work of taking care of their fellow human beings.

 

My Dad is still in the hospital as of this morning and I know the nurses will be doing what they do best!

Moon Landing

Today marks the 44th anniversary of man walking on the moon.

 

It is a historic date and a landmark event that people today still use as a standard or a call for national action on an issue as in "if we put a man on the moon then why we can't we......."

 

I think most people remember where they were when the moon walk happened.

 

With all the lights off in the living room of my parents beach cottage, my siblings, our parents and I watched the incredible, once-in-a-lifetime event live on television with the rest of the world.  We knew it was something very important because we were allowed to stay up and watch it and no one was allowed to talk. 

 

The televised black and white picture of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin slowly descending the ladder from their NASA module to the surface of the moon was so grainy you couldn't always tell what was happening but you didn't dare move your eyes away from the screen because you didn't know what was going to happen next.

 

Many decades later, the moon event has additional significance for me because my late husband, Thomas O'Toole, was a reporter for The Washington Post at that time and he wrote one of the insightful front page stories describing the exciting yet tense moon event.

 

Photo Courtesy of NASA

While it has been nine years since his death, the anniversary of this moon event brings him back to me ever so clearly.  I think this is because he was a very talented workaholic who devoted almost every waking moment to learning and knowing everything he could about NASA and its space program.  He was fascinated by science and all that was associated with space and the race to put a man on the moon.

 

I asked him many times to describe for me what that day was like and what it was like to write the story as it was happening.  I loved to listen to him tell and retell the details of the newsroom atmosphere and what was going on in terms of getting the newspaper printed.  It was a tremendous amount of pressure and truly an example of deadline writing and reporting.

 

I write about him today because I -- and I'm sure others -- invest a variety emotions into special days whether those days are birthdays or anniversaries of weddings, deaths, or other special events.  Acknowledging my feelings about these special days is just one step of many that I have been taking to rebuild my life, our son's life and to discover new resources strengthening my resilience.

 

Writing about my feelings helps me sort through and process whatever it is that is going on in my brain and in my heart.  I also write about my feelings as a way of reaching out to others and letting them know they are not alone in the complicated and unexpected things they feel on their grief journeys.

 

There are many ways to express your feelings and in time you will find the right one for you.  Some people need to talk their feelings out while others prefer quiet projects like painting or photography.

 

I appreciate and adore all of my wonderful readers and today thank you very much for allowing me to share the feelings about my husband that caught me off guard and took my breath away on this special anniversary.

 

I tried to find my husband's story from July of 1969 but when I Googled for it, this is all I could find:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/2000/popup0721.htm

 

A Peaceful Soul

Thought For The Day. . .

Photo Courtesy of The Secrets of the Sea

For it was not into my ear you whispered,

 

but into my heart.

 

It was not my lips you kissed,

 

but my soul.

 

                       ~ Judy Garland