“Everyday I get to work with my interior designer on how beautiful I make my day.” – Me

I am blessed to be alive.  I am blessed to be alive.  I am blessed to be alive.

I am happy, peaceful, loving and contented.

I am calm, quiet, assured and confident.

I am joyous, generous, innocent and kind.

I am compassionate, tolerant, accepting and capable.

I am grateful, creative, competent and harmonious.

I am healthy, strong, organized and motivated.

I am blessed to be alive, I am blessed to be alive, I am blessed to be alive.

Say this over and over and over again in silence for one minute.  Then write your own affirmations of what you want for yourself.  I AM……(think of 4 things). Then write 3-6 lines of affirmations that are personal to you.  Feel free to use, dissect or borrow from mine.  Great way to start the week and end the weekend on an up note.

The saying goes, “You win some, you lose some.”  The bad news is… we lost to the Kings in Round 2 – Game 7 on OUR ice in a despicable manner.  Final score was 6-2.

Good news is… We got to see it, weep, shake our heads and carry on.  No more hockey game anxiety for me till September.

It was Teemu Selanne’s last minutes, last period, last game in his long and stellar hockey career.

We might have had the youngest goalie John Gibson (20 years old) play in the playoffs, but we also had ‘the flash’, Teemu Selanne, the oldest hockey player in the playoffs (43 years old) take his final curtain bow. So long Number 8.He represented us well.

What do you do when you swallow a bitter pill?  How do you recover from a letdown?

I feel my way through it, I get a little angry, my energy dips, I complain about it and then I move on.

What do you do?  How do you handle it?

Connected by blood, a pact or the past can make you feel guilty for being different, changing your mind or believing in something contrary.

Ask yourself if you have really done anything wrong.  In some families, it is wrong to beat to a different drummer.  In some societal clans, it is wrong to think outside the box.  In some relationships, it is wrong to have an opinion of your own.

As long as you are truthful to self, didn’t commit a crime, were not responsible for any wrongdoing, are kind and respectful towards others, you have nothing to be guilty about.

Another misnomer believes you are to be held accountable for someone else’s behavior.  That is a tactic manipulators use to avoid taking any blame for their actions.  They don’t want to be answerable to their own misconduct and try to pin it on circumstance or the nearest victim.  Don’t fall for it.

Each of us lives, thinks, says and comports themselves independently of others.  Being interdependent in society, community, family or relationship does not mean we are no longer held accountable for our own responses, lives, deeds, words and thoughts.

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.

 Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Just to let you know, I am human and have bouts of the blahs or blues like everyone else.  Even though I am past my womanly reproductive prime, I still cycle.  I still have crazy days when I don’t even want to live with myself, never mind be pleasant to you.

I recently had one of these momentous, dramatic moments and again I insist  – having a bevy of considerate, compassionate and generous friends makes all the difference.  So does opening your mouth and letting them know you are not ok.

For whatever reason, and sometimes it IS unknown, we all dip, coast or plunge some days.  Not letting it become a massive isolationist issue takes being able to trust someone enough to let him or her know you are feeling a tad vulnerable.  Once I am willing to let you in, we can be intimate partners in recruiting best possible scenarios within my head and replacing self-indulgent, self-pitying and victim based depression with happier, productive thoughts.

The opposite of trust is doubt.  And when you are in the midst of feeling low and lonely, you doubt you will ever recuperate.  That’s when faithful, sympathetic friends come in handy.

When we are fiercely independent or private, it takes courage to rely, depend or believe in another person’s ability to help us out of this one.

I have learned to empower myself by having confidence in others.  I can take a break from running the world and let someone else take the reins for a while.  This does not have to be literal.  It is a matter of allowing yourself the optimism that perhaps you don’t have all the answers, cannot comprehend everything or have no clue about anything.  Imagine that.

I learn every time I am sad or perplexed with unknown, unwarranted discouragement that reliable, steadfast and true friends that I can be frank, candid and raw with surround me.  Thank you.  May I be even half as helpful to you, when you are blue.

This graceful wreath adorns my treehouse as of Mother’s Day.  Thank you – Love of my Life.

Natural leaves of lime green myrtle, pink larkspur and green hydrangea.

Thank you to my children and friends for their texts, phone calls, cards and gifts.  Nothing says Happy Mother’s Day and Thank You Mom – like thoughtful gestures!

The Immigrant

The immigrant is a study in struggle and woe.

His soul is haunted by memories of old,

While his body is plagued by a new foreign soil,

He pioneers and ventures, travels and sins.

His ancestors despise him for all the turmoil,

While his offspring mock him for his accent and whims.

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain

If I can ease one life the aching or cool one pain

or help one fainting Robin into his nest again

I shall not live in vain” – Emily Dickinson

The worst sensation is watching our children suffer, our parents decline or our friends or siblings in trouble.  We identify with them.  It makes us feel defeated and helpless. What usefulness, what value does the heartache create?

I have no answer.  Perhaps it is to remind us of acceptance.  Unless we want to hide under the covers, run away or shrivel up, we have no other choice but to accept circumstances we would rather not witness.  Many of us would prefer to carry the burden, the pain or the sadness ourselves.  Many of us do precisely that, when we resist life, succumbing to denial or flight.

We are asked to bravely live life on life’s terms, not our own, and that creates the dilemma.  Our lack of power or control to make everything all right, to soften the blow, to stop the bleeding – is what distresses us most of all.  The reality that anguish, despair and grief are part of life comes as a shock when it arrives.  As intellectual beings we understand the concept yet veil the emotion. It is difficult to conceive of joy, peace and any rest for us when there is so much to fix.  Some of us get into action, some of us wilt, and some of us freeze up solid.  And we may surprise ourselves.

I know laughter and humor alleviates the heaviness.  It opens us to healing.  I know just listening, touching or being there helps.  My place is not to injure anyone further and comfort instead as much as possible or desired.  If I don’t come around eventually to some sort of space, no matter how small, or design, no matter what way, of acceptance, I will ultimately be unproductive to everyone, including myself.

We must live accepting what is and focus on transforming OUR guilt, worry and sympathy into something worthwhile.  We can allow scars to become lessons that teach us.  We can all be alchemists with our attitudes and perceptions.  We DO have that power and control over our minds.  We can make anything a living nightmare or heaven on earth depending on our stance. But maybe we give it time, we marinate in sorrow, we climb our way out at our own pace, adapting anew to life sometimes with visible scrapes and bruises.

I could never endure life’s mishaps without benevolent, wise and generous people.  The spiritually fit, perhaps just for that moment in time, help us along.  Alone in my head, with crazy, random and unfocused thoughts, is a disaster.

When we recognize our true selves – our limits, our flaws and our frailties as well as our gifts – we move forward, making appropriate decisions, expressing and releasing our emotions in wondrous ways, waiting to reconcile with the seemingly unacceptable, undeserving twists of fate and tragedies that befall all human beings. As a whole, united person, we can support another.

We can certainly make our death march harder or we can regard it as simply – precious.

Separate needs are weak and easily broken
 but bound together they are strong and hard to tear apart. 
The Midrash Judaic Text