Monday Musings 7-18-22

So, there’s a lot going on at my house right now, and some of it is, well, messy. My life always has the potential to get very messy. With four kids, five pets, and a busy career to balance, I never really know what’s around the corner, but sometimes the universe outdoes itself.

With family in town, my daughter getting ready to move across the country, and the busiest book travel schedule I’ve had in years, the pipes in our fully finished guest suite downstairs decided to fail spectacularly. Water also seeped under the floor on the main level, so we’ll need to have some of that flooring ripped up and refinished too. Mess. Everywhere.

The mitigation, demolition, and construction teams have been fabulous, and I’m sure the space will be beautiful, but seriously? I’ve had to dig deep into my toolbox of mindfulness techniques to maintain any sense of equilibrium, but after dusting off the rust from the last disaster, here’s what seems to work.

Let go. Hahahaha. But really, when we accept that so many things are simply out of our control, we don’t have to hold onto them anymore. We can let go and…

Breathe. My two decades plus of yoga practice has helped with this. When I simplify down to what’s essential, the list is pretty short. Taking one breath after another, putting one foot in front of the other, will eventually move me to the other side of the mess.

Okay, you say, but real stuff has to happen in the midst of the chaos, so how do you manage that?

Break projects down into manageable pieces. When I look at the project in its entirety, I’m for sure overwhelmed, but when I tackle things in small bits, I’m satisfied that I’ve accomplished something every day, I can see the forward progress, and I can continue to function day to day.

This works for writing books too. If I focused on the fact that I have approximately 90k words ahead of me every time I started a new project, I’d probably never write a single word again. Instead, I write scene to scene and chapter to chapter, until eventually I’ve created a whole book.

Laughter is excellent medicine. At the end of the day, laughing feels good. According to research from the Mayo Clinic, laughter can increase oxygen to the heart, lungs and muscles, increase the endorphins that are released by your brain, improve your mood and reduce physical pain. Not too shabby.

While I certainly wasn’t laughing when a cascade of water took out my entire sub-level, I definitely relied on funny cat memes to cheer me up in the days following!

Anyway, as I sit on my front porch listening to the soft summer rain, I am reminded that inner peace is always accessible, regardless of the circumstances. It’s a simple idea, but one that’s not always easy to embrace!

“Nothing can disturb your peace of mind unless you allow it to.”
― Roy T. Bennett

Monday Musings 11-15-21

Life interrupted. We’ve all experienced it. Whether its’s something quick but annoying like a flat tire on the way to a meeting or a more serious, distressing issue like an illness, we have to adjust because the world doesn’t stop moving. I’ve had some recent experience with this, and here are my thoughts on how to deal as best we can.

Take a breath. Really. If life just got upended with something large or small, give yourself a moment to process. We are all entitled to the mess of feelings that comes when we’re hit with the unexpected. You will recalibrate, but it might take a little time. Give yourself that time.

Prioritize. The world does, in fact, keep on spinning despite our own personal stressors. Work needs attention, laundry washed, meals cooked. The business of day to day living can actually provide good balance if we find ourselves stuck in the muck. But, we probably don’t have the capacity for everything we normally would, so prioritize the to-do list. Accomplish the necessary things, and save the rest. They’re not going anywhere.

Be gentle with yourself. Offer yourself the same kindness and care you would if it were a friend struggling with something. You’d encourage them to take a walk in the sunshine, sit with a cup of tea and decompress, go to that yoga class. It’s harder to do it for ourselves, but we’ll be better for it.

Seek out the joy. To risk sounding cliche, tomorrow is not guaranteed. Not for any of us. But, even when our hearts are heavy, we can find moments of joy. Life is messy. There’s no way around it. Still, there is friendship, peace, laughter, and love in the here and now if we orient ourselves toward it.

“He had learned the rare secret that you must take happiness when you find it - that there is no use in marking the place and coming back to it at a more convenient season, because it will not be there then.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Chronicles of Avonlea

Monday Musings 7-5-21

The last few months have been a combination of highs and lows, joy and fear, excitement and exhaustion. Essentially, they’ve been a study in contrasts, and the fluctuation alone has been draining. At one point, I had to keep a physical list of the people in my circle who were suffering in some way just to make sure I remembered to check in on them. At the same time, we celebrated my third son’s birthday and graduation, had all our children together for the first time in nearly two years, and were able to experience beautiful, simple things, like dinner with friends, that had been off-limits since COVID.

As I approach my fiftieth birthday (yes, it’s tomorrow), I’ve come to realize this juxtaposition of opposites is how life looks when you’ve reached a certain, ahem, maturity. Not that challenges weren’t part of life when we were younger, but our social circle is larger now and filled with people of all ages, our bodies are a bit older, and we’ve been on the planet long enough to know we won’t escape life unscathed.

Life offers us a myriad of experiences, which may be perceived as good or bad, and often they’ll be handed to us at the same time. So, how do we find peace and equilibrium amidst the flux? I don’t have all the answers, but I think it helps to simply acknowledge this is the case. When I truly accept that the nature of the human experience is complex, I can make peace with it. I can allow myself to find joy even in times of sorrow or pain. I can be grateful for the simple things, and not overlook them when my world feels particularly tumultuous. I can love fiercely and joyfully all the time.

“If you carry joy in your heart, you can heal any moment.” - Carlos Santana

IN OTHER NEWS…

I’ll be at Tampa Bay Comic Con with a few fabulous fellow RI authors from July 30-August 1! If you are in the area, come visit us. Panel schedule TBA!

Little Daisy should be arriving on July 12th. We can’t wait to meet her, and I promise lots of pictures!

Ten years ago today, I summited Mt. Kilimanjaro with my sister and two friends. It was the adventure of a lifetime and I am eternally grateful for the experience.

Monday Musings 4-5-21

Life is messy. At the moment, it is particularly messy for my family and several friends in our close circle. But, even in the midst of the messiness, there is beauty. We can find it in the perfect note of a song, or a colorful sunrise over the water, or the softest brush of a kiss. It’s there on a warm spring morning, with the purr of a kitten, during a shared meal with friends. If we are looking, even in the midst of the messiness, we will find generosity and kindness and the strength of the human spirit.

It’s all there. If we have opened our eyes in the morning, it is all still there for us.

So, in the midst of the mess, I think we have a choice. We can choose to live mired in fear or beaten down by our challenges, or we can choose to seek out the sweetness. We can actively look for it, appreciate it, embrace it. This perspective doesn’t minimize our grief or suffering. Life will bring every one of us to our knees at some point. But, if we don’t pay attention to the beauty, even when we might rather bury our heads under the covers, the suffering is all we will see.

“Struggles are a part of life but they are not the totality of what life entails so we must remember to discover all the other ingredients that make life worth living.”