Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Things which I’ve been pondering in this new year:
+ Usually the traits that you can’t stand in someone or something have an equally visceral reaction in the opposite way. For instance, Trip, our Boykin spaniel, is the brattiest, most entitled, most demanding and full-of-himself dog we have ever shared our lives with, and yet it is those very same traits of his personality that make me smile and laugh out loud every single day. The way that Trip demands to have the most comfortable seat on the couch, all splayed out, without a hint of modesty, and how, during our walks, his nosy little self gets up on his hind legs in order to look through the fence of the neighbor’s yard, with the hopes of instigating their pit bull, makes me annoyed, and yet also vicariously overjoyed at his audacity, all at the same time. I imagine that this can be the same for the people whom we love, and even when we consider our own selves. The next time that you find yourself being angry at someone you love, or beating yourself up for your own “worst” traits, see if you can twist it around to something that you also, in equal measure love and admire. Stubbornness can also be stick-to-it-iveness. Messiness can also be laid back and creative. Righteousness can also be bravery. Talkativeness can be good entertainment. You get the picture . . .
+ I have been reading a lot about how little changes are what really adds up to the big changes. Rarely do the big sweeping changes stick. (Already, in mid January, my husband mentioned that the gym is no longer overly crowded in the mornings.) I, myself, have been able to do better with my own health choices, when I make one little change, versus a drastic, all-encompassing change. For instance, for most of my twenties and thirties, I drank at least 4-5 Diet Cokes a day. One day, I decided that for my health, I would quit drinking Diet Cokes. (I didn’t say to myself, I am going to do a complete overhaul to my diet. I just decided to quit drinking Diet Cokes.) I haven’t drank Diet Coke in probably about ten years now. Small changes are easier to focus on and are more doable, than complete overhauls. So now, I am meditating on small changes that I can make in various areas of my life, that will give me that wonderful sense of accomplishment that feels so good. Can I add an extra mile to my walk? Can I go to bed a half hour earlier every night? Can I clean out a drawer a day?
+ Recently I wrote about fixing small aggravations in my life and being amazed by the difference this makes in my mental health. For instance, I finally figured out how to turn off our home phone ringers, and it’s been beautifully quiet and peaceful in the house. Yesterday, as I stared at the fingerprint filled, and dog nose smudged sliding glass windows which we have all over the back of our house, I sighed. I had no desire to clean them, because it is either a long, laborious process involving a pail and a squeegee, or a tedious, and pointlessly frustrating process involving at least a whole roll of paper towels. So honestly, I usually just let the sliders be (while still remaining aggravated and embarrassed), until the glass is almost opaque. However yesterday, I took a page out of my husband’s playbook, who has learned how to fix a lot things around the house from various YouTube instructors. I looked up clever ways to clean sliding glass windows. And I found a DREAM solution. Essentially, you attach a 100 percent cotton towel on to your Swiffer, spray your windows with a foamy window cleaner and you can get both sides of the doors done in about a minute. You even can reach the top corners that somehow even manage to get dirty – how this happens, I do not know.
Readers, please share any small changes that you have made that have ended up making a huge difference in your own lives. I would love to hear your tips!
