Today I woke up with a smile on my face and with a thankful heart. That wasn’t always the case during the holiday seasons. In the past it seemed we had illnesses or death around the holidays, and each year there was a sense of dread and negative expectancy; or we were in mourning for a dear one that had passed.
As we sat in one of my uncle’s 70th birthday, I noticed that my family members were genuinely happy to be there. We have a rather large extended family and make the effort to get together as much as possible. My uncle Louie took on the task of kicking off family reunions every year and that has allowed us to rekindle our bonds.
The other day while speaking to my sister, we talked about our last gathering. There was one statement that caught my attention. She mentioned that we all have come to the place where we all just breathe in the moment. It took us a while but we have learned and continue to learn not to look back at the past with sadness and not to look forward to the future with dread. We just breathe in the moment. We take mental pictures, actually we take a lot of regular pictures too and we genuinely enjoy each other’s company.
Perhaps the holidays are a dread to you because of past family hurts or because you may feel you don’t have a family. Reality is that we all have a family or several families. It may not necessarily be blood. Family consists of those who have invested themselves, their time and their love in us. It goes beyond blood. It’s those folks that embrace who we are, quarks and all, who come along side us during the good, the bad and the ugly and still love us. They may not necessarily tell us, but they show us each time they get.
Breathe in the moment doesn’t just happen. You have to cultivate yourself into that state of mind. Here are some of the things my family has learned and continues to learn.
- Accept that you are not flawless. None of us are perfect. When you get that you tend to be a bit more forgiving.
- Forgive yourself. We all make mistakes and each day provides us a new opportunity to be our best.
- Forgive others. It will liberate you. To forgive is harder than to harbor but it keeps you out of your hand-tailored prison.
- Love…show it and say it. Life is short and regret doesn’t bring back anyone from the grave.
- Strengthen your relationships now. Don’t wait.
- Start new relationships. Get plugged into a church and community. Loneliness is a choice.
- Do not focus on the negative. Replace the negative thoughts with positive. Hope is better than despair.
- Speak positive. Life and death is in the power of the tongue. Don’t kill yourself, someone else, mess up your life, someone else’s, your destiny, your future, your family, (the list can go on) because of the words that you say. You are what you speak. We truly believe that.
- Make each moment count. Be purposeful. Plan your day well.
- Pace yourself. What’s the rush?
- Enjoy life. Stop and look up at the sky. Even when the sky is gray it’s amazing. You get to live another day and start over if you need to.
