living life out loud

Grat Lists Galore

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 5 Comments

Since 2011, I have been practicing gratitude by writing a daily gratitude list.

It has been transformative.

Each day, I list ten things I am grateful for. I then list ten things I’m excited for. And (hardest of all,) three brags.

I post it to a Yahoo group started by a mentor/friend.

Each day, I get emails containing the posted “grat” lists of others.

It is amazing to have the daily reminders of appreciation for the small and big things in life. It helps keep my focus on the positive.

The way I am wired, for some reason, I have the tendency to focus on the negative: what isn’t working, what’s not going right, what I did wrong, what I do not have/is missing in my life.

The grat list keeps me looking for what is going right, what I do have, what I can appreciate right now.

One of the great parts of the grat list community is how it has become a virtual safe space where we can share whatever we need to and receive support or whatever we may need. It is a “no guilt, no judgement zone,” a place to be totally honest. It is not about being cheerful and positive, it is about being real.

I may go through dark times, but I can always find some things to be grateful for. That my limbs function. Sunshine. Clean water. That I woke up.

And, through our grat list group, I am never alone. Sometimes, the others’ lists keep me from falling into isolated despair. I may be down and another’s good day holds hope for the inevitable upswing that will come if I hang in there, a fact that is easy to forget when left to my own devices.

I am truly grateful for the grat list group, and all that the practice of gratitude has given my life. It is a powerful muscle that I plan on keeping supple.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: gratitude

Ride of a Lifetime

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One minute we were laughing. Young, hungover, late to the Superbowl party, totally free. Driving down a country road on New Year’s Day, we were heading towards our lives.

Must have hit a patch of black ice. Time stretched itself out like a taffy-pull. The car air filled with heartbeats and breath.

None us made a sound. Even the car, as it spun 360 degrees, was silent, seeming almost to hover above the ground.

I was in the back seat, on the hump between the seats. It felt like I was on the Teacups ride, facing the slow-whirling, hard-packed, icy snowland and barbed-wire fence as we spun. Katie’s red hair seemed to defy gravity, and you seemed set in plaster, both hands on the wheel.

It was surreal, those decades we turned together. Something transpired between us, unspoken, that would forever connect us.

When the car stopped, no one moved. The stillness seemed even more surreal than the spinning world, then, and I wasn’t sure if we’d died and this was heaven, or if somehow, miraculously, we had escaped what would surely have been a horrific and fatal crash.

More eons passed, until finally, as if on cue, we started laughing. Unbelievably, the car was even facing the right direction. We had literally completed a full two circles, and had stayed on the road.

We were whole. We were spared by the Angels.

We went on to the party, but didn’t tell anyone what had happened. Didn’t make into yet another college drinking story.

In fact, we never spoke of it again.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: surreal

Mistaken Identity

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I thought I was broken, thought I was missing

Thought parts of me had just died

Made friends with the holes that I thought you’d made

Made peace with what was left inside

 

Turns out I was wrong, nothing of me was gone

Certain parts just learned how to hide

I am whole, I am thriving, I am filled with myself

And that truth just cannot be denied

 

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: identity

Ownership

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No longer have to trademark my grief

Don’t need the world to see where I was broke

I’ve given myself full attention and love

All I’d held dormant is now woke

 

I’ve befriended it all, found a place in my heart

For what used to have me in tatters

Don’t need you to see it to make it all real

It’s mine now, and that’s all that matters

 

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: trademark

Mixed Messages

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She can’t decide

She can’t hear

There’s a cacophony

In her inner ear

What to think

What to do

Which way to be

Which her, or who?

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Post: cacophony (and Dr. Seuss)

Rude Awakening

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“You’re not at all what I expected,” I said upon discovering my True Self.

“But I guess we’re stuck with each other now.”

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word prompt: expect

Making Room

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 8 Comments

In certain recovery circles, there are different slogan versions of the same general theme: “Let it go.” “Turn it over.” “Let go and let God.”

These are usually said in reference of some condition, person, place or thing that is a source of stress, resentment, anger or some other emotion that is potentially dangerous for the person’s serenity/sanity/sobriety.

I’ve had people listen to my tale of woe, and offer as help something like: “Just let it go.”

I always found this very frustrating.

I mean, OK, sure, yeah, I’d love to “let it go!” Who wants to be obsessed with something? Who doesn’t want to release some shit that has a hold on them. I am all for letting it go! But how in the hell do you do that really?

I mean, I can’t just will it away. Been there, tried that. Doesn’t work.

Pray it away? Nope. That has never worked for me. Works for you – have at it. Good for you. Not my thing.

Best thing I ever heard around all of this, something that really helped me understand how this releasing, this turning it over thing really works (at least for me,) was this.

Someone wise once said to me: in order to let it go, just try to loosen my grip around that particular complaint, problem, issue, person, or thing.

To just see if I could release my grip just a bit…

And you know what? That I could do.

I could just try to loosen my hold on it a bit.

And no, the issue did not just disappear as a result. But sure enough, that loosening allowed something to move a bit, and that, it turns out, became the beginning of a shift.

That little release made space for something else to enter into the picture…

What a difference! I was no longer frustrated whenever I had that suggested to me, because now I knew that they key, the starting place, was to just loosen my grip a bit.

It is urban legend that Quincy Jones apparently said to Micheal Jackson, “If a song needs strings, it will tell you. Get out of the way and leave room so that God can walk in.” He later rephrased this to, “You’ve got to leave space for God to walk through the room.”

I am not religious nor do I use the word God to indicate what I believe in spiritually, but I do love and have come to understand this phenomenon experientially in my life: this consciously leaving some space in a situation for something greater than myself to come through with some help, or some magic, or some beauty. At the every least, some new information! I have experienced it a multitude of times.

So now I have my  own version of those slogans:

Let it go?! I don’t know. Leave some space? I say yes!

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: release

A Tight Squeeze

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 2 Comments

That’s it.

You’ve gotten all you’re gonna get from me.

Like a tube of toothpaste, you’ve expressed the final remnants of the love I had for you.

Empty, flat and hard, I’m done.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: express

Anna & The King & I

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One of my favorite songs in musical theatre is the song sung by the character Anna in the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The King and I.

I have always loved it, even when I was very young. I watched the movie version with Deborah Kerr, one of my favorite film actresses of all of the many Hollywood movies I watched after school.

Of course I wanted to be Anna. Never mind that she was a widow and having to go to a country far from home to make a living as a tutor and raise her son. Those things went over my head, I think.

She had a wonderful accent and wore gorgeous costumes. And she and the King had such a romantic and special relationship. I practiced talking and moving like her, and sang her songs, preparing myself for the day that I, too, would be a Hollywood starlet like her.

The lyrics of this song have grown more meaningful to me as I age. I feel I can sing this song with real conviction at this point in my life, having known great loves of my own.

Here is the scene from the film. Anna (Deborah Kerr) sings to the king’s many wives, letting them get to know her:

Hello young lovers whoever you are
I hope your troubles are few
All my good wishes go with you tonight
I’ve been in love like youBe brave young lovers and follow your star
Be brave and faithful and true
Cling very close to each other tonight
I’ve been in love like youI know how it feels to have wings on your heels
And to fly down the street in a trance
You fly down a street on a chance that you’ll meet
And you meet, not really by chanceDon’t cry young lovers whatever you do
Don’t cry because I’m alone
All of my mem’ries are happy tonight
I’ve had a love of my own

I’ve had a love of my own like yours
I’ve had a love of my own

Back then, I was not fully cognizant of the seriousness of the situation the lovers in the story find themselves in. They are servants to the King, and their love is forbidden. They indeed must be brave to try to be together, literally risking their lives to do so.

One would think that this ancient story would no longer be relevant. Sadly, it continues to resonate truthfully, reflecting the danger that still can exist between people simply trying to love one another.

I often catch this song floating through my psyche, when times get tough.

Be brave, young lovers, and follow your star. Be brave and faithful and true.

It never ceases to bolster me.

 

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: brave