Find Your Fresh Friday: Thanksgiving Edition

TGIF!!! Time to Find Your Fresh! With turkey day less than a week away, we will be focusing on all things Thanksgiving today. Here are some suggestions that may inspire you as you look forward to this holiday:

Instead of just making that to-do list, create a realistic action plan that will allow you to get some of those things done. Realistic is the key! Don't set yourself up for failure by overloading your day. Find some fresh focus and get some stuff done!

At the end of the day, choose to focus on all that you accomplished rather than dwelling on what you didn't get done. See yourself as a success! It will give you some fresh motivation for tomorrow.

Do something to get yourself in the holiday mood. Watch a movie, read a story, attend a community event, make your favorite treat. Stir up some fresh joy and enthusiasm for this season.

Look for an opportunity to donate to a charitable cause in your community this week. A group in our community hosts a "Festival of Giving" event with all of the proceeds going to benefit several charities in our area. Perhaps there is something similar in your area. Find a fresh way to give of your time and resources in your neighborhood.

Reframe that thing you are dreading about this season. For example, that difficult person you always end up sitting by during Thanksgiving dinner? It's just another opportunity for you to develop your personal communication skills. Feeling anxious or frustrated about navigating that super busy grocery store? At least you have the means and the ability to shop for your family. Look for something positive in every situation and gain a fresh perspective.

Make a list of everything you are thankful for today. Challenge yourself to consider all of your blessings. Maybe you laughed for the first time in a really long time today. Your car started when you needed to get to work. The washing machine worked when you did that load of laundry. Someone smiled at you while you were shopping. You found a great parking spot. You were able to help another person today. Cultivate a fresh attitude of gratitude.

Whatever you do, take a little time to find your fresh and have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Day Twenty- A Thankful Heart

Yesterday, as I was approaching the door to my place of work, I happened to encounter an older gentleman. I said my usual “Hi! How are you?” to him as he held the door for me. He responded, “Hello! I am well! It is a GREAT day to be alive! Praise the Lord!” I couldn’t help but smile and say, “Yes, it is!” His enthusiasm and apparent zest for life was contagious. I don’t know him. I don’t know his story. But it was obvious that he was grateful for the gift of another day.

I must admit that I was not feeling particularly grateful before I spoke with him. My schedule for the day had been upended and I was really just trying to survive. That short interaction completely turned my day around! All of my frustrations seemed so small and insignificant as I began to think about the blessing of having another day to live.

Gratitude is a powerful force. It awakens our hearts to beauty and abundance. It reminds us that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves. Gratitude keeps us from taking our own lives for granted and motivates us to help others.

Being thankful is a conscious decision. It requires mindful living, an ongoing awareness of the world around us. We can cultivate this by choosing to count our blessings every day. When we focus on what we do have, our perspective begins to change. We can look beyond our circumstances and see abundance rather than lack.

An attitude of gratitude. A thankful heart. It really is a GREAT day to be alive!

Day Eleven- Letting Go of Selfishness

As a little girl, I learned that the opposite of love is hate. While there is some truth in that, I have since come to understand that the true opposite of love is selfishness. When we are caught up in our own lives, trying to satisfy our own needs, and follow our own agendas, it is very difficult to really love one another.  

I think that the most effective way to overcome selfishness is through gratitude.  Gratitude awakens our hearts to beauty and abundance. It reminds us that we are a part of something bigger than us. When we stop taking our own lives for granted, we are motivated to help others.

Being thankful is a conscious decision. It requires mindful living, an ongoing awareness of the world around us. We can cultivate this by choosing to count our blessings every day. Keeping a gratitude journal has been very helpful for me. Writing it down helps me stay focused. Sharing gratitude around the family dinner table is also great. Ask each family member to name something they are thankful for from that particular day. We can learn a lot about each other by counting our blessings together.

Start letting go of selfishness and start developing an attitude of gratitude today!

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~Melody Beattie               

Day Seven- Letting Go of Constant Drama

Life here in the 21^st century is full of extremes. We have extreme sports, extreme makeovers, extreme home makeovers, extreme couponing, and a variety of extreme reality shows with extreme challenges.  We are surrounded by people exhibiting extreme behavior.  Social media feeds this frenzy by giving us a place to truly live our lives out loud. Viral videos feature everything from folks expressing their opinions in crazy rants to all of those over-the-top marriage proposals. Even the stuff of our ordinary daily lives is so often over-exaggerated that we begin to lose our emotional balance. This constant roller coaster of drama is exhausting!

How do we get off of the roller coaster? 

I think we need to start by looking at why we tend to over-dramatize life events. At the heart of this is usually is the desire for attention. Positive attention is the most desirable, but we humans will take negative attention over no attention any day. So we exaggerate a little (or a lot) in order to maximize our return. This might work for a while, but eventually you will lose your credibility. Remember the story of the little boy who cried wolf? Someday if you really do have something going on that deserves a lot of attention, it will be harder to garner that due to your past practices. 

Instead of over-dramatizing the events in our lives, let’s focus on putting them in perspective. An attitude of gratitude goes a long way in helping us with this process. As my mother used to say, “Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill!” Just this last week I had an opportunity to put this into practice. We were having car trouble, again, and the list of repairs was long and expensive.  Initially, I was upset. But then I began to look at it from a different perspective. It is just a car. We weren’t making decisions regarding a treatment plan for a life-threatening illness. We weren’t dealing with a life-changing crisis with one of our children. It is just a car. Whew! What a difference that made for me in dealing with the situation. I am happy to report that God provided, the car is repaired, and life goes on. 

Letting go of the constant drama can free us up to really enjoy our lives. Refuse to be a “drama mama” and embrace all of the good things that God has given you today!

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts." ~Colossians 3:15a

"Enjoy every moment" is still good advice

Lately I have been reading a lot about how parents of young children are frustrated by the phrase “enjoy every moment.” They claim that these words, often passed along by parents with grown children, are not realistic and the recipients end up feeling guilty as a result. I understand their frustration. Parenting is exhausting, difficult, and quite overwhelming at times. Not every moment is pleasant. Diaper changes, temper tantrums, projectile vomiting (usually in the middle of the night), runny noses, whining, homework struggles- none of these are particularly enjoyable.

So why do I think that this is still good advice?

I am one of those annoying parents who pass along this advice, so I understand the intention by which it is given. I do not want my words to ever be guilt-producing. Rather, I hope that they are gratitude-inducing. While not every moment is pleasant, you can be grateful that you are there for your child in that moment. You are there to comfort them, care for them, teach and train them. You are the one who calms their fears, picks them up when they fall down, and encourages them to keep trying. It’s challenging and messy and heart-wrenching at times, but you are the lucky one who gets to be there with them through it all!

Perhaps you think I am naïve or that I don’t remember how hard the early years can be. It isn’t that I don’t remember, because I do, trust me! I’m just far enough along in the journey that I can look back and see that there were many more positive moments than negative. I can see that I was the happiest and most successful when I counted my girls as blessings and I didn’t take my role as their mother for granted. I certainly wasn’t perfect and I learned so much along the way. I would hope that someone somewhere could benefit from my experience.

Parenting requires a long-term investment perspective. Yes, there are hills and valleys along the way, but we need to keep our focus on our long-term goals, all the while recognizing that those words “long-term” can be deceiving. The seemingly-endless moments you see ahead of yourself pass by in the blink of an eye. “The days are long, but the years are short.” (Gretchen Rubin) And so my advice remains: Be fully present, be grateful, and enjoy every moment!