![]() Are you sad? Many people are. As I write this, I see a gloomy, cloudy, windy day out my office window. The trees are releasing the last of their beautiful fall leaves and the cold of winter is ready to blow in. You may be trying to get a foothold on a normal life again after our years of uncertainty only to be hit daily with more uncertainty in the headlines. You can concentrate on all this negativity. You can add to the list all of your personal problems until you are sad. Very sad. You can mix in some anger. Add a little blame or shame, and soon you are a mess. Here is what can happen… You get so used to being sad that you don’t know it’s sadness - it just feels like you. You get so used to being angry that you don’t know it’s anger - it just feels like you. You get so used to feeling blame and shame that you don’t know it’s blame and shame - it just feels like you. Fill in your blank with any negative emotion you have. You get so used to feeling ____ that you don’t know it’s ____it just feels like you. Think about that. Do you even know what YOU should feel like? You become so used to talking about being sad that it becomes who you are. Be careful how you allow your emotions to take over your life. They can become a habitual personality trait You begin protecting this trait. Don’t touch my sadness, it’s all mine. You begin projecting this trait onto others. You talk about it, you think about it and you live in the bubble of it without letting anyone or anything positive in. It is easy to fall prey to this negativity. If you weren’t sad before you began reading this, by the time you read the first paragraph you were probably thinking about how sad you must be. What if the first paragraph read like this: Are you happy? Many people are. As I write this, I see a glorious fall day out my office window. The trees are releasing the last of their beautiful colorful leaves. It is a lovely sight to watch the leaves flutter down, swinging back and forth in the wind until they softly settle on the ground. Soon sparkling snow will cover the leaves with a blanket of white. The coziness of winter will quickly be here and the headlines will be filled with tips on holiday baking and shopping ideas. Do you see the difference? Do you FEEL the difference? I was looking out the same window. I just saw and felt it differently. My emotions were different. Monitor how happy emotions can easily take over your life. They can become a habitual personality traits. Protect your happiness and don’t allow others to disrupt it. Begin projecting positive emotions onto others. Nurture and share love, joy and happiness. Here is what can happen… You get so used to being joyful that you don’t know it’s joy - it just feels like you. You get so used to being happy that you don’t know it’s happiness - it just feels like you. You get so used to feeling love that you don’t know it’s love - it just feels like you. You control how you see things, how you describe things, and how you react and respond to life situations. Look out your window right now. I hope you see the beauty of a glorious fall day. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Pennie’s Life Lesson: Be the one who gets so used to feeling joy and happiness that you don’t know it’s joy and happiness— it just feels like you. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ YOUR TURN...
Share your thoughts and experiences relating to this post in a comment below. And please feel free to email me at: [email protected]. Thank you! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ All Rights Reserved Copyright © 2013-2022 Pennie Hunt This was written and produced by Pennie Hunt. Feel free to forward and share this post. Please keep the entire message intact, including contact, logo, and copyright information.
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![]() We all wait. We wait in line and we wait for people. We wait for love, for marriage and for babies. We wait for holidays and happiness. Waiting is part of life. Most of us don’t do it well. We do it impatiently. We are impatient when someone doesn’t respond to a phone call. We get frustrated in the drive-through line waiting for our coffee. We become angry when the doctor keeps us waiting for our appointment. We think our perfect love will never show up. We think 9 months is a painfully long time to be pregnant and wait for our baby. We don’t wait well. This impatience adds stress to our bodies and is detrimental to our physical and mental health. If impatience leads to frustration, anger, depression, and negative behaviors, then it is logical that patience would curtail stress and create a sense of calmness. So why wouldn’t we practice patience? Maybe we need to relearn patience. Remember as a child when you couldn’t wait until your birthday? You planned the party, you created a guest list and you picked a theme. You marked off the calendar days. You looked forward to it, you anticipated and you waited. Remember as a child when you couldn’t wait for Christmas morning? You made a list, you sent Santa a letter, you watched Charlie Brown search for a tree. You delighted in rituals and traditions. You looked forward to it, you anticipated and you waited. Have we forgotten how to wait? Have we forgotten how to enjoy the process? Let’s look at being in the waiting room in a new way. When you are in the drive-through waiting for your morning latte, visualize the person brewing the coffee, steaming the milk, and adding the whipped cream. Feel the ritual and appreciate the time and care that goes into your morning treat. Be grateful for it. If you have to wait a little longer for your appointment, think about who is being seen by the physician before you. Maybe they are seriously ill. Maybe they needed a few extra minutes for tests. We really don’t know what they are going through. Give them the kindness of waiting with patience while they take a little longer. If you are waiting for Prince Charming to ride up on a white stallion or Cinderella to fit into a slipper, think of the waiting time as a time to work on yourself. Learn to love yourself. Improve yourself and practice patience with yourself while you wait for love to enter your life. When you are expecting a baby concentrate on the miracle that you have been given. In 9 very short months, an entire human is created. That is miraculous! Enjoy every moment and baby movement during the waiting time. Enjoy the process. If you have ever sat next to a loved one laying in a Hospice bed you understand the most difficult time of waiting. Waiting to say the final goodbye is the most painful waiting room you will sit in. It is also the biggest honor you will experience. It is the most extreme lesson in learning to be patient and grateful for the entire process of life. Enjoy the lattés, enjoy the birthdays, and enjoy the rituals that lead to holidays. Enjoy the pauses of waiting in between every event. Enjoy the process of living your entire life. Look forward to it, anticipate it, be grateful and patient as you wait. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Pennie’s Life Lesson: Notice how you wait. Be patient with yourself and others. Enjoy the process. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ YOUR TURN...
Share your thoughts and experiences relating to this post in a comment below. And please feel free to email me at: [email protected]. Thank you! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ All Rights Reserved Copyright © 2013-2022 Pennie Hunt This was written and produced by Pennie Hunt. Feel free to forward and share this post. Please keep the entire message intact, including contact, logo, and copyright information. ![]() Last week I had a birthday. As with every year, birthdays create a time of reflection. Walking the memory path of my life the big events jump out to me. Births and deaths, weddings and divorces, trips and adventures. Large memories of happy and sad times are sprinkled throughout the years. Then I realized most of life is made up of ordinary moments. Life is one ordinary moment after another. These moments layer and build hours, days, weeks, months, years and eventually creates a life. Most of these moments we don’t even notice. We let them pass along with little fanfare. It is only as we look back on our lives that we realize that it was an ordinary moment that became an extraordinary tipping point that changed our lives in big ways. It is the small, ordinary moments that lead to the big events. We just need to look back and connect the dots. The chance meeting of a person at the post office who became your spouse. The conversation you overhear about a job opening that becomes the beginning of your career. The serendipitous impulse to bring a puppy home who becomes your soul dog and best friend. These magical, extraordinary moments are disguised as ordinary and hidden in the cracks and crevices of our lives. Could they be divinely placed for us to experience at just the perfect time? Maybe. My birthday life review turned to mentally exploring how the small, ordinary moments had strategically left the breadcrumbs for me to follow. Picking up one after another until I was led to an amazing event that changed everything. The moves I have made to new locations and the career changes were all a part of the breadcrumb gathering. Last week I had a birthday. I won’t tell you how many candles were on my cake, but it was enough to have given me the advantage of experiencing a lot of change, setbacks, and step-ups. It was enough to have given me time to learn a lot of lessons and gain a little wisdom. What I know now that I didn’t know when I blew out 30 candles is that I didn’t get to this place in my life alone. Yes, I have an education that I am proud to claim, and I have made some hard life decisions on my own, but the breadcrumbs were there for me to follow. At times I had a long-held nagging in the darkness of my stomach telling me what I should be doing. Looking back, I realize the nagging was telling me that I was stepping over the breadcrumbs. Then suddenly an opportunity would be placed right in front of me as if to say, well, if you are not going to do this on your own, then here it is for you to trip into. This is how ordinary moments work and this is how they are so easily missed. What if you procrastinated going to the post office that day? What if you blew off the conversation you overheard and never applied for the job? What if you fought the impulse to bring home that puppy and never experienced the love of your best buddy? Sometimes the ordinary moments are hard, painful and force change. Looking back, I realize even those were the breadcrumbs I begrudgingly followed that led me to a tipping event. From the view I have now from this age, I realize how seemingly ordinary moments were the catalysts for the biggest events in my life. Could they have been divinely placed for me to experience at just the perfect time? Yes, I believe so. Last week I had a birthday. I am not excited about the number of candles, but I am excited about discovering how connecting the dots in my life brought me to where I am today. Bring on another year of ordinary moments. I’ll be looking for the breadcrumbs. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Pennie’s Life Lesson: Pay attention to the magic hidden in ordinary moments. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ![]() The rest of the photo story.... ...yes, the dog became his best friend. YOUR TURN...
Share your thoughts and experiences relating to this post in a comment below. And please feel free to email me at: [email protected]. Thank you! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ All Rights Reserved Copyright © 2013-2022 Pennie Hunt This was written and produced by Pennie Hunt. Feel free to forward and share this post. Please keep the entire message intact, including contact, logo, and copyright information. ![]() Do you have a balanced life? Think of your life like a pie chart. Divide it into equal sections. Have as many sections as you want and label them any way you like. Some examples are- Family, Relationships, Career, Education, Spiritual/Religious, Health, Fun, etc. If you have a perfect life, you have a perfect pie chart. Each section is a perfect color and compliments the section next to it. Every slice of your life is getting an equal percentage of attention and giving an equal percentage of benefit and value back to you. Every piece of your life has meaning. You are proud. It makes you happy to look at this fantasy. Let’s get real. No one has a perfect pie or a perfect life. Most of the time one section is receiving more attention from you while others are lacking. Your career may be flourishing, but your relationship is struggling. You may be pursuing more education and allowing your health to be neglected. Maybe you are an adrenaline seeker chasing fun while letting the rest of your pie take care of itself. Your chart may be trying to spin with the unevenness of a flat tire. A tragedy may be thrown into your life which completely throws your nice round pie into something that resembles a Picasso painting. When there is hurt, disappointment, failure, disaster, or heartbreak in life we often put 100% control and meaning to the tragedy or problem. It is all we can think about. Nothing else matters. Our life is 100% taken over by one struggle. We want to pull the covers over our heads and hide from the rest of our world. We can’t control the problem so we shut down the whole pie. We freeze. When we let circumstances that are out of our control take over our lives, we allow the things we can control to fall apart. Let me repeat that slowly… When we let circumstances that are out of our control take over our lives, we allow the things we can control to fall apart. This is the time to move your mind and body. Give meaning to other parts of your life. If you experience a relationship breakup or the loss of a job, put movement and meaning to the other things in your life. Point your attention toward your health, your job, your family or your hobby. Push movement and meaning to the other parts of your circle that you can control. If you are stuck and it feels overwhelming, take it one at a time. Take the time you spent on the relationship or job and pour it into another area. You will never forget what happened, but you can carry it with you in a healthy way while you build and repair the other meaningful areas of your life. The sections of your life will always fluctuate. Life isn’t perfect and we as humans are not flawless. The moments of a perfectly proportioned pie are rare. The goal is to pay attention to all areas of your life before a devastating event occurs. The stronger you feel in your pie of life the more strength you will have to lean into other areas of support to help you through the difficult times. Keep the sections of your pie as fulfilled and balanced as possible. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Pennie’s Life Lesson: Give movement and meaning to every part of your life. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ YOUR TURN...
Share your thoughts and experiences relating to this post in a comment below. And please feel free to email me at: [email protected]. Thank you! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ All Rights Reserved Copyright © 2013-2022 Pennie Hunt This was written and produced by Pennie Hunt. Feel free to forward and share this post. Please keep the entire message intact, including contact, logo, and copyright information. |
AuthorThere is a certain magic about where I live both physically and spiritually – on the crossroads of Spirit and Brave. Archives
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