Getting Pelted
Today I am grateful for simple messages with profound implications. I am also grateful for a run in some wind-driven snow yesterday.
Yesterday I heard someone scoffing at "one day at a time." It was just a passing comment and not directed at me. In hearing it, however, I had a surge of gratitude that I don't feel that way. I'm not a scoffer. I try to live it. Simple message with profound implications. Simple idea. Harder to do. But it can be done. Mindfulness, via gratitude practice, helps make it possible to leave yesterday's regrets and tomorrow's worries in their place and give my energy to today.
About that wind-driven snow. We have had a fairly decent spring, but not this week. It has been unseasonably cold and windy. And it was snowing on and off yesterday. Darcy and I headed out for a run in the midst of intermittent snow squalls. At one point we were heading straight into the wind and getting pelted with a snow and sleet mix. It wasn't fun, but yet it was. We looked at each other, laughed a little, and forged on. Soon it was better, though a couple more rounds of the mess would hit us before we got home. By the time we wrapped up our run, not much over 30 minutes, it almost looked like the sun was going to come out.
Sometimes when life pelts us with unpleasant feelings and situations, it passes quickly and we can be grateful for that. At other times, life pelts us with an ongoing challenge and it wears us down. I think of others I know being pelted with the struggles of a loved one with dementia, a serious eating disorder, ongoing cancer treatment, relationship concerns, financial strain, and more. It is tougher to find gratitude in such an onslaught, but it is still possible.
We can help one another with messages of support and gratitude. We can buffer the pelting we ourselves may face today by starting out in a grateful mindset. That will make us less likely to pelt others and more likely to be helpful. It's worth a try isn't it?
Yesterday I heard someone scoffing at "one day at a time." It was just a passing comment and not directed at me. In hearing it, however, I had a surge of gratitude that I don't feel that way. I'm not a scoffer. I try to live it. Simple message with profound implications. Simple idea. Harder to do. But it can be done. Mindfulness, via gratitude practice, helps make it possible to leave yesterday's regrets and tomorrow's worries in their place and give my energy to today.
About that wind-driven snow. We have had a fairly decent spring, but not this week. It has been unseasonably cold and windy. And it was snowing on and off yesterday. Darcy and I headed out for a run in the midst of intermittent snow squalls. At one point we were heading straight into the wind and getting pelted with a snow and sleet mix. It wasn't fun, but yet it was. We looked at each other, laughed a little, and forged on. Soon it was better, though a couple more rounds of the mess would hit us before we got home. By the time we wrapped up our run, not much over 30 minutes, it almost looked like the sun was going to come out.
Sometimes when life pelts us with unpleasant feelings and situations, it passes quickly and we can be grateful for that. At other times, life pelts us with an ongoing challenge and it wears us down. I think of others I know being pelted with the struggles of a loved one with dementia, a serious eating disorder, ongoing cancer treatment, relationship concerns, financial strain, and more. It is tougher to find gratitude in such an onslaught, but it is still possible.
We can help one another with messages of support and gratitude. We can buffer the pelting we ourselves may face today by starting out in a grateful mindset. That will make us less likely to pelt others and more likely to be helpful. It's worth a try isn't it?
Comments
Post a Comment