Breathe in Peace Breathe out Joy

Emotions swirl around me.  There are days that I’m prostrate from my grief, others that I find myself fighting a rising anxiety on all that must soon be done and, worst of all, days where anger threatens to swallow all the goodness that is in me.  These moments I have withheld from lashing out and bleeding all over social media. It's a commitment I have made to myself...  To turn away from the negative and reach for the positive. 

I have an acquaintance who is unknowingly my role model when rage takes ahold of me.  Two years ago, our kids graduated from high school.  A week later her son was t-boned in a car accident.  He was in a coma for months.  She posted updates on Facebook about her sons' condition and improvements weekly.  Each time focusing on good news... even when it was hard to find.  For the past two years she has ended these posts with #PACE (positive attitude changes everything).  She has NEVER written about the teenage girl who wasn’t paying attention and ran the stop light.  (I only know this detail because another friend’s daughter happens to know that girl).  Instead, I have watched this women celebrate every movement, every milestone her son has made.  What he has overcome to date is no less than a miracle.  Her faith and attitude HAVE changed everything.  I honestly don’t know that I could have been so positive.  In fact, I know I would have written something blistering about the reckless child who almost took my child’s life.  Today, every time I want to spew my anger, grief and pain I think of her, and instead, I focus on small joys around me.  Thus, my new tag line #choosejoy. 

It hasn’t been easy.  I know the upcoming months are going to be a physical and emotional struggle.  I’m working on meditation.  Breathing in peace and breathing out joy.  Releasing the negative and smiling when I don’t feel like smiling.  I choose to only have things in my life that bring me joy…  people in my life that help me find that joy…  If I don’t like how someone lives their life, they’ll not be in mine.  No woman knows where her search for self-fulfillment will take her.  No woman starts that search today without struggle, conflict and taking courage in her own hands.  I am strong.  I am courageous and from this day forward, I will go from baby steps of looking for small joys each day to the end goal of having a lifeful of joy.  This moment in time will not define me but will be the steppingstone to me living my best life to come.

#choosejoy
#PACE 💓