It has been a while since I blogged, due mainly to my lack of savvy and proficiency on a computer. I created a blog site that is not easy to navigate and I don't know how to fix it. Never fear readers, my daughter has promised to "fix" it for me in the near future, so hopefully I will be blogging on a regular basis soon. Having said that, let's get down to real business...
It has been a busy two years for me. I have moved to another city to be near my cousin/sister, celebrated the birth of my first two grandchildren, taken on a job as a prison nurse to challenge myself, started on a path to true physical fitness, experienced my first cruise, run my first 5K race (in which I can proudly say I placed third in my age group!), and taken myself out of my comfort zone to work as a travel nurse in corrections. Whew! I am exhausted just thinking about it! As you can imagine, I learned quite a lot about life, myself, and what I am really made of inside. Let me share with you what I learned...
Lesson One. Home is where your heart is. If your heart leads you to the end of a dirt road in a depressed, rural county in one of the poorest Southern States, then follow it all the way to the old frame home that waits in the shade of the Live Oaks at the end of the road. Don't worry that the rest of the world is running to the cities or to exotic foreign places. Your heart will not lead you wrong if you truly listen to it. Sometimes, it is hard to "listen to your heart" because of all the clutter in your mind. In this fast-paced world, it is hard sometimes to find a quiet spot to think, meditate, and find who you really are. My suggestion: Pass a "mental law" in which you set aside a period of time to get alone with yourself. Do Not let Anything interfere with this time short of a real, honest-to-goodness emergency. Leave you cell phone, pager, laptop, and any other communication device at home. Breathe. Breathe again. Breathe deeply in, then let the breath out from your toes all the way up to your hair. Close your eyes, breathe slowly and regularly. Bring to mind all of those things that make you feel safe, comfortable, happy, and loved. Then let the picture of that place form as it will in your mind... Bingo! There is your heart's home! Do whatever you can, whatever it takes, to get yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually back to That Place. This is the first step to healing those hurts that you never even allowed yourself to feel. Note: sometimes your "heart's home" is a person more than a place... recognize this, then follow the same steps above to get home...
Lesson Two. Grandchildren are God's reward for not harming your children, for raising them to be decent, law-abiding citizens, and for surviving all of the hurts, worries, stresses, and gray hairs along the path called parenthood. Enjoy your grandchildren to the fullest... they will grow up before you turn around twice. Cuddle those babies. Play with those toddlers. Listen to those children laugh and play. Laugh and play right along with them. Share all you have learned with those teenagers. Take pride in their accomplishments. Be their Hero, they don't have many in this crazy world today. Your grandchildren are your progeny, your future when you are gone. They will impact the earth and all its inhabitants in either a positive or negative way, ensure as best you can that the positive is brought out in their lives. You don't have to raise your grandchildren, this is not your job. Your job is to Be There... to be that person who cares like a mother or father, understands like a sibling, and dotes like a favorite aunt/uncle, all wrapped up in their treasured grandmother/grandfather. Show your grandchildren their future, and teach them about their past, their heritage, their roots. Make sure they fully understand the Reason their ancestors struggled to make life better... for them... Teach those precious ones the values and morals that are essential to a successful society. Most important, teach them about God, and Jesus. Read those old Bible stories to them, explaining as you do the truths and promises that are their inheritance from God. Leave an inheritance of truth, health, faith, morality, and love to them. Teach them good work ethics and the value of an education. When you are whacking at the weeds and vines that impede your path in life, clear your path well enough so that your grandchildren can clearly see and follow.
Lesson Three. Challenge yourself from time to time, it keeps life interesting and helps you grow, even when you are old. When you find yourself rolling along on autopilot, disconnect the cruise control, turn the wheel, and press the gas pedal! It sounds crazy, and it is scary, but the rewards are worth it. It is amazing what a change of scenery, whether in your personal, social, or work environment, can do for your perspective. When we no longer have challenges on the road we walk, boredom follows quickly. Boredom is deadly, as it leads to apathy and discontent. Shake up the "snow globe" and enjoy the view of another way of life from time to time. Take your vacation somewhere very different, somewhere not so comfortable. Backpack in the Rockies, or volunteer to help build a house with Habitat For Humanity. Go with the Sunday School class from a different church to feed the homeless, or on a mission trip to a third world country. Shake up your work environment, even if it means changing from your "comfortable position" in the job you have held for twenty years to being the "new kid on the block" in a totally new and different work environment. Retirement isn't everything. Who wants to retire from a boring work life to a boring retirement life? Not me. While there is something to be said for safety, security, and a sure thing, the memories you will make are priceless, and the blessings you reap from being willing to change your world are endless. None of us can take any money with us, and we will have plenty of time to rest and retire when we lie in a silk-lined coffin. Challenge yourself... I dare you.
Lesson Four. Take care of your body. It is the only one you will get on this earth. Step one revolves around good nutrition. Feed your body healthy, wholesome, nutritious foods. Avoid processed foods, chemical additives, and artificial colorings/flavorings and preservatives as much as possible. Avoid making your body a waste dump for junk food and unnecessary toxic chemicals. Remember, God's Word says your body is the temple of God, and admonishes us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to Him.
The second step is exercise. Now, this doesn't mean you have to go run a marathon or join a gym. I look at physical exercise as simply a matter of physics. If you let something sit, without using or moving it, it will lose the ability to function properly (think about a rusty door hinge...) It is the same with your body. If you don't move those joints, exercise those muscles, stretch those limbs, they will lose their ability to Move and Function properly. Walk, fast paced, three times a week. Join a yoga class, take karate with your kids, attend a low impact aerobics class, buy a membership to a fitness club or a pool, or, yes, invest in a treadmill/other exercise equipment. The benefits you reap from maintaining good physical fitness are endless (better sleep/rest, less pain, toned body, increased energy, better concentration/thinking skills), not to mention the ability to keep up with those precious grandbabies while you play with them!
Sleep is the third and most important step (in my opinion) to obtaining/maintaining physical health. When you are sleep deprived, you lose concentration, energy, and motivation to do anything, especially exercise. Invest in a good mattress. It will be one of the most important purchases you ever make. Find the one that allows you to completely relax, while supporting your body completely. The proper mattress should allow you to sleep without waking to reposition, and to awaken feeling rested and refreshed, ideally without pain. Buy good sheets, the kind that don't "ball up" or "move around" on the bed when you sleep. Your sheets should complement and add to your rest. The rule of thumb is, the higher the thread count, the better quality the sheets. When you find the perfect sheets, buy several sets in varying colors that make you happy. (I personally hate white sheets. I am a nurse and they remind me of hospitals and sick people.) You will be surprised how much the color of your sheets can affect your sleep/rest. Decorate your sleep area in a manner that promotes relaxation/rest. If you work at night and sleep in the daytime like me, invest in good quality "black out curtains". Your body produces a certain chemical/hormone during the daytime that keeps you in a more awake and alert mode. Conversely, a different hormone/chemical is produced at night to promote sleep. When you reverse the normal sleep times, it is important to take this into account, and to make your sleep area as dark as possible to facilitate a restful sleep.
Lesson Five. Leave the stresses of everyday life and work behind at least once a year for a week and take a real vacation. Our ancestors knew the value of this. If you study social history, you will discover that the family vacation was planned for and expected among all walks of life. Leave your cell phone, laptop, Ipad, pager, or any other form of communication to your work or other daily stressors at home. The world can and will go on without your input and help for a week. The best vacation I ever took was on a Caribbean cruise this past year. Why? Not because of the fun I had, the places I saw, or the things I did. It was because I had no cell phone reception, internet, or other connection to "the world" for a whole week. After I quit stressing over it near the end of the second day, I began to treasure and value being "unplugged" from the outside world. It sounds simple, but the benefits to your mind, soul, spirit, and body are priceless. Try it once, and you will find yourself repeating it again and again... Just like the "off" button on computers, radios, televisions, and phones, we all need to "turn off" and allow our bodies and minds to rest and "defragment."
Lesson Six. Every once in a while, compete... against a set group of people, your peers, or yourself. Set a goal and take the steps to accomplish it. Whether it is a physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual competition doesn't matter. It is in pitting yourself, in one way or another, against a set "adversary" that we learn what we are (and aren't!) made of. When we compete, we challenge ourselves. Even if we don't place first, there is satisfaction in the process. We discover hidden talents, strengths, and weaknesses in ourselves when we take part in a competition. Competition challenges us to become better, to strive to win, to push ourselves to limits we formerly thought impossible. It is in competing that we experience "the thrill of victory" or the "agony of defeat". Both victory and defeat are important life lessons to learn, the first to give us hope, and the latter to teach us humility.
Lesson Seven. Be happy. It sounds so simple, and it is. Happiness isn't accidental. It doesn't just happen. It is the result of learning lessons, realizing truths, and being content. Happiness comes from within first. If you aren't happy with the person inside, you won't be happy with the world outside. Happiness and acceptance go hand in hand. You cannot be happy if you cannot accept that the world and the people in it are not perfect. Accept that there are things you cannot (and probably should not) change. Accept that there will be good days and bad days, and that the world doesn't revolve around you. Accept, most of all, that the world is not fair, and whoever said it is, lied. When you learn to accept the negatives in this world for what they are, you become more able to appreciate the positives that exist on equal but opposite planes. Appreciation is the first step toward true happiness. Another key element of happiness is to develop and maintain a positive attitude. Look for the silver lining around the storm clouds. Find the positive that exists in every negative, and promote it. Count your blessings, literally. Write them down. You will be surprised how many "blessings" we take for granted, overlook, and fail to appreciate every single day. Visit the sick in the hospital, the forgotten elderly in the nursing homes, the tossed away souls in prison... you will quickly realize how very blessed you truly are. It is in realizing our blessings in every thing, that we find our happiness. Determine to be happy. Think happy thoughts. And don't forget to SMILE....
Lesson Eight. Stick together. Always have your family/friend's back. Be their shoulder to cry on, their good advice when they don't know what to do, their friend among the enemy, their voice when the trials of life leave them speechless. We are all human, we are all imperfect people living in an imperfect world. We all have flaws, good and bad traits, kindness and evil in us, and we all have the ability to love or hate. We are all born, and we will all die. I'm going to borrow a few verses from one of my favorite run songs to explain this one better. It's called "People Like Us" by Kelly Clarkson...
"Hey... everybody loses it,
Everybody wants to throw it all away sometimes.
And hey... yeah I know what you're going through
Don't let it get the best of you,
you'll make it out alive
Oh
People like us, we've gotta stick together
Keep your head up, nothing lasts forever.
Here's to the damned, to the lost and forgotten
It's hard to get high when you're living on the bottom.
We are all misfits living in a world on fire
Sing it for the people like us, the people like us.
You've just gotta turn it up loud
when the flames get higher
Sing it for the people like us, the people like us..."
Lesson Nine. Run Between The Raindrops. I recently added this song by Pat Benatar to my "run playlist". It is such a beautiful song, and the words are so true. I am going to borrow the words from this song as lesson nine:
"It's always one thing or another, seems like we never get ahead
Reaching out for the brass ring, and landing in the dirt instead.
We can't get past yesterday, we're only counting down from ten
It seems like every move we make, brings us back where we began.
You've gotta run between the raindrops
If you wanna see the sun.
Run, run, run, between the raindrops
Run between the raindrops, if you wanna see the sun.
Run, run, run, - run baby run.
Somewhere there's a sun that's shining
Somewhere we'll find a life that's good
Some way I'm gonna make it happen
Just like you always knew I could.
We're treading water on a river of tears
And I don't know what to do.
I can take a beating, but I ain't gonna let it happen to you.
You've gotta run between the raindrops
If you wanna see the sun.
run, run, run, between the raindrops
Run between the raindrops, if you wanna see the sun.
You gotta run, run, run - run baby run."
Be Happy.....
Love and blessings,
Mustang Memories
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