Inspiration from Our Collaborators
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A few weeks ago, we celebrated Halloween at our school. Halloween is a big holiday at our school - costume parade for our littles in front of myriad parents, middle and upper schoolers and faculty followed by laughter filled parties, treats and games organized by the parent community in each classroom. That is what we would do in a normal year. Of course, 2020 is anything but a normal year.
Here I am stepping fully into the Fall season. The weather outside my door has turned to that familiar chill, the leaves have begun their transition to brightness and the moon is revealing more of itself with each night. The cozy feel of warmer clothes comfort me as I start preparing my family and my home for the change of season.
When it comes to writing a book, I have noticed for myself and my clients, once the decision has been made to write a book we just want to get to the writing. And, that makes sense. It’s a huge undertaking and a decision that isn’t made on the flip of a coin — heads I write a book and tails I eat some ice cream.
Like so many of you, I have been thrust almost instantly into a new way of living, working, and communicating with my family and friends. Although I’ve always considered myself to be a very adaptable and flexible person, changing nearly everything all at once due to the pandemic has made me question that.
I woke up in the morning worried. I worried all through the day. I worried when I went to bed.
Every single day, my entire day was lived in anticipation of the 10 to 12 times my heartbeat would skip. It started just a few months before, with that first incident of an irregular heartbeat, when the doctor assigned to my case came to my hospital bedside and made his pronouncement:
You have atrial fibrillation. You have a high risk of stroke. If we can’t control it with medication, we will have to use the defibrillator to give you a shock.
I was 35 years old. This was not supposed to be happening.
Recently, I created a challenge on my social media channels — The 2-Week Haiku Challenge. This challenge is for people who are writers, creatives, entrepreneurs, and others who are in need of a boost of creativity, community, and connection to their voice. And, it’s also for people who just like writing haikus. (Surprisingly there aren’t as many of you haiku-lovers as I expected, but I think I’ve just upped the percentage by a whole bunch with this challenge!)
Right now, I am leaning a lot on GRATITUDE. There is a lot of research out there around how expressing gratitude affects your personal happiness. As humans, we are wired to avoid pain and move towards the things that make us feel good. Sometimes the things we move towards are not in our best interest. However, there are some simple practices we can use to move towards feeling good that our in our best interest, even when situations are difficult.
I think about my grandmother all of the time these days. I still have the vanity dresser that she gave to me when I was 13 years old. It’s a focal point in my adult bedroom, just as it was in my teenage bedroom. It’s part of the set that my grandfather bought for them when they were first married in 1927.
I remember when it was in their house on Clinton Heights and it lived in the “green room” — that’s what we called the room with the two twin beds and the double bed, which was of course, green. Oh, that room! That’s where we cousins were jumping one afternoon from bed-to-bed-to-bed-to-loveseat-to-hopechest-back-to-the-bed-again and where on one of those fateful leaps I fell and broke my arm… but that’s another story. The vanity dresser sat in the dormer alcove of that room and it was the perfect little space for it. There was good light from the window and you felt nestled in and protected.
