There's something powerful about a giving spirit. Not always in the tangible form, but always from the heart.
A door held open.
A smile along the sidewalk.
A well-deserved thank you.
Oftentimes, we seek fulfillment and happiness in the THINGS of life. Payday becomes the time when we celebrate with food, capitalize on the clearance section, or stock up on goodies. But when the wallet is emptied and there's not more bills to go around, what gives happiness?
Consider today the ways in which you can make your day awesome for someone else. If everyone took on that attitude, imagine the world we'd have. Giving not because we have to or out of obligation, but out of happiness.
Sometimes it can be a challenge to embrace things we don't like. Our challenges. Our monsters. At first we're so apt to fight them... to combat, deny, and resist. When that happens, though, we break down and become tired. We become overwhelmed and confused about how to move forward.
When it's the hardest to move forward, perhaps we need to pause and pull back. Pull back and evaluate our situation. Maybe if we pulled back, we'd realize that our monsters don't define us... that they're just a PART of us, not the WHOLE of us.
Sometimes when working with clients who are challenged with depression and anxiety, they become bogged down by the diagnosis. The label. The perceived shortcoming. Many times, they can chart a path of identifying when the depression and/or anxiety began, and ways that they resisted acknowledging the problem. Instead of embracing -- not liking it or being excited about it, but embracing -- the feelings and thoughts, they pushed it away. Which of course, meant that it started pushing back with a vengeance.
Accepting and embracing our challenges doesn't mean that we're glad that it's a part of our lives. Rather, I think that acceptance means that you're not defined by it. That we acknowledge it's there and are aware of the impact it plays in our lives. That we're mindful of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors about it. And finally... that we're capable of making goals to work through it.
Sometimes we simply need to put a leash on it, and take it for a walk.
