Appreciating Moments

I read a poem yesterday, "The Last Time", and as much as it was beautiful it was also very sad for me.  You can see it here The Last Time Poem  I don't have any small kiddos at home, so I can't imagine how much sadder it would be for a parent with young kiddos!  I do however, have 2 beautiful grand babies.  

Leanna and Nana

Daniel and Nana

The truth of this poem was also compounded by the fact that these babies will soon be moving away to go with their momma and daddy to a brand new adventure!   So I felt sad for some moments..then I shook it off and went about my day.  Our day consisted of having these babies over for the day and spend the night so throughout the whole time, my mind would occasionally alight on the poem.  My mind instinctually wanted to mourn the loss of the precious moments of their childhood that I will ultimately lose one of these days...because isn't that how our mind is naturally programmed?  To use any opportunity to feel sorry for itself, to be warmed by it's sadness, to be comforted in being a victim.  So I would remember that I still have all these moments and if I were to decrease the joy of these moments, even by .01%, that I would not have 100% of the joy that these moments are offering me right now.  There is no reason to cheat ourselves out of the joy of beautiful moments.  It's like eating the most delicious chocolate cake and all the while crying because of the calories we are consuming.  We are consuming the calories, so might as well enjoy the cake!

The other reason that we should not give in to these unjoyful thoughts is that it leaves no room for being grateful for what we do have.  We are so busy thinking about how unfair it is that this won't last forever, that we forget to appreciate that we even have these moments at all!  Not everyone experiences the things we do, and we wouldn't trade places with that person, therefore we should be thankful and appreciate what we get to have.  Being thankful infuses so much more meaning into these moments because it allows us to be aware of them, savor them and tuck them into our memory bank with just a little more beautiful framing and into special places.  Ahhhh, and so then "we can have roses in winter", we can recall these moments with joy and with gratefulness...it is proven that our brain can't tell the difference between it really happening and us just thinking about it.  For example, think of a phobia you have...mine is heights, if you picture yourself in that situation, your body will respond as if it is in it.  My palms will get sweaty, my fingers will tingle, I'll get a tightening in my chest...your brain doesn't know the difference!  So to use that to ur advantage we can recall any beautiful moment and bring back all the wonderful feelings that we felt at that time...and voila! You get roses in December.  Life can be gracious that way!

Another thing we must do during these moments is to appreciate them exactly the way they are.  We can have beautiful moments but still mourning some aspect that we wish was there..."oh I wish my Mom was here to see this", "Oh I wish I had more money to enjoy this more", "Everything is perfect except for 'fill in the blank'".  When we can be in a moment and take it just the way it is and know it as perfect and exactly how it is meant to be, we can fully enjoy it and accept all the beauty and joy it has to offer.

I know this it is difficult to train our mind to think this way.  It doesn't come naturally and we have to consciously change our mind to see things differently.  However, the more we do it, the easier it becomes.  Then the easier it becomes the more we get to spend time enjoying rather that tweaking our  minds to think better.  We really eventually can gather a momentum in this type of thinking and you almost automatically are in this state most of the time.  I definitely am still working at it, but it has become tons easier.  The secret to not giving up and thinking it isn't working is to know it's a process, it's slow and to look for any teeny tiny evidences of progress.  These tiny evidences are life savers if you can spot them, because if they are there...rest assured they will only grow bigger and more frequent the more you practice being joyful and grateful of moments exactly as they are.  I wish everyone a wonderful Sunday and may you have the most beautiful day ever.  I truly believe that the best things are yet to come (C.S Lewis).  

Peace and Love,

Lili