April 2006

One of the best articles I’ve ever read on coping with stress lies on the other end of the link below.

I love the paragraph devoted to music. It’s one of the first things I turn to when life turns on me. Sometimes it’s classical music I run to, but more times than not it’s country or soft rock. Keith Urban’s Days Go By is a real spirit lifter - it always makes me want to take on the world. And win.

Here’s the link: Staying Centered with Joan Borysenko

Make each moment count double,
~Joi

“If Easter means anything to modern man it means that eternal truth is eternal. You may nail it to the tree, wrap it up in grave clothes, and seal it in a tomb; but “truth crushed to earth shall rise again.” Truth does not perish; it cannot be destroyed. It may be distorted; it has been silenced temporarily; it has been compelled to carry its cross to Calvary’s brow or to drink the cup of poisoned hemlock in a Grecian jail, but with an inevitable certainty after every Black Friday dawns truth’s Easter morn.” - Donald Harvey Tippet

“There is a stage in a child’s life at which it cannot separate the religious from the merely festal character of Christmas or Easter. I have been told of a very small and very devout boy who was heard murmuring to himself on Easter morning a poem of his own composition which began ‘Chocolate eggs and Jesus risen.’ This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety. But of course the time will soon come when such a child can no longer effortlessly and spontaneously enjoy that unity. He will become able to distinguish the spiritual from the ritual and festal aspect of Easter; chocolate eggs will no longer seem sacramental. And once he has distinguished he must put one or the other first. If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will soon be no more than any other sweetmeat. They will have taken on an independent, and therefore a soon withering, life.” - C. S. Lewis

“On Easter Day the veil between time and eternity thins to gossamer.’ - Douglas Horton

I hope your Easter Day is beautiful and that you’re surrounded by people you love!
Make each moment count double,
~Joi

During the recent loss of my mother, I’ve gotten an education in grief management. Talk about a school of hard knocks! Grief is something that everyone has in common. We all have either grieved for a loss, are grieving for a loss, or will grieve for a loss. It’s a cruel, unspeakably horrible tie that binds us all together. It’s also a time when you have to pay close attention to how you handle the situation - you have to handle it or it’ll handle you. I’ve also found that people react to another person’s grief in very unusual ways.

I’ve found that some people tend to expect you to be 100 percent back to normal (whatever that is) much sooner than you really will be. The average person seems to think that if the funeral is over and everyone’s gone home and settled back into their life, it means all’s done. Fat wrong.

It’s when life carries on that a lot of the pain really hits you. Because life IS going on, and it’s doing so without someone you loved. If you or someone you know has recently suffered a loss, keep in mind that when they say Time Heals, the time isn’t being measured on a clock. It’s a calendar and weeks don’t erase a lifetime - nor should they.

Here are a few of the lessons I’ve brought away from this Course of Life:

1. Take time to remember, pray, and cry. Take time to talk about your loved one. Sometimes people will try to change the subject - because they think that’s what’s best for you. But if you want to talk, talk.

2. Get extra rest. The body has been through an ordeal. Take unhurried baths, walks, naps, and showers. Sleep more than normal. Emotional traumal takes at least as much out of you as physical trauma.

3. Make goals for each day, but start off small. I went overboard a few days ago, writing WAY too many things down that I wanted to get done. When I wasn’t able to get to all of them, I felt overwhelmed and discouraged. Worst of all, I felt like a total failure….and needless to say, that was the last thing I needed.

4. Don’t dwell on the what ifs, for the love of all that’s Holy! It does nothing but pile on more turmoil and mental stress. I fell into this trap as well - “What if I had MADE her go to the doctor sooner,” “What if I had done this…. or that…” Take it from me, no good comes from any of it. You can’t go back and change life, and even if you could - who’s to say you wouldn’t just make things worse?

5. Be prepared for moments when tears will just come from nowhere. I’ll be driving along, singing with my Gwen Stefani CD (She has the better voice, but I think I’ve got her on volume), then I’ll see a certain flower mom liked or a house I know she’d have loved - then, bam, there come the waterworks. Sometimes they’re gone again by the time our song is over, sometimes they accompany me all the way home from the store. You just never know. Chalk it up to a “very bad moment” or a “very bad day” and keep going.

6. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel weak or wrong. They’re your emotions, it’s your loss - you know how you feel. I’m so lucky to be surrounded by a sweet family who understands. Usually, they’ll just cry along with me, other times they make me laugh and we just keep going on.

7. Do or enjoy something fun and distracting. Watch a movie, go for ice cream, watch American Idol and yell at the judges (What in the world are they smoking anyway?), read Emily Dickinson, buy a new top, buy new perfume, take a long walk in the park, plant flowers, watch a baseball game, bake cookies, eat cookies, wash the car….. I’ve done them all - sometimes all in the same day!

8. Never, ever, ever be afraid to talk to someone who’s grieving. You won’t upset them - they’re already there. Your concern will actually make things easier for them. Think of how you’d feel in their place.

Kindness is like a soothing balm on a very fresh and very bad wound. A sweet word, a big hug, a card, a cup of Chai Tea (Thanks, Michael!), flowers, a smile, etc - they all say, “I care” and sometimes that’s all that’s needed.

Make each moment count double,
~Joi

Before I get to the post, I just have to grumble for a minute. When you call a business, a hospital, or Heaven help you, a government office - why is it that the person who answers the phone never knows anything? At all? Shouldn’t businesses or organizations post their most informed person at that position - as opposed to, say, the one person who just barely seems to know where they actually work?

The phone is their direct line with the public - and if the public is calling them, they probably have a question or two. Why not have an informed individual for the public to speak to? Instead, it’s been my experience that it’s usually someone who knows their name, but is totally clueless of anything past that.

Yeah, I had one of those mornings. But it’s all good. Three people into the call I got what I needed.

Grumbling over - today’s far too gorgeous to be annoyed!

I came across a really cute article in my reading recently. “Secrets To Living Beyond 90″ and was a compilation of tips and advice for living a long, healthy life. They went to the absolute experts for the information - people who were aged 90 and over! Here’s what these adorable long-lifers had to say:

~ Work hard, but not too hard.

~ Play bingo.

Bingo? How cute’s that?

Make each moment outside count double!
~Joi

We all know that stress isn’t just an inconvenience, it can be downright unhealthy and cause a multiplicity of miserable side effects and miseries. We also know that it’s in our own best interest to deal with the stresses of life as quickly and as thouroughly as we can. Problem is, we don’t always know how. I mean saying it and doing it are two completely different things, are they not?

One of the tricks is finding what works for you, personally. What works for 1 or even 1,000 others may not work for you - you have to experiment with different techniques and methods until you find the one with the ahhhhhh factor. The one that takes your mind from swinging in the jungle just trying to hold on to lying on the beach just trying to stay awake!

Chrispian has written a great post on the subject. It’s appropriately titled Reduce Stress and can be found HERE. Enjoy!

Make each moment count double,
~Joi

P.S. I’m a loving, affectionate person and I love just about everyone. But if you’re one of those who, in fact, regularly lies on the beach - I love you a little bit less than everyone else.

One of the coolest things I heard about my mother recently came from a woman who went to school with her.

Something my mom was most proud of was the fact that she had been a cheerleader in high school. It was an accomplishment that she’d often work into conversations - “Want to come over for supper Thursday night? I’ll make Spaghetti. You know, that was one of my favorite meals when I was a cheerleader…..” She was a real character, no doubt about it.

Well, I had never realized it, but when my mom was in school things were pretty much the same as they are now. Her former classmate was telling me how it was usually the same group of well-to-do kids who got to do the coolest things in school. The sons and daughters of doctors, lawyers, etc. Those who had parents who commanded attention commanded attention in school. Apparently there was a clique of them and they were the ones who were “into” all of the school activities. They ran the show. Everyone else? They watched from the sidelines.

My mom was one of 5 children and they were very poor. Forget having a wardrobe of clothes to choose from for school - my mom, her brothers, and her sister were doing well when they had three outfits to change up. There was a lot of laughter, a lot of hard work, and a lot of love, there just wasn’t a lot of anything else.

Mom always loved sports and lived to have fun, so being a cheerleader must have seemed like an obvious option for her. Seems no one told her that one of the poorest girls in school wouldn’t stand a chance. Wearing her best smile and dosed up with all the confidence she could muster, she tried out. She made the squad, and what a moment that must have been for her! As the lady told me, in doing so, mom “Broke the mold.” She said, “All the rest of us were so proud of her and so happy that we got it into our heads that we could do anything too!”

Good for mom!

Make each moment count double and remember: Molds were made for breaking!
~Joi

As you know, I recently lost my mother. It wasn’t at all expected, and at 64 she was much, much too young to leave us. She’s in a far better place now - with my dad and her mom - so I can take comfort in that.

I’ve always tried to reach down deep into each experience and pull out a lesson or two. I’ve always told my girls that a day spent without lauging and learning is a day wasted. Granted, lately the laughs have been at a minimum, but the learning has been amped!

Below are just a few of the lessons that I’ve had time to get my mind around.

• We aren’t guaranteed anything other than today - and we aren’t even guaranteed the totality of it. We hear that said all the time, don’t we? Yet it’s so utterly true that it makes my head throb. If we remind ourselves of this often enough, the little petty annoyances in life won’t amount to much. Life is completely precious and completely fragile. Ours as well as those around us. We just never know when the words we speak will be our last. When we talk with a loved one, we never know when it might be the last time.

  With my dad, the loss was expected (no easier, but expected). We’d seen it coming for months, and were able to make sure we told him often how much we loved him. Flowers were able to be sent, long visits were afforded, etc. With my mom, that Saturday afternoon we were on the phone talking about how she wanted to move into a bigger house this spring, about my daughters (her beloved granddaughters), laughing about her adorable little dog’s antics, and trying to figure out this year’s UK Basketball team - Then, that evening she died in her sleep. I keep thinking how I wish I’d said this in the conversation, how I wish I’d said that….but she’d have thought I’d lost my mind if I’d stopped her mid-sentence in breaking down the Wildcat’s offense and said “Love you, mom!” Of course, I’ll wish for the rest of my life that I had.

  The point is, we should strive to make all of our conversations good ones. There’s an old saying that we should always part with loving words because they may be your last. Thank God the only anger we had in our final conversations was directed to an underachieving basketball team!

• This week I plan to go through all of my picture albums and make certain everything’s written on. Just because I know that a certain picture is Emily in Kentucky and not Stephany in Indiana or Brittany in Iowa doesn’t mean that future generations will. I’m also going to make little personal notations on them as well. We’re a picture-taking, picture-loving group, so this will literally take weeks, but it’ll be worth it. Going through pictures this week, I’ve been so thankful to the individuals who wrote on the backs of pictures. My great-great grandmother would even write the exact date, along with the ages of the subjects. I wish she’d written where the were in each one, but she wrote more than most people did. I think my mom just expected to have plenty of time to go back and do so.
• One of the biggest impacts from the past few weeks was from one of mom’s best friends. She and Ann were as close as sisters, and often fought like sisters! But they loved one another greatly, and it showed. One of the best known things about Ann - in addition to her wonderful personality and the fact that she’s always been very, very pretty - was the fact that she was scared to death of speaking in public. Petrified. My mom would always kid her about it, and at work if they ever had a presentation to make, mom would do it. (I’m with Ann on this one - nothing is as frightening as public speaking!)

  Anyway, when we were making the arrangements for the funeral - wanting to make sure that she had the greatest one possible, we were lining up a few people to say something about mom before the preacher spoke. We wanted desperately for Ann to say a few words - if she were able. After all, confronting a fear is horrible enough, but to do so with so many emotions attached is almost impossible. Crying, she said she didn’t know if she could or not.

  But when the day of the funeral came, Ann got up in front of everyone and gave the most beautiful speech you could imagine. She touched everyone with mom’s generosity (I don’t think there’s a charity or organization that she wasn’t on the frontlines for! ), she made us cry when talking about how close they were, and she made us laugh when telling about the pranks mom would pull on her. (She once threw a firecracker into Ann’s bathroom stall.)

  The funeral was beautiful and very moving - just what my mom deserved, and Ann’s words were what everyone was talking about afterwards. She was a very large part of what made everything so beautiful - the woman who was scared spitless of public speaking. Somehow she kept her composure and not only gave a beautiful tribute to a lost friend, she showed us all what courage really looks like.

Make today count - each word, each breath, each action, each gesture, each thought. Approach each day for the rest of your life the same way. Live life to the fullest and help those around you to do the same!

Make each moment count triple,
~Joi