Volume 2, Issue 2

CELEBRATE WHAT’S RIGHT IN YOUR LIFE

If you knew then what you know now, do you think your life would be different? I recently had a two hour heart to heart with a friend about this very subject, and she confessed that if she had to live her life over, she would be a different kind of parent to her children. She would “Celebrate what’s right in her life.” The topic for this article had just presented itself so I asked her to explain. This is my interpretation of what she said.

“When my children were born, they came into the world filled with optimism, imagination, hope, trust and enough fearlessness to allow them to experience all that is right with the world. They were willing to try, do or be anything that their young minds could conceive.

Now that they are grown I realize when I listen to them talking about their challenges, frustrations, and difficulties that their focus, like so many people I know is directed at what is wrong with just about everything. I had unknowingly imprinted my fears, lack and wanting on to them.” Her observations struck a chord, and I asked how she would you have changed the way she raised them.

Knowing that they were watching every move I made and subconsciously accepting every negative idea I projected I would:

consciously modeled a believe it and you’ll see it attitude - understanding that my belief is the difference between action or inaction.
appreciated and recognized the abundance in my life. I wouldn’t have spent so much time comparing my life to others and complaining about what I didn’t have.
looked for the possibilities in everything. No matter how desperate things were at times, if I could have seen a glimmer of possibility and hope, I would have had the courage to keep going.
unleashed my energy to fix what was wrong – because embracing all the good in my life, would have given me the energy to work on the not so good.
gone with the flow – accepting that change is possibility and that times of change held the most potential for my growth
taken myself to the edge – allowing and trusting myself to stretch beyond my comfort zone and take small risks.
It was a sobering conversation, to be sure and we acknowledged that although we can’t undo what is done, we can positively affect what is to come by committing to Celebrating what’s right with our lives right now, and that’s just what we did.

I hope you can too.