When I was a kid, I was friends with all the kids. Friends with the jocks, the artists, the pot heads, the brainiacs, the religious, the non-believers, all of them. I still have that same belief that each person, each type of person has something special to offer. And I was interested in knowing them.
Although I am personally a Christian and Conservative, I never force my beliefs on others. I do my best to live by the “golden rule” treat others as you wish to be treated. It’s not my place to change anyone else but rather to continue to work on and improve myself. If I live a live that is worthy of friends and followers, so be and if not, that is fine too,
What I find increasingly difficult to understand is our current culture or “group think” and the desire to hate and even hurt those that think differently. I find our current political discourse to be soul crushing. I see people that I love and adore spew political hatred at their so called “opposition” and it saddens me. Not because of the target of their wrath and hatred because of how small it makes them look. Often, I shake my head. How could someone so smart and so accomplished spew hatred toward another group of people just because they think/believe in a different way?
We used to believe that shared ideas from opposing viewpoints meted out the best outcomes, today we aren’t even able to have those conversations. I worry for anyone who lives with any hatred in their hearts. I believe it is like a cancer that will harm them from the inside out. Peace and love and acceptance are so much healthier.
My parents taught me that “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” what if someone said something you didn’t like, you just walked away, turned them off, didn’t listen?
Today it’s apparent that there are people who believe that if you don’t think and believe as they do, you deserve to be murdered. How can this even be possible? How on earth did we get here? And more importantly, where do we go from here?
Written on the day after Charlie Kirk was murdered …
For some time now I have been contemplating the phrase “less is more” and “down-sizing” and neither felt right. They seem negative to me like its “less” and less than what I am thinking about and trying to convey. We aren’t living with “less” we are living with enough! Doesn’t that sound better “enough is more” enough is enough!
Not that long ago we owned two homes and three vehicles for just two people. It was enough and it was more than what most people accumulate. Then one day as we approached retirement, we questioned what do we need? What do we want? We decided to “edit” and make decisions on what was best suited in our new lifestyle. It seemed like the common phrases of “down-sizing” and “less is more” were the common definitions for most people. Yet it didn’t sit well with me because I felt so happy and so content. It is living with enough … we really don’t need so much to live well and to be happy. Honestly it feels more liberating, deliberate and natural. It easy and less stressful.
How do you define “enough” … think about the amount of energy and responsibility it takes to manage more than enough and how much more enjoyable we can be when we come to view our lifestyle choices as “enough”
Peace and blessings on this rainy Sunday afternoon!
The slower life gets, the more it feels like living. I heard the birds chirping this morning. I smell the fresh ground coffee beans dripping fresh brewed coffee. The curtains are gently swaying with cool crisp breezes trickling through the open windows. The sky so lovely bright blue with soft white cottony clouds.
The slower life gets, the more it feels like living. Quiet is the fun new excitement. Stillness is the new action word. Peace is the mantra for these days. Loving is the overall theme and daily goal.
I’ve slowed down and I have never felt more alive. The slower life gets, the more it feels like living!
My husband tells me that I am “aging backwards” I’ll take it! And he would know as we have been together for 34 years now, together since we were just 32 years old. Although this is not the first time I’ve heard this, it is the first time I actually believe it.
I believe that I had aged pre-maturely in my early twenties as I was widowed at age 23 and left alone with a two-year-old toddler to raise. It felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders as I tried to navigate single motherhood and earning enough to support us. This was definitely not what I had signed up for at such a young age.
“I was so much older then, I am younger than that now” by Bob Dylan
Then came years of a different level of stresses in a new marriage and taking on the mother role for newborn infant twins, as I tried to work my way up my chosen career paths.
Yet today as a retired senior I feel and look better than ever before! There are no “secrets” to living a good healthy lifestyle as so much of it is just common sense.
If I had to make a list of what I believe has contributed to my happiness and wellness, this list would be much of it.
1) Live in love and let go of all that no longer serves you well
2) Eat the good food/eat fresh
3) Exercise and get those 10,000 steps a day
4) Take your vitamins, I am big on taking magnesium and a low dose of aspirin daily, it works for me!
5) Get outside in the fresh air
6) Keep gratitude top of mind as there is always something to be grateful for
7) Live under your financial means so that you are not financially struggling
8) Laugh often it feels so good and is so good for you
9) Get a dog or two!
10) And for me probably the most important of all is marry well, choose wisely and make sure you live in peace and love with your forever friend/partner/lover/spouse
Bonus buy the cute outfit, get your hair and nails done and take the trip … Life is for the living, live it!
This is my list … make one that works for you too. I feel great and I believe you can too!
On June 14, 2018 we had no choice but to put our most precious Bichon Frise Happy down. She was in kidney failure and suffering. It was the day before she was scheduled for surgery. It would have been her third surgery for removing bladder stones. The bladder stones never really went away.
Happy was a heart stealer, anyone and everyone took to her. She was regal and intense and sweet. She had a mind of her own, she let you know what she needed and wanted. When you pay attention you really can connect and communicate with an animal.
From the day that we brought her home she was a family member, she was our child, she was our baby. We loved her, we took care of her and we protected her. Happy was smart, she was tuned in and she was sensitive. On a rare occasion if we corrected her, she immediately responded with affirmation of a lick or cuddling up. She always seemed to understand us and we felt that we understood her too.
Happy traveled with us, slept with us, ate dinner with us and was that family member that was always so easy to be with. We joke that we preferred her company over some people that we knew. She was pure delight.
Love is ongoing and a learning experience, we learn to love and we learn to give love and to receive love. Happy was one of our best teachers, as she was easy to love and she freely loved us all in return. The exchange of unconditional love is what we will miss the most. She never failed to greet us with kisses and expressions of happiness to see us.
Happy was a pure bred Bichon Frise and named after our first Bichon Happy, her full given name was Happy Again and that was exactly how she made us feel, we delighted in her, she brought us so much joy and so much genuine love. Real love where you give and you give and it is all given without any expectations.
Our hearts are broken, we are beyond tears, but we know that heaven has a new angel and we know that because of Happy we are better people, who learned to love better and to love deeper and to love without any conditions.
But we are also at peace, we are at peace because we know that we all shared in a good and meaningful and loving exchanges of life and living life. What more could we really have asked for?
We let her physical being go in love because we knew there really was no other choice, but Happy Again will live forever in our hearts, in our memories and in our prayers.
We love you Happy and we already feel the void of the gift of you, the gift of your presence in our lives … RIP sweet baby girl!
Bernadette A. Sahm 