Tuesday, January 27

Grace in Small Things

Most of you will know I'm not a schmaltzy type...I can be very emotional and fairly often spill my guts about stuff that would be better told to a therapist, but on the whole I'm pretty practical and not given to profound and mushy statements. However just recently I have been experiencing a bit of emotional melt-down, a slight 'life crisis' (note I leave out 'mid' - I'm in denial about that). I've complained a lot, cried a bit, felt overwhelmed, frustrated, sad, depressed, irritated and generally just a whiny pain the arse.

Today I found a journal from about 4 years ago. I read some entries and smacked my head against a wall...talk about history repeating...or perhaps it just hasn't stopped. Maybe I've been having the same emotional melt-downs and crises for years. In fact I think I have.

This has to stop. By constantly coming up against the same issues and then constantly complaining about those same issues I am just reinforcing it in my own mind and in my life. It's stupid, it's pointless and I realised today I am wasting YEARS doing it.

So when I stumbled across this blog entry it occurred to me that too rarely do I stop and see the 'Grace in Small Things'. I'm not one for a gratitude journal or a daily passage from the bible - not that there's anything wrong with those things, I am very grateful for lots of stuff I just don't write about it daily and really, I'm just not going to do a bible reading every day either (I know... I'm going to hell) but I think I can find 5 small things to write about for 365 days. They don't have to be consecutive days, so it might take me 5 years. In fact the exact words of the creator of 'Grace in Small Things' are 'Do it once a week, a month, three times a day. Any old rules will do'.

I also might repeat sometimes (well how can I remember them all?). But more importantly it might just make me stop a bit more often and recognise how fortunate I am and how truly surrounded I am by Grace.


In doing this I hope I will also move on from the stuff I can't change and makes the changes I need to make in the places I can. I know it won't happen overnight and I'm sure I'll fall off the wagon from time to time...but I also have to accept that.

After all, we're all a 'work in progress' aren't we?

For more info about 'The Grace in Small Things' go here.


3 comments:

Cathy said...

sounds like a good idea! now and again i stop and thank God for my blessings...heaven knows i complain enough, it's good to be a bit humble and acknowledge all i do have.

and when i'm having a bad day with the kids i stop myself and remember that there are people out there who would give their right arms to see their kids and hear them scream and shout!

good luck with this ambitious project!

Z said...

For quite some time I had a quite negative attitude to life, which I kept carefully hidden. I could cope with living in the moment quite happily, but I was afraid of the future and didn't really want to be there for it. I found the way out was by enjoying every little thing that I could, by being kinder, including to myself, and (as it happens) by blogging cheerfully. One day, I realised that I wasn't unhappy any more and hadn't been for a few weeks. Then, and only then, I confided the whole thing to my daughter.

Looking back, it took me 3 years and 3 months to get back to *normal* after my mother died. But it wasn't sudden and I went through much of the shock and grief 6 months earlier.

Best wishes, dear Caitlin.

Anonymous said...

I agree Cathy, no matter what's going on we are better off in many ways than millions (if not billions) of other people.

I'm trying not to see it as ambitious, just as something I'll add to the blogging repertoire from time to time. I'm certainly not going to beat myself up if I don't do it (like NaBloPoMo ha ha). There is no time limit on this one.

Z, you are so right (and thank you). It's easy to slip into a situation where the inner negativity becomes the norm and no-one suspects what is really going on. So many things that I'm not happy with I can change and there is no point in dwelling on the things I can't. Onwards and upwards!