Smoothing the Path

It’s a dark, drizzly day and I am still in a funk. It strikes me, whenever I’m in a funk, how the responses to all my funks in the past was to drink. Now, how do I handle these off days?

Gratitude:

Even if it might not be my natural go-to when I’m in a mood, gratitude always manages to find me. If floats through the air like a feather, landing ever so softly on my shoulder. A tap. A nudge. Think about all that is right with your life. Now, instead of drinking alcohol it’s gratitude I’m drinking in. Especially when times are tough all over, it is easy to, and perhaps the right thing to do, to count your blessings.

1. My faith is strong.
2. I am healthy.
3. My family is here under one roof and safe.
4. We have power and heat.
5. I have a really cute furry dog resting by my side.

This is everything to me.

Consistency

When I don’t feel great mentally, I push myself back into line to follow my daily path. There is the path I travel on my wellness journey, the overall path, and as I mentioned in my last post, this journey isn’t linear. It can feel tangled and all over the place sometimes. But my daily path is pretty straight forward. And I try to stay on track and do the tasks and routines I know I should do, even if I may not want to. This includes:

1. rising early
2. reading daily devotional, scripture and prayer
3. eating a healthy breakfast
4. helping get everyone ready for their days
5. working
6. writing
7. exercising
8. connecting with my family
9. walking the dog
10. cooking an easy, semi-healthy dinner
11. taking my vitamins and supplements
12. reading for pleasure and self-improvement
13. limiting my social media scroll time

If I am consistent with these things, I know I’m still making progress, even if I don’t feel like it.

Kindness

This includes being kind to myself, as well as others. I remind myself to be kind because I am doing the work without the easy button. I don’t get to “check-out” or “have a few” or otherwise numb my dis-ease. And that’s some hard shit sometimes. So I practice kindness.

I tell myself it’s ok to feel stuck in the mess, that we all feel like that sometimes, and most importantly, that it will pass. The tendency, when we are down, is to jump all over ourselves. We need to tell that tendency where to go.

And, when I climb out of my own jungle of thoughts, even for a few moments, and remember to do something kind for someone else, I see light. We help ourselves by helping others, and it’s a natural high. So I send the letter, lend an ear or share an encouraging word. It’s almost self-serving, this discipline of kindness.

So these are qualities I summon when I’m struggling. I’m sharing them with you in hopes I can smooth the road of a fellow traveler. Because I know it’s not always blue skies and yellow-brick roads, but often gray drizzle and potholes.

This is the journey. But we can also pave our own way and smooth out the path for those who come behind us. I try to do this by practicing gratitude, consistency and kindness.

May your road be easy and your path be light.