Today, I got all bundled up to sweep the snow powder off the front walkways and my enormous driveway. I figured I needed to do SOMETHING to earn my lunch!!!( gotta get rid of the spare tire I've accumulated since it didn't use it as a floatie in the swimming pool yesterday. I must have looked like I was planning a long trip to point Barrow, Alaska. I should have poked my head out into the 16 degree weather first to survey the job. LOL, when I got out there with broom in hand ready for some vigorous sweeping, I saw, belatedly, that the powdery snow hadn't drifted over the work I had done yesterday, and that the tiny bit of snow melt that I had left had done the trick! I was all dressed up with no where to go!
Goldie was glad, because we spent about an hour playing fetch instead, but she was the one getting all the exercise, :-(. I still may go shopping today, but I'm not going to a mall for the walking, just to the grocery store for a few necessary items.) My soup would have tasted better had I done the exercise first, ( It always does), but the sourdough with cranberries and pumpkin seed bread, the slice of cantaloupe and the French Vanilla International coffee were still delicious, and I savored the fact that I'd frozen the soup while there were still vegetable from my garden being harvested for it. MMMM it is good to take the time to sit down for a warm midday meal. Another retirement perk.
There was a little sunshine this morning when I swept snow off the deck, but now the horizon is paines grey and the sky looks like frosted ice. Yesterday, there was a fine powdery snow raining down most of the day and even with drifts it wasn't much more than an inch of accumulation, but that time I didn't want to go swimming at the gym, because the snow had totally coated the roads, and I was glad that I didn't HAVE to drive on them. Another retirement perk!
Instead of braving the weather I curled up and watched a public TV station fun raising program, (they are always the best). This guy ( I'm terrible with names), has a lecture he gives called "Magnificent Mind at Any Age"He had books and CDs and stuff you could get if you called in and donated $360 to the station, but I'm just trying to scrape up the money for Christmas gifts right now, and thats mentally stimulating enough! I was impressed with his "12 Prescriptions for a Healthy Mind" Like: "Live Life Like it Ready Matters", "Use Brain Healthy Ways to Treat Pain", "Eat Brain Healthy Foods" (and don't smoke drink or takes drugs), and of course, exercise at least 30 minutes 3 times a week.( Experts say more than that now, however). But I really focused on the fact that he was saying," to recognise what you love about life, more than what you hate about it" Positive emotions have positive affects on the brain. And he said that when you stimulte your brain to develope new brain cells, such as learning to play piano or something, that it stimulated all the connecting brain cells and helps to keep them working well. Thats a good reason to learn to play the piano , even though I've been a musical dunce all my life, LOL.
But heres the real deal: I had an incredible insight, a real break through in understanding and accepting some things about my grandparents, myself and my mother. There was this anecdote the man told about RESILENCE , how he had been called to allay a boy's anxiety, pre-op. The boy had been born with a facial deformity and had undergone numerous surgeries since infancy and had faced them all bravely, and now that there were only a few of them left to restore his face to an acceptably normal one, it seemed he had reached his limit of endurance and might not be able to continue. With hypnotism, he was able to continue with the proceedures, and the man who treated the anxiety found the boy to have been very well "adjusted" in his life, and functioning like any other boy his age, and in some areas, he excelled. He followed the boy for a little while longer out of curiosity, because he wanted to understand the trait that had made this possible. He finally understood, that it was, in fact, RESILIENCE. The boy had been expected to have responsibilities and to accept all the challanges in life just like any other kid. There were no excuses, accepted, he wasn't pitied or coddled or treated like a poor invalid, who shouldn't be expected to do anything a "normal" boy his age could do, so he had to develope resilience, in order to accomplish what he had to do.
I suddenly was able to understand and accept the way my grandmother treated my mother who had had to endure preforming the duties of the first born daughter in a Mormon family with 6 siblings to help care for, even though she had been born with hip displaysia. The woman couldn't even walk untill she was 4 and had to learn while still wearing a hip spika cast from her chest to her toes. She walked with a limp after that cast was taken off and took up her duties and did what she was expected to, grew up married, and raised 3 of her own children, mostly without the help of spouses, none of which had become as resilient as she was. I had always had difficulty understanding why the grandfather whom I had respected could have forbidden her to marry, because it was his responsibility to support her, accoording to his doctor and his bishop. I had thought this to be a bit of hypocracy, since grandma had always told her that she was being expected to do her chores like any healthier child, would have been expected to do so, because when she grew up, the world would be unforgiving, and she would have to function like anybody else. Suddenly, I was able to see that grandfather had given her a choice! And she chose the more difficult path.
I had always kind of resented my mother's harshness with us children at times, and had seen a documentary on TV when I was older, how Kaiser Wilhelm had been born with a badly crippled leg, and forced by his tutor to do what was expected of an heir to the throne. The man was brutal and uncompromising with the boy, who found it difficult to learn to ride a horse and all that stuff that they had to learn in those days. Well The young Kaiser to be, did not have a choice, apparently, about having to be ready, and finally assumed the throne. And this had apparently made him a brutal man. I was thinking that this was cruel treatment, and I couldn't reconcile it with my perception of the grandfather and grandmother whom I had respected all my life. I suddenly had a flash of insight about it, after hearing this program on TV. I have learned an important lesson.
I had acquired this trait of resilience from my mother by osmosis as a child. It was transmitted to me by example. I always wondered, why I pushed myself to be just as athletic as any other kid and to accomplish everthing that was in my power to accomplish, even though I only learned in my mid 40's that I was born with minimal brain damage and a bicuspid aoertic valve. This was not picked up by the pediatrician Back in 1940, but when finally diagnosed, it explained to me why I'd had so many difficulties to surmount throughout life. I tired sooner than other kids because the major blood vessel coming from my heart to supply my body with oxygen was too narrow to function as well as theirs did, and I had to teach myself an alternate way of learning in order to read and spell, and finally, I excelled in school. Eventually I was able to understand and forgive myself for areas of dysfunction which I could not change no matter how much I had tried. Time management issues, right/left confusion and virtually all of the problems which others perceived as character defiencies were related to the dyslexia I'd experienced in grade school, as well as the whole spectrum of symptoms related to inperceptible minimal brain damage, and over time I had come to understand many of the emotional issues I'd had in retrospect.
And now I am able to pat myself on the back, because I have RESILIENCE and I have been able to overcome those difficulties all on my own. I think I'd have had a PhD by now, had this been detected and treated when I was a child...LOL I also feel thankful that my mother had that resilience which I had passively acquired. She wasn't hard on me, Like Kaiser's tutor, I just chose to be hard on myself. Well, I guess I have a fairly healthy mind, which is another new thing I've learned. But, staying home to watch TV instead if going to the gym yesterday, was not as healthy as getting some exercise. Too bad I didn't have any snow to shovel to make up for it.
There, see, I've taken a negative like having to shovel snow, and turned it around as a positive. The guy also said thats another thing we need to do for a healthy mind: "change the way you think about things", positive thinking actually changes the brain and heals what might be ailing it.
Like LEARNING, from experiencing a failed romance, to let it go and vow to change what went wrong or just find another who would love you and keep you. Its not healthy to leave it as a gaping, bleeding wound on the landscape of your life. Others will pick up on it, and shun a bleeding heart, that spilles over into the way you feel and act with people. Healing emotional pain is a talent that must be acquired, in order to develope resilience, so that one can experience joy again. According to Mormons and Objectivists, experiencing joy is the whole purpose of life. Not the effortless, hedonistic, temporary "enjoyment"of escape from life's ups and downs, nor mindless sensations from drugs, etc., but the kind of joy that comes from achieving happiness via our rational virtues. TTFN
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