Personal Narratives and What Went Right This Year?

I love the way the girls run with reckless abandon toward treats!

Great insights from my rides with Robin Arzon over the past couple of weeks.

• Time is your most valuable currency

• How do we build endurance? We endure.

• BYOS - bring your own sunshine

• Combo of grief and gratitude - with all grief or loss, there is an opportunity for gratitude and joy

• 2 Greatest Thieves in our lives - Regret and Fear - regret of the past and fear of the future - (we only have this present moment)

Our Favorite Chopped judge

If you don't follow me on FB, Brad recently posted the following:"If you are a fan of Chopped at all you will love this story. About a year ago Katie and I had the opportunity to spend some time with Maneet Chauhan. She was spectacular in every way and was so friendly and down-to-earth. She and Katie got along great (of course) and had touched base a few times over the last year. Well with all that has been going on I wanted to get Maneet's new cookbook for Katie. I sent Maneet a text to ask how to purchase a signed copy and, of course, she wanted to know how we have been and how our move went. I told her our 2020 story and she sent me this today. SURPRISE KATIE!"

Isn't that the coolest?! We have since received her cookbook and cant wait to start cooking through it!

2020 and flipping the script to gratitude

I am getting a little fatigued of people, who have so much to be grateful for, complaining about how awful 2020 has been!I think it's time we all start asking, What went right this year? If you're really struggling with thinking more positively, a great place to start is with gratitude.

Some of my personal gratitude points this year:

• access to great healthcare

• staying employed during the pandemic

• Brad - his positive attitude and generally having each other to lean on this year

• my overall health - being young and strong when I was diagnosed

• our jobs at Charlotte and our incredibly supportive work families

• our Golden Girls and the joy they bring to our lives (says the girl that does not go out to feed them in the cold mornings)

• each day that I get to spend on this earth

• reconnecting with so many friends and former colleagues this year.

• my parents' and Brad's Mom's health

• Mia getting a good job this year - seeing her happy and thriving

If you are struggling to start with gratitude - Here are a few prompts from one of my favorite journaling resources: 52 lists of Happiness:

• List the best choices you’ve made in your life thus far

• List the experiences that have made you feel you are living life to the fullest.

• List the happiest people you know (how do they express their happiness, positivity, and joy?)

I'm not trying to minimize the very real loss of life, work-related, and mental health struggles that folks are dealing with this year. But, if you have food to eat, people who love you, a warm bed - you are doing better than most. So, if your complaints are that you are missing happy hour or shopping at the mall - you might need to do some work on how you are viewing the year.

Personal narrative - how are you choosing to see your life

If you know Brad and I well, you know that our consulting work deals with asset-based interventions for individuals and organizations. Mostly, we work with StrengthsFinder/Clifton Strengths for individuals and Appreciative Inquiry for organizations. The first principle of Appreciative Inquiry is the Constructionist Principle - which boils down to "Your words become your world."

Meaning, the narrative that you tell yourself and those around you is quite literally the world you construct/live in and the lens through which you view the world. So, my challenge to you is, what lens are you using? For example, if you look to the week ahead and see lots of meetings and things on your calendar that could potentially cause stress and say, "wow, this is going to be a stressful week!" Then, you can bet that it will be stressful. Conversely, if you look at the same week and look for the opportunities for growth or moments of peace - you are much more likely to have a pleasant week. We all have blind spots around joy, based on past experiences and our general socialization. The truth is that our world is full of beauty, love, grace and wisdom, but we have to be open to it and have our eyes and open to seeing all of that love, grace, beauty and wisdom.

Grandma McMurray

Sadly, the week of Thanksgiving, we lost my Grandma McMurray. There was a Covid outbreak at her Alzheimer's home. Luckily, she was already under the care of Hospice and they were able to keep her comfortable and she was not left struggling to breathe or endure other horrors of the virus.

Grandma had not known us for quite awhile and I truly hope, whatever is next, that Grandma is with Grandpa now, as that's where she would choose to be. I think families of those with dementia really mourn the loss twice - once when they no longer know who we are and again at death.

First sober-by-choice holiday

Brad and I realized last week that this was likely the first Thanksgiving or Holiday that neither of us had any sort of alcoholic drink since we were in our late teens (both raised in rural small towns where drinking starts early).

We were talking this weekend about the lifestyle changes we've made this year. And, it turns out that we like each other just as much over green smoothies and herbal tea as we did over dozens of wings and pitchers of beer.

Health Update

After spending most of the weekend in bed last weekend from mild chemo side effects, I was feeling pretty good this past weekend. Then, after about 6 weeks free of seizures, I had another minor one on Sunday morning. Brad was outside and felt terrible that he wasn’t with me but he can’t be with me every minute, nor does he need to be. Just as with the last two, I remained conscious, recovered fast, and was back to myself relatively quickly. While that remains good news that the seizures are becoming less serious, but it doesn't make it less scary to be awake during them. And I know they will eventually go away but it certainly feels like a few steps back each time one happens. And I keep making messes for Brad to clean up. Like Sunday morning, when I knocked over our side table with dippy eggs and toast when I went down (from couch to floor).

I started my first round of maintenance chemo the first week of December. I will be on 5 days and off 23 days off for the next 6 months.

I'm still plugging away at physical and occupational therapy and getting stronger each each day. Peloton has come out with a bunch of festive Holiday rides and they are so joyful!

All in all - I'm grateful for such thorough care, but I'm ready for my days/weeks to be about more than appointments and tests.