I am headed out of town for the weekend for a camping get away with my sweetheart. So I thought I’d talk for a minute about taking time for “me”. It’s something we tend not to do for ourselves enough. (Women are especially guilty of this) We allow the demands of life: work, kids, laundry, house or yard work, just to name a few, take priority over taking care of “me”. I’m not talking about taking care physically, although obviously that is really important too. (a blog for another day) I’m referring to taking mental care of ourselves. One of the reasons we get so fried is because we don’t take time out for ‘me’. It took me many years to learn that if I’m not taking good mental care of myself, then I’m no good to anyone else around me. What kind of spouse, parent, or business person can I be if I’m slowly unraveling inside. I have to take time out of each day to do something for myself. This might come in different forms for everyone. It could be taking a long quiet walk or a bubble bath, treating yourself to a massage at the spa, or sit with a book alone in a park. For me sometimes as simple as 10 minutes to meditate or pray each morning, but I make sure I find that time. The difference in my day is remarkable. I also make sure that I get “away” frequently. I get away with my wife about once a month, and then we take all the kids somewhere a few times a year. This has become extremely important to my mental health and contributes significantly to the fantastic relationships I have with my family and friends. I often hear people say they can’t afford the time away from work…. But what is the ultimate price they are paying?Make a promise to yourself right now. Take care of yourself!!! If you don’t, who will? Do something nice for YOU, because you CAN!

I want to hear from you.  Tell me something you’ve done for YOU lately….

I am headed out of town for the weekend for a camping get away with my sweetheart. So I thought I’d talk for a minute about taking time for “me”. It’s something we tend not to do for ourselves enough. (Women are especially guilty of this) We allow the demands of life: work, kids, laundry, house or yard work, just to name a few, take priority over taking care of “me”. I’m not talking about taking care physically, although obviously that is really important too. (a blog for another day) I’m referring to taking mental care of ourselves. One of the reasons we get so fried is because we don’t take time out for ‘me’. It took me many years to learn that if I’m not taking good mental care of myself, then I’m no good to anyone else around me. What kind of spouse, parent, or business person can I be if I’m slowly unraveling inside. I have to take time out of each day to do something for myself. This might come in different forms for everyone. It could be taking a long quiet walk or a bubble bath, treating yourself to a massage at the spa, or sit with a book alone in a park. For me sometimes as simple as 10 minutes to meditate or pray each morning, but I make sure I find that time. The difference in my day is remarkable. I also make sure that I get “away” frequently. I get away with my wife about once a month, and then we take all the kids somewhere a few times a year. This has become extremely important to my mental health and contributes significantly to the fantastic relationships I have with my family and friends. I often hear people say they can’t afford the time away from work…. But what is the ultimate price they are paying?Make a promise to yourself right now. Take care of yourself!!! If you don’t, who will? Do something nice for YOU, because you CAN!

I want to hear from you.  Tell me something you’ve done for YOU lately….

What a strange title for a blog, huh? Well, think about your life for a second. Think of some of the times when you thought life as you knew it was over. Well, you did survive didn’t you? What did you learn from that experience? Most people I’ve talked to and had the privilege to get to know their true story, have told me that without that crisis in their life, they wouldn’t be where they are now.
I’ve heard interviews of regular people that have encountered life changing tragedies that they wouldn’t go back and change if they could turn the clock back. One guy had to cut off his own arm to escape death. He gained so much more from that event, that he is grateful to have had it to begin with! That seems unbelievable doesn’t it? Other people have had horrific heartbreaks in relationships and one would think they would say, ‘if only I’d never met him/her I would have never had to go through this pain’….but in reality, they learned valuable knowledge through the pain, or discovered remarkable things about themselves that they might not have without those experiences. One woman told me that she could have never truly appreciated her healthy marriage without first having the very unhealthy prior relationship.
The pain we have to walk through seems unbearable at times, but we have to remember that we do more growing in those times. We have to welcome the lessons that life has to offer and accept that it’s not always an easy path. But the rewards on the other side can be incredible!! Good things DO come from bad situations. If we had the crystal ball, we might not be so afraid to take on the pain. Tell me about an experience that you have come to be grateful for despite the pain at the time. I want to hear from YOU!!!!!

I’m having to veer off my planned topic for this week due to a very unexpected turn of events yesterday in our family.  As I was working around the house, I noticed our dog, Trapper trying to stand up, but collapsing over and over.  After a quick home exam, my wife and I jumped to the quick assumption that he had been bit by a rattle snake.  He had all the symptoms.  We wrapped him up in a beach towel and lugged this 100 pound hamock down the stairs and into the trunk.  The vet had to look him over in the car cause he couldn’t move.  He was paralized.

I bit of quick history.  We took Trapper in as a Foster Care Dog for our local Lab Rescue Orginization only two months ago.  Just days before we got him, he had a growth removed from his foot, and also a toe.  We had him for several days already before the vet had the byopsy results back from the growth.  We were then told he had a very aggressive form of cancer that was very likely to return with a vengence…maybe he had nine months, we were told.

So when he was reacting from the “bite”, so we thought, we had to go through all the scenerios of “what ifs” while waiting for our vet’s assessment.  So she ran some tests and quickly determined that this was not a bite, but rather the cancer had simply overtaken his nervous system and he was near the end.  It was pretty likely it had been working on all of his insides with no external symptoms until then.  Crushed.  How can this be?  He was FINE less than two hours earlier…eating, wondering the yard, flopping on the front deck, just like any other day in the last two months.

We left the boy at the vet while we went to pick up our kids from school and bring them back to say goodbye.  Our youngest daughter was too shaken up and didn’t want to be there, but our sons did.  We took a quick video (which I plan to post with or near this blog) of our happy faced Big Oaf, as we lovingly called him.  We all stayed with him to the end, and for a while after…crying, hugging, kissing, sobbing…. did I mention crying?

So why did I feel I needed to bring this here to this blog?  The fact is, we go along with our day to day lives, with our plan, and usually that works ok for most of us.  But sometimes life just hits us square in the face with something we didn’t or couldn’t plan for.  I was reminded of just how fragile our lives can be.  Our entire life can change in an instant.  Yes, this was a dog, and we only had him a really short time, but our lives are imprinted forever in ways we could never explain.  Dogs are no different than people in that respect.

I’ve lost friends, and family, in most cases suddenly.  No time to say goodbye, or let them know how much they meant to me.  Most of us can probably say this.  When people really close are just fine one minute and then in an instant ripped away, we are completely life altered.  We need to find a way to remember what’s important and live each day as if it could be your last.  Love more, laugh more, give of yourself more.

Trapper wondered a bit too far from the house last week.  I had to get in my truck and play hide and seek.  I was less than pleased with his antics at that moment… actually, I was really ticked that I had to take the time to chase after him.  If someone had told me that a week later I’d be saying goodbye, maybe I would have been more forgiving of his need to wonder.  Maybe I’d have given him a big pat on the head upon his return and told him how much I loved him and was just glad he was home.

Tell the people in your life just how much they mean to you.  Give lots of hugs.  Smile a little more.  Make a difference in your life, and someone else’s.  You just never know what is in store for tomorrow.

What is it about the suffering process that people tend to cling to?  What is it that’s so attractive about our own suffering that we allow it to stay in our lives?  I don’t get it.  But we all do it to ourselves….  until the pain gets us to the point of hitting bottom and just HAVE to make a change.  For everyone the ‘bottom’ is different.  It boggles the mind how far we can let things fester before we decide we’ve had enough.  We have the power to change our situation any time we want to, yet we often just don’t make that choice.  We always make the excuse that making the change will be more painful for us than the hell we’re putting ourselves through at that moment.  I’m here to say that’s a load of bunk!

For some folks, it has to actually come down to a life or death situation…. Say for one to quit smoking, or drinking, or using drugs… until the pain gets so real that you might DIE, you keep going.   For someone in horrible relationships, they stick with it long after knowing they shouldn’t because the fear of the unknown maybe harder to face than the pain of staying.  Folks I know have gone into depression over financial failures and just let it soak in real good instead of shaking it off and doing the necessary steps to change the downward spiral.

What I know today, from working with hundreds of people and hearing their stories, is that ONCE YOU TAKE THE FIRST STEP, life starts becoming phenomenal!  No, I’m not saying your entire life changes over night….but your perspective can, and that’s when the magic starts to happen.  It’s as simple as a decision.  No bull shit.  Once you DECIDE it’s time to change, it can, and it will.  It’s the teetering on the fence that kills us.  “Do I (quit, leave, stand up, move on, fill in the blank with whatever the symptom is) or do I keep doing what I’ve been doing, and keep getting the same life I’ve always had?”  Or worse, “I’ll do it tomorrow… or next week…. I’ll get around to it….”

Do you teeter on the curb trying to figure out if it’s time to cross the street?  Once you make the decision to cross, you just cross…look both ways and follow some rules, but you just cross.  You don’t get half way there and change your mind.  You GO.  Nothing is going to stop you once you’ve decided to go.

What keeps you stuck in your suffering?  Let me hear your comments…..