When my step sinks into the saturated grasses, I almost turn away. A few more steps will take me to marshy waters that pool above plants in these wetlands and I’m reminded again. Avoiding the mucky leads to dryness. But thriving comes when saturated with the water. Because what is there is no matter how much avoidance energy is expelled. The trials where we are planted come. The way of survival is to habitat in the tonic waters. When my son’s grade two ...
How to Thrive When in The Muck
A List Forgetting Story with a Donut
“You should have warned me so I could have been prepared,” my eldest sister, D, complains. “Well, I thought it up just a couple of hours ago when in the shower,” I explained. I could see her eyes roll through my iPhone screen. “I want to go get a donut now,” she says. Beside me, my middle sister, G, and her husband, J, take a bite of their chocolate covered, cream filled donut. “Mmm…good,” G teases. I laugh. I’d stayed in the shower too long that ...
Thriving in a Comparative and Competitive World
“I wasn’t a good figure skater. There was a girl 2 grades below me better than me.” “You are an excellent skater and were good at figure skating,” I replied to my grand daughter. “No I wasn’t,” she argued back I grappled for words. “You skated two to three times per week, so you could do other things, while those other gals skated more. But you were not a bad skater because they had more practice.” She’d just finished telling me a story of a ...
Intentional Acceptance
There were more unchecked items than checked. And defeat began to creep into my mind. Why can't you be more disciplined with your time? Why don't you have more energy in the evenings? What is wrong with you? You got to do better. I scanned over my month again. I may not have taken my vitamins everyday, or exercised three a week – but, I did take vitamins and exercised. Small victories. Often we measure our achievements as worthy if they are big and gruelling like running a ...
He is Real
When you drive west into Jasper National Park from my home town of Edmonton, Alberta, your landscape changes from the prairies to the rocky mountains. If it is a clear day, you begin to see in the horizon the tops of snow capped mountains. Soon you pass through the Jasper National Park gate where a stretch of highway is nestled between a river and various lakes as clear as sparkling water. Leaving the city behind, I breathe. All my worries, and planning, and goals, and life’s details ...
Striding with Faith
Leap and glide. They are the words I repeat to myself when cross-country skiing. I’m a beginner, so repeating “leap and glide” reminds me to stride on my skis. For if I just push my ski forward without the leap and glide, I don’t go far with more effort. Some cross-country skiers call this move “drop and pop.” Basically, you gain momentum in your stride to glide. But I am tentative because the glide scares me. Will I slip? Will I go too fast? Will I fall forward on my ...
