At the beginning of this year I was in a class and they said that one way to relieve stress and improve your happiness was to take the time to recognize beauty. For the next week, we were to try and recognize all the beautiful things that crossed our path, no matter how small and take a moment to appreciate it. While I often notice the beautiful things around me, I had gotten so focused on life and the 'next item on the to-do-list' that I had stopped taking the time to take those things in and appreciate them. Yes, I am talking about stopping and smelling the flowers. I love taking pictures of nature and I had stopped doing photography, because you must slow down in order to do so. Yet this one class assignment helped me put on the brakes and really changed my outlook to it all.
Months after that class was over, I still found myself noticing the small things. In fact, when I was having a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (like the title of a beloved childhood story), I would seek out those beautiful things around me...even if it meant I was searching for some time. I knew they were there and I just needed to take the time to find them. What I found was that I began doing this with all aspects of my life. If I was having a bad day, I began looking for my silver lining...no matter how small. Did you know it's virtually impossible to stay in a bad mood if you are looking for the beauty/silver lining in each moment, because if you're looking, you will find it and finding beauty and the good in your day makes it all seem a little brighter. Like the silver lining of a cloud that seems to mirror whatever small amount of sun it finds. It illuminates it and magnifies it.
I realized that assignment had changed me for the better after I went to the beach recently. I had a most wonder and magical day and videos and photos were stored on my phone. My battery was dead at the end of the day and my son ended up loosing his shoes, which led to a dead car battery and sadly resulted in a lost phone with magical moments captured on it. At first I was devastated. That would normally be enough to sour my mood and my outlook on the day. But I realized that though there were those crazy things that happened at the tail end of the day, the day was still in fact magical and loosing my phone did not take away from that. So I reminded myself of all that had transpired and was grateful for the day and the few pictures I had uploaded (and grandma's camera that captured a few more).
The silver lining comes when you realize that though it's a bump or hiccup in the road, the road is still beautiful. Like today, I'm terribly anemic (on the verge of needing a blood transfusion per my doc) and I woke up to my two year old throwing up all over me and the rug (silver lining: it wasn't all over my new mattress) and my 5 year old who had Scarlet Fever (silver lining: doctor gave him his choice of two stickers, he chose two and gave one to his little brother), but the silver lining is that I get to be their mother. They are so sweet and bring so much joy to my life and to every day and I get the honor of being called their mother. So on days like today, when there is defiantly a bump in the road, I stop and rejoice in those moments we were able to laugh and be silly and play and enjoy being a family. Because all those small moments really add up to one amazingly blessed life!
