acceptance

Gidget’s Winter Perch and The Blessing of Acceptance

Posted by Barbara Techel

gidget's winter viewDuring much of the winter months, Gidget (as all other wiener dogs before her) get the luxury of a new perch to sit upon and enjoy a new view.

It is bitterly cold today, windchills of -20 and expected to be this way all week, getting even colder on Wednesday.

Even though my writing cottage is quite cozy and kept warm with my petite Heat ‘N Glow fireplace, there can still be a chill that comes through with the winds, especially felt on the floor.

“The Queen,” also known as Miss Gidget, can not be subjected to that chill that runs across the floor, so her bed is moved to higher headquarters upon my large wicker chair in the corner (Hail the Queen!). Here she is able to bask in the sun streaming through the windows. I love being able to glance over at her as I sit at my writing desk working, knowing she is happy and warm.

It feels incredibly good to have the holidays a memory as I move into the New Year and a new view of acceptance that has finally graced my heart. A fresh new start this week and I’m enjoying the solitude and stillness of this quiet season of winter.

I feel like I am finally on my way to feeling more like myself again. I’m welcoming it with open and grateful arms.

It was a tough fall. One in which I moved through the grief of a friendship lost. While this friend didn’t pass away, it has felt like  a death to me, because of what sadly transpired between us, with both of us going our separate ways.

While I don’t know if we will ever come back together again, I am finally able to take what it was, and find many blessings from it.

I’ve not written about this before in my journal, but hinted at a challenge I’d been working through in my newsletter a few times. I also won’t go into the details, because as always, there are two sides to a story (and as most likely always occurs, a misunderstanding that went astray).

But the point of me sharing this today is that with any struggle or heartache, there are lessons to be learned and blessings to be found in the challenge.

For awhile, I had a hard time finding the blessings, and when I did, I was struggling with the why of it – wondering why it had to be so painful in order for new blessings to reveal themselves.

I questioned, if I had to do it over again, would I have done so because of the positive that did come from it, knowing I’d have to endure the pain? The answer to that is that I can’t answer that. What happened, happened for a reason – time for me to accept and move on.

And this morning as I briskly ran out to my writing cottage, Gidg snuggled in my arms in a blanket, and as I sat down at my desk, I felt a shift inside.

We’ve only got one shot at this thing called life. I want mine to be the best it can be. I understand more clearly now that difficult and sad things happen to open us even more to appreciating our time on this earth. Without those hard times, we wouldn’t really know joy – true, pure joy.

We also wouldn’t know what we truly want for our life if we weren’t challenged by it at times.

I love my simple life. I love much of my time that is spent in my writing cottage pecking away at my keyboard, sharing my thoughts via my journal and newsletter. Time spent on dreams of new projects. Time spent in contemplation and reflection. Time spent on snuggling with my dogs. Time spent with my Johnnie talking about our tiny house someday we want to build in a warmer climate.

Time– that’s the thing, I don’t want to waste it worrying about something that was and may never be again. I give thanks right here and now in this moment for times that were hard to bear, but I made it through. I stand stronger today. I stand in this moment glad to be alive and have the life I love.

As always, feel free to leave a comment…I welcome them!

The Power of the Pause.

Posted by Barbara Techel

wheelchair joie night

This past week I talked with a friend who is having a tough time, worried about her future as she is in transition. She is struggling with the fear of “what if.”

I think I can safely say that we’ve all found ourselves in this place at one time or another.

The struggle comes in when we buy into having to have everything figured out right now — and that there is no time to pause for fear of what could happen — which oftentimes never happens.

We are a society of doer’s, rushing from one thing to the next, and never sitting long enough to reflect, perhaps mourn what was, and never really listening to our heart whispers of what it is we may want next.

We want to get rid of the uneasy, scary, and uncomfortable feelings as fast as we can and return to a state of happiness. I raise my hand and say, “I’m very guilty of this.”

Joie, my Dachshund in a wheelchair, gone over a year now, taught me the power of the pause. I fought it at first, not wanting to deal with my feelings and so afraid of the unknown.

I recall one day having coffee with an older friend during this time. I shared with her how I felt so lost, wanting to know NOW the next leg of my journey.  She quietly said, “Sometimes it can take years to move through a transition. Try to embrace that.”

I was dumbfounded when she said this. I couldn’t imagine having to wait years. But it was what she had experienced and could say with all honesty, that in the end, it all worked out.

She still had a roof over her head, she had food to eat, she had good friends, she had family to lean on, and she moved through her days trusting this time of uncertainty would figure itself out if she allowed it.

So much can be gleaned in the power of the pause when we sit with all of our feelings. While we may not figure things out right away, owning our feelings, moving through them, and accepting them as a part of who we are — well, as I’ve experienced, there is power in that.

There is freedom in letting go and allowing life to unfold as it is meant to.

While I’m not always good at this and yes, do need to be reminded too, I’ve gotten better at forgiving myself, and understanding that I’m a work in progress.

Each time we embrace every part of ourselves, we then get the opportunity to blossom even more fully into who we are. And Joie’s lesson to me of pausing in times of uncertainty has been a gift of a path unfolding before me just as it is meant to be.